Refresh the Triangle

Monday, August 30, 2010

indieconf - conference for web freelancers

indieconf - the conference for independent web professionals - is coming to Raleigh, November 13.  Whether you’re a freelance designer, developer, or someone in between, indieconf will help you take your business to the next level.

Topics include:
* marketing yourself
* legal/licensing issues
* pricing your services
* web technologies to keep abreast of
* and more

Beyond the sessions, this is a great opportunity to network with regional freelancers with complementary skills.

While the conference is based here in the Raleigh area, our speakers include both regional and out-of-state speakers.

http://indieconf.com has more info on sessions and speakers - final speaker selections will be announced in early September.

Get your ticket now at http://indieconf.com/register

Questions?  Call 919 827 4724

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Web Designer opportunity @ Bronto

Bronto Software, a leading Software as a Service, (SaaS) business in the email marketing space is seeking a seasoned, energetic Web Desginer who lives and breathes online design, web interfaces, usability and information architecture.

As a key member of the marketing team, the Web Designer will work closely with other members of the marketing team to develop and produce effective online properties that meet business objectives and clearly communicate company positioning and messages. This position will support various communication objectives across Bronto’s Marketing team and report to the VP of Marketing.

Bronto provides the opportunity to develop and execute engaging web designs for a variety of online formats, including websites, microsites, blogs, developer community properties, Twitter, Facebook and more. Through all of the online work, the unique Bronto brand must be kept to the forefront. The Bronto brand is not typical for the b-to-b or technology space. Our brand is fun, engaging, personal and while we take our business very seriously, we do not take ourselves too seriously. This is a chance to be part of a collaborative team who is willing to take risks. We are NOT looking for the same, staid approach as many in our space. The Bronto environment provides a more dynamic and compelling culture in which to grow professionally as a b-to-b corporate web designer

We are looking for a web designer who can:
* Solve business problems through strategic, insightful and creative design, executing at the highest levels of quality.
* Design and execute online media properties, communicating Bronto’s brand identity appropriately to each audience and in each medium.​
* Take ownership, lead initiatives and successfully execute through all stage of development - on message, on time and on budget.
* Perform project management duties including managing the production schedule, with flexibility and goal orientation.​
* Work with various internal constituencies to execute on corporate and/or marketing strategies.​

Requirements of this wonderful, fun, and exciting opportunity are:
* 3+ years designing and building websites. A B2B focus and/or SaaS experience is a big plus.
* A fantastic design portfolio showing world-class work you’ve done for corporate websites, blogs, landing pages, social media and other sites.
* Ability to take complex design mockups and execute them perfectly with handwritten and standards-compliant HTML & CSS.
* A knowledge of cross-browser compatibility issues as well as progressive enhancement techniques (using CSS3) for browsers that support them.
* A working knowledge of Javascript, Flash, and server-side programming languages is a plus.
* A knowledge of blog & CMS platforms (Wordpress, Drupal, Joomla, etc.) and ability to understand, create and update templates.
* Ability to work independently and produce high-quality work for multiple ongoing projects without breaking a sweat.
* Great presentation skills and the ability to share work with various internal groups, articulate design decisions and collaborate to determine final design considerations.
* A knowledge of current web design trends and excitement about future technologies (HTML5) is a plus.

Monday, August 09, 2010

Refresh 030 — Rapid Prototyping and Customer Development:  The Hacker’s Guide to Software Design

Durham, NC — Thu, Aug 26, 2010, 6:30-8:00PM

With current technology, it is easy to build too much software, too fast. You can quickly get into a client project without helping them clearly think through their needs and goals. It is also possible to spend so much time planning a project that you never get to the hard work of actually building it.

Rapid prototyping and customer development come to our aid here. The concept is simple. Build the smallest thing possible that is at the core of the business idea and do it in a way that gives a sense of what the whole product will be. Then get it to your clients and encourage them to talk with their customers about it. Then rinse and repeat.

John will give a brief introduction and the describe techniques for putting the concept into practice. In particular, he’ll talk about using wireframes, paper prototypes, HTML prototypes, and dummy applications, as well as some designer to developer work flows.

Speaker:
John W. Long is a software developer and designer. He spends most of his time on the design side, but he can’t get away from dabbling in Ruby and Javascript. He is passionate about user-driven design and helping clients build successful businesses. John is the proprietor of http://wiseheartdesign, the creator of Radiant CMS, and an active contributor to open source.

