• Drupal developer wanted. Must have 8 years experience with Drupal or similar Open Source CMS.
• Client needs a Workpress programmer. Required skills include C++ and/or Visual Basic.
• Social Media Manager. Looking for a Facebook and MySpace guru with 5+ years experience and a BS in Social Media. Master's preferred.

"New Media" jobs are hot. We've seen the power of connecting directly to our clients, constituents and pretty much everyone through blogging and social networking applications on the web. Now businesses and organizations are trying to figure out how to make effective use of these technologies to expand their reach, improve customer relations and take control of the online conversation.

Search the big job boards and you'll find plenty of postings seeking people with experience using online networking applications like Twitter or Facebook, or those who know how to install and customize a WordPress or Drupal site. It's a great time to be involved with new media.

So who's writing these ridiculous job descriptions? Excepts from three of them are above, and they'd be funny if they weren't also real. Eight years experience with Drupal? I think there's only one person on Earth with that qualification. Workpress? Is that another startup that sounds like WordPress, or was someone not listening very closely? C++ and VB are great, but what do they have to do with WordPress? And five years experience with Facebook and MySpace? Good luck with that, not to mention finding someone with a Master's in Social Media.

The HR departments that posted these jobs were faced with something new and strange, and apparently tried to apply existing requirements for "normal" jobs like Programmer or Network Administrator to these new positions. The problem is new media is developing so quickly, and the demand for professionals to work in the field so great, that old expectations don't apply. In some cases, the best qualified person for some of these jobs may not have graduated from high school. It's tough to get used to the idea you're going to have to pay someone under the age of twenty-five a wage approaching $50.00 an hour - and they may not even have a Bachelor's degree!

If you're hiring, flexibility and curiosity are keys to look for from applicants. The most important qualification anyone can demand from a new media hire is the ability to think creatively, because as the field continues to grow, the person you hire will have to be able to adapt to those changes. Having a genuine curiosity about other people and now they think and react is important, too (maybe a new use for a psychology or sociology degree?).

Companies that can think outside of the box when looking for new media candidates will be rewarded in the long run. Those that reject candidates for not matching unreasonable requirements may find it hard to find anyone to fit their needs, at a time when the potential benefits of new media and social networking is so great.

Photo credit: Maare Liiv, Estonia (www.sxc.hu)

I really enjoyed an article by Josh Bernoff on his Groundswell blog last Friday. He's talking about the difficulties those of us who are pushing social networking and other new technology often find inside our corporate cultures. Here's a brief excerpt:

Companies are like organisms with immune systems. If you’re a change agent, you’re the antigen. Your company wants to reject you, and it’s got lots of systems to block that -- accounting systems, legal systems, management hierarchies, policies and procedures.

Social applications and their champions run afoul of this all the time. Why? Because the people in your social applications – your customers and prospects – are out of control. Who knows what they might say or do? And you want to make that a part of how your company runs? That’s what stimulates the allergic reaction.

Josh has some good advice on how to get around the naysayers within your organization. Take a look at his complete post, and great tips, here.

I had the pepper steak combo (with eggroll and wonton soup) at my local Chinese restaurant a few days ago. After lunch, my fortune was "Slow but steady wins the race." I smiled when I read that because I'd just been thinking about the many "get rich quick" methods of internet marketing that are being promoted today. Do a search on Google for "SEO" and you'll find some of them. They may promise to "guarantee" top listings on Google or Yahoo, or suggest they have a special relationship with the search engines that can rocket your website to that coveted number one position.

Just as in the "offline" world, there's no shortcut to long-term success, and search engine optimization isn't any different. There's no easy way to trick Google and Yahoo into listing your site higher. Take it from the folks at Google themselves. So how do you get your website noticed by prospective customers?

The one thing all search engines seem to love is fresh, quality content. Oddly enough, that's exactly what your website's visitors are looking for. They want to see that your business or organization is alive and well, and they want to know enough about you to make a decision whether to buy from you, or join your cause, or take a job at your company.

So here are four basic tips on how to improve your online presence, and in turn improve your rankings in the search engines:

• When writing content for your business or organization website, tell the whole story. Don't skimp on the details. Tell your visitors what you would want to know about your company if you knew nothing about it. Give them the information to make a decision right then.
• Keep the website updated. Think about the many websites we visit in a week that haven't been updated in months or even years. How confident are you about the current status of that company? They might be doing so well that they're too busy to update their website, but aren't we more likely to assume they've gone out of business?
• Consider starting a business blog. Search engines love blogs because there are usually many legitimate links coming in and out of the website, as you link to other interesting content and the media and other websites link to your compelling content.
• Use social media and networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to connect with potential visitors to your site. The more you get the web address out there, the more likely people with find you and pay your site a visit.

