Ratio Interactive is sponsoring a design competition for Windows 8 Metro style apps. Ratio has been designing and developing applications for the next generation platform and we want to see what you would create to push the boundaries of the Metro design language. To do so Ratio is offering a contest, to encourage people to design Metro Apps for the Win 8 platform and giving away $10,000 for the top 3 designs. The event will begin after the Microsoft Win 8 virtual UX training.

Registration is open until June 30th, with final designs delivered by July 30th. The Winners will be selected by August 15th, 2012.

To be contest eligible, all participants must register to attend the online Windows 8 Virtual UX Training.

Contest URL:
http://www.win8ratio.com/

If you’re currently swimming the murky waters of the job market, then you’ve probably already incorporated some social media outreach into your search. You’ve updated your resume on LinkedIn, made connections on Facebook, and tweeted about your qualifications high and low. But have you considered extending your efforts to Pinterest?

Read more here!

Our Seattle smartdept. inc. team participated in the Race for the Cure at Seattle Center yesterday! It was a great event, we wore pink super-hero-capes, and got some big cheers as the announcers called out the smartdept. inc. team as we crossed the finish line. Thanks to everyone that donated!

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The following interview nightmare comes from when I was sitting on the board of directors of a small nonprofit: We were interviewing finalists for the executive director position, and one director asked the last candidate, “Larry, what do you consider your greatest weakness?” Larry thought a minute, flushed, and then answered, “Well, some people I’ve worked with would say that I have a tendency to just talk on and on without saying anything, but I couldn’t agree. I know I like to talk, but I think that what I say has a lot of meaning. That is, while I am talking and talking, I am actually saying something…” He understood he was embarrassing himself, but he still droned on. We sat horrified. With his answer to this terrible (but oft-used) interview question, he proved his biggest weakness.

Read the full article on http://blogs.hbr.org!

The Seattle smartdept. inc. team is participating in the Race for the Cure this weekend, June 3!  If you’d like to walk/run with us, please join our team, and donations for this great cause are always appreciated!  Visit the link below to join or team or donate!

http://pugetsound.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/SEA_PugetSoundAffiliate?team_id=202824&pg=team&fr_id=2348 <http://pugetsound.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/SEA_PugetSoundAffiliate?team_id=202824&amp;pg=team&amp;fr_id=2348>

How does a customer-service expert in Seattle catch the attention of a hot San Francisco startup in San Francisco, 700 miles away? The answer these days is likely to involve networking and brand-building on social media’s “fun” sites — even the ones best known for their tweets, pokes and cat videos.

It’s been obvious since 2003, when LinkedIn was launched, that social networking could help job candidates and employers interact. LinkedIn’s commitment to this market is underscored by the 150 million career bios on its site — and the more than $260 million in revenue last year from businesses wanting extra ways of connecting with potential new hires.

But more playful sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, and even Pinterest are turning out to be valuable tools for job-hunters, too. In May, I will be publishing “Becoming a Rare Find,” an e-book that explores today’s most effective new job-hunting techniques. Many involve online equivalents to networking at beach resorts or children’s soccer games. People may go online to banter. No matter; before long, they talk shop.

Read the rest on hbr.org!

Digital marketing is confusing—really confusing—as this insane graphic shows.

U.S. companies in March posted the highest number of job openings in nearly four years, a sign that hiring could strengthen in the coming months after slowing this spring.

The Labor Department said Tuesday that employers advertised 3.74 million job openings in March. That’s up from a revised 3.57 million in February. The March figure was the highest since July 2008, just before the financial crisis erupted that fall.

The increase in job openings suggests that weaker hiring gains in March and April could be temporary. It usually takes one to three months for employers to fill openings.

Even with the increase, roughly 12.7 million people were unemployed in March. That means an average of 3.4 people competed for each open job. While that’s far better than the nearly 7-to-1 ratio when the recession ended. In a healthy job market, the ratio is usually around 2 to 1.

Read the full article on www.npr.org!

Yου′ve heard thе term structural unemployment before–thе type thаt exists whеn available skill sets don’t match open jobs. Once mostly bandied аbουt wіth regard tο industries Ɩіkе farming, manufacturing аnԁ health care, increasingly thе term applies tο a range οf οthеr vocations аѕ well. One οf thеѕе іѕ advertising аnԁ marketing.

Interactive media outfit Razorfish, fοr instance, ѕауѕ іt hаѕ аbουt 200 positions open іn thе U.S. bесаυѕе іt саn’t find thе rіɡht public tο fill thеm. Agreed hοw quickly technology іѕ changing, digital agencies nowadays аrе increasingly looking fοr user experience specialists, data analysts аnԁ coders.