Location:
Relevance
200 North Mangum Street
Suite 204
Durham, NC 27701

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Full Time Web Developer for Hire

Smashing Boxes is a small web centric marketing and branding company, and we are looking for a web developer to join our team full time to help us manage the growth we are experiencing. 

This is a full time, salaried position, working out of our office.  It is a great opportunity for any rising star who needs a change, wants more responsibility, more growth opportunity, or wants to have some fun while at work.

We want someone who is a team player, a problem solver, a hard worker, and has a thirst for learning new skills.  If you possess these traits and have a resume/portfolio to back it up, then contact us to set up an interview.

email resumes and a brief blurb about yourself to nick@smashingboxes.com

Friday, July 09, 2010

User Interface Web Developer

Job Title: User Interface Web Developer

SUMMARY
Responsible for delivering the intuitive interfaces to our customers by performing the following duties.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES include the following.
• Create user flows, wireframes and visual mock ups from requirements
• Develop user interface designs and experiences
• Translates static design layouts into dynamic web interfaces.
• Work with Photoshop and Dreamweaver to produce templates of HTML and CSS
• Implement JavaScript libraries using JQuery and Prototype
• Research and analyze latest user interface paradigms being used on the market
• Works with product development team.
• Focuses on web optimization and coding of GUIs for websites and web-based applications.

Requirements
JOB SPECIFICATIONS
• Understanding of user-centered design and the ability to turn prototypes into functional designs.
• Understanding of and experience in user-centered design methodology.
• Thorough knowledge of all of the following: CSS, HTML, DHTML, JavaScript and related software.
• Experience implementing JavaScript libraries like JQuery and Prototype.
• Understanding of SEO concepts.
• Ability to work independently, as well as part of a team.
• Demonstrated ability to contribute to concept development and requirements specifications.
• Detail oriented
• 1 – 2 years experience is a plus



EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE
Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, User Centered Design, Visual Communication, Iterative Design or Related field from four-year College or university

Salary based upon education and experience level.
Local candidates only.
Graduate students welcome to apply.

Send resume to: rtptechjobs@gmail.com

Junior DBA - Part Time

Merge Records is looking for a junior DBA with MySQL and Postgres experience who is interested in part-time work with the potential to turn the job into a full-time position.

Things You’d Be Doing:
- Migration of data from Postgres to MySQL.
- Development of data migration scripts.
- Optimizing database queries and structures.
- Mirroring databases for use in a development environment.
- Modifying and creating Drupal modules.
- Creating custom reports.

Stuff You Should Know:
- Experience with both MySQL and Postgres.
- Ability to write data migration scripts.
- Knowledge of SQL query best practices and database tuning.
- Some experience setting up mirrored/replicated databases, or a willingness to learn.
- Inherent desire to make things run faster and more efficiently.

Very Helpful Qualities:
- Enjoy learning new things.
- Strong problem-solving skills.
- Fondness for open-source software.
- Good communication skills, particularly in email correspondence.
- Basic familiarity with Drupal or similar module-based CMS.
- Computer Science degree or equivalent experience.
- LAMP/Wamp experience.

Still Reading?
Merge Records is a casual work environment. For the right person, the really cool thing about the job would be the fact that you would be working with an interesting and varied data set: bands, music, tour dates, sales, downloads, users, forums, blogs… you name it. It would be yours to optimize, normalize, and make elegant.

Send availability (the number of hours or days a week you’d like to work), resume, salary requirements, and a short introductory letter to the c/o this posting.

Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Refresh 029 — Focus and Empathy: Two Keys to Designing Great User Experiences

Cary, NC — Thu, Jul 22, 2010, 6:30-8:00PM

OK, so this “user experience” thing is supposed to be really important. From the tiniest start-ups to the mega-corporations, everyone wants to create products and services that are joyful to use, widely adopted, and much-loved by customers. But how do we actually go about creating great experiences for our customers? While design (including interaction, visual, and information design) is a critical component, many design teams fail to take full advantage of strategic thinking and user research to inform their work.

Let’s get up to speed on these critical practices. I’ll discuss strategy as a process of focus, and research as a process of empathy. For each area, I’ll present some key approaches that can help shift your perspective and embrace these modes of thinking. You’ll leave with a set of resources and activities for beginning to explore the use of strategy and research in your work — so you can help make your product or service better.