There have always been temporary ways to game a system, including search engine rankings. Usually those loopholes are closed fairly quickly, as Google and Yahoo change their methods to keep their rankings accurate. The methods I describe above, however, while they won't bring overnight success, will in the long run build viewership to your website and improve your appearance in the search engines.

Slow but steady wins the race. Don't take shortcuts, invest the time and money needed to create a great online presence, and the rest will follow.

Move Over - This Is Radio 2.0 - by Raghav "Rags" Gupta from GigaOM - "Radio, while still powerful, is no longer perceived as the vibrant marketing channel for music it once was. MTV certainly isn’t. They’ve been replaced by the web — in particular, by social networking communities and blogs. This is Radio 2.0."

The Lycos 50^TM for Week Ending March 8, 2008 - Barack Obama leads Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Elliott Spitzer searches are way up, as is Justin Timberlake. In other news, Lycos apparently still has a search engine. Film at eleven.

Iger: New Media Can Complement Old - by Mike Farrell from Multichannel News - "Disney CEO Robert Iger touted the entertainment giant’s aggressive stance on the Web, but added that online distribution can actually enhance the value of more traditional media outlets like television and movie theaters."

I enjoyed an article Jeff Whatcott wrote on his blog yesterday, in which he defines "social publishing." He suggests that social publishing is more than just social networking, and that it's the blend of three types of online content:

1. Web content management
2. Social software, such as wikis, forums, blogs and social networking platforms
3. Web application frameworks

Jeff continues: "A social publishing system combines the above into a cohesive set of technology for assembling a web site that provides structure for people to express ideas and engage each other in proven patterns."

Certainly we're talking about more than brochure-ware here; we want to engage visitors and communicate our message to them. That's why anyone publishes, regardless of the medium: print, broadcast or online. Jeff says that "most modern web sites (from internal team collaboration to public-facing niche social networks) will be a convergence of" the proven patterns, including blogging, wikis, social networking and more.

Jeff's the Vice President of Marketing at Acquia, a Drupal-based software company founded by Drupal's original developer, Dries Buytaert. I'd recommend reading his entire post.

Until about a month ago, I considered myself to be fairly up-to-date on what was happening with new technology, open source, social networking, and so on. If there was a buzzword a-buzzin', I thought I knew about it. But after just a few weeks of committing myself to writing this blog on a daily basis, I find there's so many things to be excited about, I'm not sure how to continue. I want to add something of value to the overall discussion about new technology, but I'm going to need to focus New Tech Heroes a bit more to make sure that I'm not just chattering away in a tiny corner of the Internet.

So I need some input from you, my early readers. What are you excited about? What developments are making your life more fun, or your job less stressful and more productive? What kinds of improvements would you ask for if you had the undivided attention of the developer of your favorite online or desktop applicaton?

Or are you fed up with the whole thing? Is new technology actually making your live more difficult, trying to keep up with all the changes?

Consider this an open thread. Let me know what you're thinking in the comments, and I'll reply to them there as well as write some more detailed posts about the more popular topics in the days and weeks to come. Thanks!

MySpace came to an agreement with 49 states today to revamp its policies and technology designed to protect children from online predators. The New York Times' Anne Barnard reports in Tuesday's edition about the deal the company made with the attorneys general of every state except Texas plus the District of Columbia.

TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld responds to the news with a review of the current child protection efforts of leading social sites MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Orkut. In general, MySpace is already ahead of the rest in trying to identify potential predatory activities on its site, and suggests that the other sites may have to spend some money to catch up.

While any efforts to protect minors from sexual predators and other unsavory characters online is admirable, the effort to keep computers "safe" for kids is similar to other attempts to protect ourselves from high-tech computer crime. We have to make sure we have anti-virus and firewall software, we have to keep them updated and all of our software patched, in order to present at least a minimal defense against those who are determined to infect our computers and steal our personal information. But ultimately, the most effective defense against online predators is parental involvement and the setting of limits.

I commend MySpace for making the effort (and the others if they follow suit, which they certainly will, if only for public relations reasons), but like the v-chip in all current television receivers, if parents abdicate their responsibility to someone - or something - else, the risk to their children rises immediately. If you're letting your teens use MySpace, Facebook or other social networking sites, you need to understand exactly what those sites are about. Even if your child is mortified by the idea that mom or dad have their own MySpace account (in the interest of research, of course!), it's important that you know how they work so you can make educated decisions about your child's involvement with those sites.

Of course, if they're so mortified they don't want to use the site anymore because a parent can see what they're up to, maybe that's a positive result in itself. Don't get me wrong: I have both a Facebook and MySpace page, and I enjoy keeping in touch with the few older friends who have also jumped on the social network bandwagon, not to mention a few younger friends who I think are a bit bemused that I'm "on MySpace." These types of interactive web applications are part of the future, and they won't be legislated away. So it's all the more important for parents and guardians to keep up so that reasonable limits can be discussed and enforced.

Photo credit: Michal Zacharzewski, SXC