Thе types οf skills applicants frοm communications οr creative backgrounds аrе expected tο hаνе аrе аƖѕο changing, аѕ agencies emphasize customer engagement, social media, qυісk response times, аnԁ a passion fοr bу nеw tools аnԁ adopting a variety οf аррrοасhеѕ.

Read the full article on forextrademarketing.com!

Some organizations will excite you. They’ll stimulate your success and growth. Others will be stressful. They may lead you to quit before you’ve accomplished much or learned what you hoped to. With the pressure (or excitement) of finding a new job, it’s all too easy to pursue a job opportunity or to accept an offer with only a hazy view of how the institution really operates. The path to an institution you’ll like is to investigate the culture you’re thinking of joining before you accept the position.

Sean (name has been changed) is a master at this. He pursued a job offer at a Fortune 500 company to be the first Chief Administrative Officer (CAO). He was well-qualified, presented himself well, and got the offer. He’d been competing with capable people. He was proud he’d “won the contest.”

The next step was a return visit, after which he’d decide to accept the offer. Sean had already learned a lot about the company’s businesses and some things about the organization. His priority now was culture and how the new position might fit: “I asked people, ‘What are you excited about? What are you proud of? Who are your close friends in the company? How does the group function together?'” Sean learned things like who the heroes were, what made them successful, and what his biggest challenges and opportunities would be in the job. The different people he met with were learning from his questions. It was almost like he already worked there, and they were jointly determining how to make the new role successful.

Read the full article on hbr.org!

Boredom is an unlikely new frontier in workplace research. Commonly associated with goofing off, taking absurdly long lunch-breaks, and playing internet games on the sly, new studies suggest it’s something that affects high-performing employees as well as those in menial jobs.

Sandi Mann, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire, in England, says boredom is the second most commonly hidden workplace emotion, after anger, and believes modern workplaces are becoming more boring.

“Changes in legislation all the time leads to bureaucratic procedures that people find boring,” she says. “We seem to be in a culture of having meetings, which a lot of people find boring. There are a lot of automated systems now, so a lot of the things we do are quite remote. We have more people working night shifts, which are more boring because you’ve got fewer people to talk to.”

In addition, Mann feels that, as a society, we’re becoming less inclined to tolerate boredom. She says: “People have more of an expectation to be fulfilled by everything they do. Compare our grandparents’ generation: there wasn’t any desire to have self-actualization and to reach their potential. They didn’t go down the coal mines in order to be fulfilled.

Read the rest on cnn.com!

Benjamin Franklin was a man of action. Over his lifetime, his curiosity and passion fueled a diverse range of interests. He was a writer (often using a pseudonym), publisher, diplomat, inventor and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

His inventions included the lightning rod, bifocals and the Franklin stove. Franklin was responsible for establishing the first public library, organizing fire fighters in Philadelphia, was one of the early supporters of mutual insurance and crossed the Atlantic eight times. Self-development was a constant endeavor throughout his incredible life.

Benjamin Franklin was clearly a man who knew how to get things done.

This week, Valve’s hipper-than-thou employee handbook was unleashed on the Internet, to much envy and amusement. Companies like Valve, Zappos, and Facebook spill on how they maintain continuity and culture using clever onboarding practices and simple reassurance.

In Douglas Adams’ famous book series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, space traveler Arthur Dent carries with him a galactic guidebook with the two words on the cover: “Don’t Panic.” Solid advice for a hapless spaceman. And perhaps for new hires, too.

On the first day of work, employees at Valve Software are handed a 56-page employee handbook (which hit the Internet this week, and where we got the illustrations in this story) and a desk with wheels. They’re then told to find something to work on. Appropriately, the handbook preface reads, “This handbook is about…how not to freak out now that you’re here.”

Read the rest on fastcompany.com!

You may think you’re getting more accomplished by working longer hours. You’re probably wrong.

There’s been a flurry of recent coverage praising Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, for leaving the office every day at 5:30 p.m. to be with her kids.  Apparently she’s been doing this for years, but only recently “came out of the closet,” as it were.

What’s insane is that Sandberg felt the need to hide the fact, since there’s a century of research establishing the undeniable fact that working more than 40 hours per week actually decreases productivity.

In the early 1900s, Ford Motor ran dozens of tests to discover the optimum work hours for worker productivity.  They discovered that the “sweet spot” is 40 hours a week–and that, while adding another 20 hours provides a minor increase in productivity, that increase only lasts for three to four weeks, and then turns negative.