Speaker:
Abe Crystal, Ph.D., is a principal at MoreBetterLabs, a small but feisty company dedicated to creating a better Web through design. We’re currently developing our first product, ruzuku. Ruzuku helps passionate experts (such as authors, speakers, and coaches) create online learning communities. In addition, we work with clients (such as Duke University, NC State University, and NC LIVE), to improve their user experience. We’ve designed online communities, digital libraries, and ecommerce sites. MoreBetterLabs is also presenting “UX 101”, a 2-day boot camp introduction to user experience methods, in September. See http://morebetterlabs.com/ux101/ for details.

Location:
Railinc
7001 Weston Parkway
Third Floor
Cary, NC 27513

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Refresh 028 — Around “Hello World” in 30 Days

Durham, NC — Thu, Jun 24, 2010, 6:30-8:00PM

Earlier this year, feeling overwhelmed by all the new technology filling the pages of his favorite tech blogs, David decided to commit himself to spending an hour with a new technology every day for a month. In this talk, he’ll share his experiences and explore the nature of motivation and what it takes to stay ahead of the programming curve. You can read about the project at http://techmonth.tumblr.com.

Speaker:
David Eisinger is a senior web developer at Viget Labs. He specializes in Ruby on Rails, javascript, and RESTful web services.

Location:
Rigsbee Hall
208 Rigsbee Ave.
Durham, NC 27701

Monday, May 03, 2010

Refresh 027 — Learn to Speak Interface: Creating Conversations Between Developers and Designers

Raleigh, NC — Thur, May 27, 2010, 6:30-8:00PM

You’re a developer. You write code. But your users don’t see your code. They only see the user interface. We’re going to have a conversation about how to think through your product’s user interface. We’ll focus on a few analytical techniques you can use to analyze your user interface and to communicate with a designer.

Speaker:
Jess’s fascination with rapidly prototyping products led him to building applications for the web where he contributed to several startups. 60% developer, 40% designer, and 100% ninja, he brings a singular focus on the end-user to any product he works on. Jess is a principal at Relevance.

Location:
Fragment Labs
226 Fayetteville Street
Raleigh, NC 27601

Monday, April 26, 2010

Launch Days Durham

FYI—http://www.launchdurham.com/

Jackson Fox and I will be ‘launching’ our product, ruzuku, at this event.

Would love to see some Refresh folks there!

Friday, April 02, 2010

Account Executive at hesketh.com

Do you like to explain, to describe, to host, to speak in public, to write, to tell stories? Do your stories or pictures pique others interest, sharpen their world, and inspire them to act? Are you thrilled by learning the first few facts, by early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, and by the growing confidence of a skill mastered? Are you energized by challenges — analyzing symptoms, identifying what is wrong, and finding the solution? Do others wish their glass were as full as yours seems to be?

Summary:
There is sales. There is consulting. And then there is you; someone with their feet firmly planted in both worlds. As an account executive you identify and solicit new business — listening for needs, making connections, and aligning strategy. You sustain, retain, and attain. Clients should feel comfortable coming to you with ideas for new projects and changes to existing ones, as well as with praise for the team or concerns to discuss. You will ensure we maximize mission, outreach, and program revenue for values-led organizations using Web technologies.

This position will work as an integral part of our business development efforts. Your primary responsibilities are to drive hesketh.com’s business objectives by actively opening new accounts, delivering superior service, managing existing accounts, and serving as a knowledge resource and in-depth business consultant to our client organizations. If you have a high sense of urgency, are highly competitive, driven by bottom-line, practical results, enjoy ongoing learning and have a desire to influence your income, this is the opportunity for you!

Duties and Responsibilities:
1. New Sales. Proactively identify, solicit, and qualify new customers, from lead generation to contract close. This business development role includes inside and outside sales as well as managing the bidding process from requirements to proposal to contract negotiation. You better be good with people, pitches, and proposals
2. Deepen Client Relationships. Maintain an ongoing relationship with your clients. Play an active role in post-sale engagement and trust development through delivery of superior service. Make sure clients are informed about the process and happy with the journey. Help ensure problems don’t arise but when they do, rectify them swiftly. Inspire teams under your management to contribute ideas and actions consistent with staying a step ahead of the client to ensure that we provide maximum value. Success is measured by what clients say, whom they refer, and how their accounts grow.
3. Marketing Strategy and Communications. Identify, lead, and execute strategic marketing and sales initiatives to create measurable results, including analytical decision-making, employee and vendor coordination, and rolling up your sleeves. You have the confidence to make decisions and the influence skills to get individuals, as well as committees, on-board with a plan of action. You know when to use Facebook, when LinkedIn is the right community venue, and when a customized, open-source solution is the way to go. You know how to tell a story online, in multiple media. And to top it off, you know what metrics to monitor for each strategic goal.
4. Innovate & play nice with others. Contribute to, and stay current on, the business trends and challenges of our target markets of values-led organizations and higher education communities. Demonstrate an eagerness to continuously learn, the confidence to share your knowledge, and the ability to apply new skills and trends within a diverse, user-centered design team.
5. Future of hesketh.com. Support executive management in developing company growth plans and contributing to the development and fulfillment of company goals and objectives. Lead the team in engagement with both local and national communities.

