From Social Media Today:

The most influential people on Twitter are either already celebrities, create their own content, or both. Who do you see most often retweeted? Major news outlets like CNN, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Mashable. Guy Kawasaki. Robert Scoble. Of course there are many reasons these people are influential, but a very basic reason is that they are creating original content somewhere other than Twitter. They are most often using Twitter as a super-news-feed, and as a way to drive people back to their blog, web site, etc. (Scoble is an exception. He converses everywhere.)

There are a lot of wonderful reasons to have a Twitter account (mostly to promote your blog), but I think the main relevant point is that I can’t think of anyone that is taken seriously only because they have a Twitter account. Twitter is used to promote something else, and it can’t really stand on it’s own.

I have a client that wants the transition the role to full time. I’m starting another gig, so I can’t do it. I’m recruiting for the role, so…

The company

A well-funded startup with founders that have multiple successes behind them (good, as opposed to lucky). They seem like really good people, and the track record of the leadership is solid. Like huge startup solid, five times over, with cash in the bank.

The position

Information Architect with some design experience so when the contract designer is done, the IA can carry through creating of buttons, some graphics, etc. Must know personas, wireframes, site maps, A/B testing, usability testing, but doesn’t have to be overly formal about it. It’s an agile environment, so the IA should have experience working in one. I would like to see people with at least 5 years experience, because the manager doesn’t have time to baby sit. The person must be a self starter. Consumer-facing site design experience required. Social Media (Facebook Connect) experience a huge plus. Willing to wash my car in exchange for the position, another plus.

Send resume, portfolio, some indication of design experience and salary expectations to jobs@usabilitycounts.com.

So true, so true.

From the Washington Post:

Tomek Kott is so stubborn about not joining his friends — in truth, nearly his entire generation — on any social networking site that his wife launched a mini-crusade against him. Exploiting a tactic surely befitting our times, she whipped up a Facebook group last year called “Tomek Kott Must Join Facebook.”

…

“I am old-school in the personal touch way,” said Tomek Kott, who lives in Silver Spring and has outsourced many of his digital communication duties to his wife, Anne. “All my friends from high school have also met my wife, and they’re friends with her; my wife ‘friended’ them or whatever it’s called.”

Kott and others like him are social networking refuseniks: people in their 20s or early 30s who have gone off the grid, eschewing the ecology of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and the like. In Washington, refuseniks are not exactly operating in isolated, Luddite worlds: One is in a dance company, another is a rapper/hip-hop singer, another is a Georgetown undergraduate. Kott grew up in Redmond, Wash., where his father is a software engineer for Microsoft.

…

The vast majority of their peers in the millennial generation are social networking pros: About 85 percent of all Internet users 18 to 34 visited Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in August, according to ComScore, a Reston-based Internet data research company. And about 84 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds check social networking sites at least once a week, according to a May study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

I find that 85 percent number to be extremely high. Whatever it is, I would think that there’s a few people out there that say they check the sites, but don’t really do because they want to be in the “in crowd.”

Didn’t PETA say anything?

For insomniacs like me.

I worked over here years ago, and the Marketing Department is top notch. If you want a place to learn with great people, send me a note at jobs@usabilitycounts.com. Also, if you aren’t interested in this job, but are looking, send me a note.

Stamps.com is seeking an experienced User Experience Designer to help design new products, features and upgrades for B2B and B2C web sites and client applications. Stamps.com has over 350,000 users of their flagship product and is expanding into web-based tools. You will be part of a small, creative team focused solely on product design to come up with our next generation of easy-to-use, powerful tools. You must have a passion for clean, intuitive UI, and be self-motivated and directed as we give a lot of lattitude to create. In addition, we engage in lively discussion on UI patterns, approaches, etc. so you must be willing to play well and be able to take direction where necessary.

Primary Responsibilities

• Analyze high level requirements to develop sitemaps, user flows, wireframes and functional prototypes using Axure.
• Present designs to team & management; iteratively refine designs based on feedback to arrive at final product prototype.
• Analyze best UI patterns used in industry and apply to our products
• Oversee adherence to internal web style guide and web standards, and refinement of it.

Qualifications

• 3-5 years of relevant experience as Information Architect, User Experience Designer, UI Designer, Web Designer, etc.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related field is preferred.
• Have both good visual design/layout skills as well as good analytical skills to be able to conceive, understand, define and effectively address user goals & needs.
• A portfolio of User Interface showing designs, site maps, wireframes, or user interfaces.
• Good knowledge of capabilities of HTML, DHTML, CSS, Javascript, and Web 2.0 in general.
• Knowledge of design software such as Axure, Visio, ProtoShare, Adobe Photoshop and/or Fireworks, Dreamweaver, etc.
• Must be detailed oriented and be able to drive projects to completion

A 22 pound portable computer? It least it doesn’t smell like a fish.

There’s this great article over at CIO about the real cost of SharePoint, a content management system by Microsoft.

A few quotes:

If an IT department is using SharePoint as a development platform for business applications, costs will increase because developers and quality assurance testers will be needed.

Time and effort needs to be put toward developing and maintaining a SharePoint governance plan that outlines the type of content that should be loaded into the system, records policies, standard processes and metadata constructs, and guidelines for approaching and supporting SharePoint projects. (Read: solid information architecture — hire an IA, dammit).

Even if your users are familiar with SharePoint, using it to solve a specific business problem (such as automating a contract management or accounts payable process) typically requires some training.

After deploying SharePoint, users will need to change their approaches to creating and managing information. Given people’s reluctance to change, a proactive change management program is recommended.

Most of the organizations out there just launch CMS systems without any thought to a lot of issues. It’s like any other software product, and should be treated as such.