Read the full article on inc.com!

Ed Trevisani hangs with his young sons when they come home from school. He volunteers as a Boy Scout leader, serves on nonprofit boards, and teaches management at Philadelphia-area universities. He’s even been known to sit on the back porch in the middle of the workday. Not bad for a guy who’s still pulling down as much as he did when he was a partner with IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Trevisani is a Wharton MBA and GE alum who now manages high-powered projects for Fortune 500 companies and advises executives on operational issues, change management, and potential mergers. He does all these assignments on a temporary basis, working as an independent contractor.

Read the full article on hbr.org!

The TV show Mad Men has won fans for breathing life — and a heavy whiff of bourbon — into the fictional advertising world of 1960s New York. But surely no American company has such a liver-pickling culture in this day and age, right?

Yes, it could have been an episode of a program on the DIY  Network…if they had a show for redecorating an office, subtracted the hulky host and replaced them with me. Nevertheless, last Thursday afternoon, I sent most of our Chicago team for an afternoon game at Wrigley Field and let them know that they could work from home on Friday because I would be cleaning the carpets and touching up paint in the office. When they left for the game at noon on Thursday, the crash began!

Day One

First, I put our very own Vice President of Operations, Matt Crook, on carpet cleaning duty. Then I grabbed a brush and attempted to stay out of the real painters way. When we finished at 11 pm, on day one, we had clean carpets and freshly painted walls. Per the advice of our crash decorator, Darbie McCollian from Restore Decor, we added new color to our two offices and updated our signature orange wall.

Day Two

This one started early! After loading the 17′ Uhaul, I was on the road at 6:30 am to fight Chicago traffic and get the new furniture and accessories to the office. This time my brother-in-law, Brandon, was along for the ride. When we arrived, Darbie, Matt, Brandon and I began unloading the truck and getting it all to the 4th floor. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I invited our new Controller, Dan Alexander, to join in on the heavy lifting. “Welcome to the company Dan, now grab a box”. At the close of day two it was out with the old and in with the new!

Day Three and Four

Saturday and Sunday was Darbie’s time to shine. Our crew had been reduced to Michelle, myself, and Darbie because even during a crash, people should still get their weekends off. While Darbie was methodically bringing her design through to the home stretch, Michelle and I were modifying the individual workspaces and reorganizing the files to accompany the new arrangement. By Sunday afternoon, the crash team had put in 40 hours in four days and we were soooo close to being finished….

Day Five

I arrived at 6 am on Monday to hang two new original pieces of art and change out a file cabinet, which arrived to us with a dent. Mission complete as of 7:16 am on Monday. In four plus days we had cleaned carpets, freshened up the colors on the wall, updated our waiting area, added a company sign, created additional interviewing space, reorganized the individual work spaces to be more comfortable and efficient, created more storage in our mini kitchen area and found room for an additional work station!

Finally, it was time to unveil our surprise crash to a very deserving team…and they loved it!

Thank you to Darbie McCollian at Restore Decor, the crash team of Matt, Brandon, Tim the painter, Dan, Al Grossman at Signs Now in Geneva, and Michelle for coming up with the idea for the crash and most of all to the Chicago Smarties who’s hard work and dedication have ultimately allowed us this luxury.

The human resources department is known for being touchy-feely, but in the age of big data, it’s becoming a bit more cold and analytical. From figuring out what schools to recruit from to what employees should be offered flexible work arrangements, data analytics are helping HR professionals make more informed decisions.

The success of Oscar nominated film Moneyball isn’t hurting either, said James Raybould, director of insights at LinkedIn. The movie, based on the Michael Lewis book, tells the true story of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane. Using statistical analysis, Beane was able to recruit undervalued baseball players and lead his underfunded baseball club to the playoffs.

Read the full article on blogs.wsj.com!

AMC has a new reality show coming out in April called, “The Pitch.” It’s billed as a real-life advertising agency pitch-scenario with real agencies and a real client (Subway). AMC will give us a sneak peek on April 8th after a, you guessed it, Mad Men episode (smart). But what’s interesting to me about this new show is that the big agencies, like BBDO, DDB, McCann, and several others, were approached by AMC to participate, but they turned it down.

The speculation as to why they turned it down, according to the New York Times, “Getting Ad Agencies Into Reality TV,” by Stuart Elliott, is that the big agencies didn’t want to expose their “secret sauces” for all, including competitive agencies, to see. They have proprietary strategic processes to protect. One-of-a-kind brand planning techniques to keep secret. Trademarked brainstorming methods that were invented here. Right?

Read the full article on www.forbes.com!