Qualifications:

Education:
* MBA or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.

Experience:
* 4+ years experience in management, strategic marketing, online consulting, or business development.
* Experience creating proposals and scoping client work as part of new business process.
* Experience creating and leading presentations of deliverables and concepts to clients at all levels of an organization.
* Experience selling an intangible, non-demand service is highly preferred.
* Consulting firm (agency) experience preferred.
* Non-profit or EDU experience desired.

Skills:

Must-Haves:
* Strong understanding of the business of the Web and values-led organizations.
* Customer-oriented with a proven history of understanding needs and delivering measurable results.
* People person with tact and diplomatic instincts.
* Excellent negotiation and influencing skills.
* Ability to help clients articulate business goals and translate them into objectives and business metrics.
* Ability to switch gears from thinking big picture to sweating the details, sometimes in the same day.
* Effective conceptual and strategic-thinking skills.
* Excellent group facilitation and conflict resolution skills.
* Ability to take initiative, work with little to no direction and confidently get things done.
* Ability to motivate and drive a team to performance at its best.
* Strong project management, time management and team coordination skills.
* Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously.
* An established online network and persona in social media channels or willingness and ability to develop one.
* Excellent phone, written, and verbal communications, including executive-level presentation skills.
* Passion for doing well by doing good.

Nice-to-Haves:
* Product management from market research to profitability
* Experience with one or more non-profit technology (ex. CiviCRM, Donor Perfect, Blackbaud, Convio).
* Experience with agile development process in addition to waterfall or traditional software development processes.
* Foosball skills.

Compensation:
The typical compensation package for our Account Executives includes a base salary and commission potential from dollar one of sold business.

Location:
In-house, Raleigh, NC.

Send resumes and salary history to…
hesketh.com/inc.
ATTN: Personnel
1101 Haynes Street
Suite 109
Raleigh, NC 27604

fax: 919.834.2553
email: careers@hesketh.com

hesketh.com/inc. is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, veteran status, or disability.

Friday, March 05, 2010

Refresh 026 — Delivering a Responsive UI

Durham, NC — Thur, Mar 25, 2010, 6:30-8:00PM

As user interfaces get more complex and browsers become home to more and more application logic, front-end performance becomes a pressing concern. Add mobile to the mix, with its slow connections and brutal cache limitations, and front-end developers have a host of challenges on their hands these days. It’s no longer enough to be able to wrangle HTML and CSS into submission—front-end developers have to understand caching, cache-busting, HTTP response codes, combination and minification of files, lazy loading, and more. At this month’s meeting, we’ll talk about the know-how that today’s front-end developers need to bring to the table to develop rich, performant, scalable web experiences.

Speaker:
Rebecca Murphey is an independent front-end architecture consultant, helping companies understand, manage, and improve the client side of their applications. She is an active member of the jQuery community, a contributor to the upcoming jQuery Cookbook from O’Reilly, and a regular contributor to JSMag, the magazine for JavaScript professionals. She lives in Durham with her partner, two dogs, and two cats.

Location:
Rigsbee Hall
208 Rigsbee Ave.
Durham, NC 27701

Wednesday, March 03, 2010

NCDevCon - North Carolina’s Premiere Web Conference

Following the success of the CFinNC conference last October, the Triangle Area ColdFusion User Group (TACFUG) is proud to announce NCDevCon 2010.

Did we mention that the cost for this conference is the same as last year? That’s right. It’s free!

This conference is planned for May 22-23, 2010 and will be held at the College of Textiles on the campus of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC.

Planned Topics
* ColdFusion
* Flex/Air
* Hands on sessions (bring your laptop!)
* Web Design
* Javascript/CSS/Ajax

NCDevCon also offers a series of hands on training at no charge to attendees. Bump up your skills, earn more money, learn from the best at NCDevCon.

For more information please visit:  http://ncdevcon.com

2009 Attendee Testimonials

“The size of the conference made networking much easier then larger conferences...”

“Good job of mixing presentation and hands on. I think it covered an excellent range of material, and was rather motivational in the enthusiasm for ColdFusion… a reminder it isn’t dead yet!”

Monday, March 01, 2010

Drupal Developer at hesketh.com

Do you find beauty in the right tool for the right job? Were you so excited when you launched your first Drupal project — leveraging the power of the platform and its community — that friends thought you drank special kool-aid at a meetup? Passionate for empowering non-profits to build strong communities? Then, we are equally enthusiastic about you!

Key Duties and Responsibilities
1. Contribute to compelling user experiences. Collaborate with designers to leverage the power of Drupal to meet client organizational goals, including custom theming.
2. Create standards-compliant markup. Implement designs using HTML and CSS progressive enhancement markup strategies.
3. Participate in feature ideation and selection. Participate in cross-functional brainstorming sessions to determine Web site features and functionality based on business objectives and user research findings. Provide insights into feasibility, solution analysis, project scope and execution.
4. Love your tools. Evaluate and know when to use third-party tools and modules to achieve business goals and when a new module needs to be written.
5. Innovation. Assess new standards, technologies and trends as they relate to our target markets of caused-based organizations and higher education. Demonstrate an eagerness to learn, the patience to share and the ability to apply new skills and trends within a diverse, user-centered design team.
6. Facilitate collaboration. Participate in a highly collaborative relationship and help bridge would-be gaps between design and development.

Qualifications

Education
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent combination of relevant education and experience.

Experience
* 2+ years developing and maintaining Drupal sites OR a combination of PHP and Drupal experience.
* Several Drupal projects under your belt (more than theming) or one really complicated project that was all yours.
* Survived a Drupal upgrade, or two.
* Consulting firm (agency) experience preferred.
* Non-profit or EDU experience desired.

Skills

Must-haves
* Proficient with Drupal architecture, module installation and configuration.
* Expertise in creating and revising Drupal themes.
* Ninja skills for identifying the right module for the right outcome and when custom modules are required.
* Core Web development skills: HTML, CSS, jQuery (or other JavaScript library flavor), and MySQL.
* Comfort with light systems administration (LAMP configuration helpful).
* Active participation in the Drupal community.
* Ability to estimate hours needed to complete Drupal projects.
* Enthusiasm for open source, authenticity, and transparency.
* Experience with at least one other CMS or micro-CMS.
* Ability to handle multiple projects simultaneously.
* Passion for doing well by doing good.

Nice-to-haves
* Ability and/or desire to write modules for Drupal.
* Ability to use version control systems like Subversion or Git.
* Experience with one or more non-profit technology (ex., CiviCRM, Donor Perfect, Blackbaud, Convio).
* Enthusiasm for Agile practices: user-centered design collaboration and scrum meetings.
* Foosball skills.

P.S. Yes, we are planning to move our own site from Radiant CMS to Drupal. Want to help?

Send resumes and salary history to…
hesketh.com/inc.
ATTN: Personnel
1101 Haynes Street
Suite 109
Raleigh, NC 27604

fax: 919.834.2553
email: careers@hesketh.com

hesketh.com/inc. is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, veteran status, or disability.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Refresh 025 — The Luxury of Contemplation: Why we owe ourselves time to reflect on our work

Durham, NC — Thur, Feb 25, 2010, 6:30-8:00PM

This is not a talk about sunset meetings or debriefs. It’s a talk about spending sweet, aimless, one-on-one time with your medium. I’ll speak about why I think it’s important to reflect on your work, the tools and systems I use to facilitate “productive” contemplation, and what I’ve found to be most challenging and rewarding in my efforts.

Speaker:

Beck Tench is a simplifier, illustrator, story teller and 
technologist. Formally trained as a graphics designer at the 
University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism and Mass
 Communication, she has spent her career elbow deep in web work of all 
sorts – from the knowledge work of information architecture and design 
to the hands dirty work of writing code and testing user experiences.
 Currently, she serves as Director for Innovation and Digital
 Engagement at the Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC where she
 studies and experiments with how visitors and staff use technology to
 plan, enhance and share their everyday lives.


Location:
Viget Labs
202 Rigsbee Avenue
Second Floor
Durham, NC 27701