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Yet Another Job Opportunity too Good not to Mention…

April 3rd, 2010

Note: The translation of the acronyms and “ideal candidate description” is at the bottom of this post.

Title    : Technical Partner Lead (Company X)
Location : Redmond
Job Type : Contract
Date     : 04/03/2010

Good morning!

The Technical Partner Lead (TPL) at (Company X) is a fun role, for the right person.  The person who loves this role will work well in a very dynamic enviornment.

Purpose:

This Partner Technical Lead will specifically support consumer Product support vendors in India. Acts as a technical and process management resource for broad and complex issues. Provides technical or process planning, training and guidance to (Company X) support partners. Proactively works to circumvent roadblocks and to provide solutions. Primary responsibility is to raise the technical expertise of our Partners and Support Professional staff by providing timely, technical, and professional mentoring in a leveraged manner.

The ideal candidate has -

- 5+ years experience working at (Company X) PSS/CSS (product support), and understands the processes and tools
- 3+ years developing management-level reports and reviews
- 5+ years in a content development role
- 3+ years  developing/delivering courseware

Responsibilities:

–Support Partner Interaction–
Mentor support partners on technical support issues, process issues, delivery and problem solving processes. Monitor and responds to critical questions on technical aliases. Immediately resolve any issues that do not meet high standards of delivery. Participate in beta programs as appropriate.

–Analysis–

Conduct statistically valid sample of case reviews and call monitors. Output is data-driven report of Support Partner technical skill/process gaps.

–Communication/ Business Relationships–

Use a mixture of analysis, technical acumen, experience and judgment to make recommendations to high level decisions as necessary. Consistently establishes and maintains working relationships with support partners, internal support delivery teams, and on occasion with partner executive management. Consult / collaborate with NA PTLs to determine and develop training for product. Assist in high visibility issues including Press, Legal, and Hot customer situations. Communicate business results (written and verbal) to business group leadership

–Strategy and Development–

Act as Expert or Liaison with (Company X) Resources. Coordinate with third parties (ISPs, OEM, and TSANet) on technical issues. Provide supportability recommendations to Supportability Program Managers within this team. Design and implement team service delivery processes and / or projects.

–Content–

Perform research, acquire information, write and revise articles, white papers or other types of technical content for all products in a given cluster/segment. Respond to technical questions, provide training on leading-edge technologies and effectively communicate technical content to support partners. Develop and deliver content training and provide coaching for Service Delivery and other Content Delivery personnel. Key contributor and participant in product releases and post-launch activities and initiatives.

Qualifications:

Demonstrated expertise in Office applications and Windows Operating Systems.
In-depth knowledge of one or more of the following:  Outlook, Office Setup, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, FrontPage.

Proven professional and interpersonal communication skills.

Advanced verbal and writing skills, and ability to present ideas to groups.
Experience presenting business results to company executives.
Ideal candidate will have a background in, or exposure to, process & project control and management. Six Sigma (or DMAIC equivalent) approach to root cause and corrective action management preferred.
Demonstrated ability to understand and communicate related technical and business advantages in the deployment of (Company X) products within Consumer environments.
University or College degree in one of the following: Math, Computer Science, Business, or Engineering, or equivalent work experience.
Minimum 3 years work experience in an IT or equivalent, work-related environment (consulting, software development, 2nd or 3rd tier technical support, technical project management; training development/delivery, etc.)
Well-developed technical skills.

TRANSLATION:

The ideal candidate for this one is a former full time employee of (Company X) who likely was laid off last year and is now willing to work Indian Standard Time  (i.e., overnight) hours for no benefits and less pay than they made when a full time employee for this same, or a very similar, job.

Or – hello, “new” economy…

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Yet Another “Unique” Job Opportunities for Those in the Market …

This one was posted to a Project Management group on linkedin.com; and while it may be legal to specify the candidate’s gender in India for this type of role, it definitely does not meet US employment law standards, or most people‘s standards for good taste ;-): Life Sciences Graduates Hyderabad India …

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Posted in Pop Culture, Project Management, Technology, Unique Job Opportunities, Work

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Top Six Attributes of High-Ranking Women in Technology…

March 30th, 2010

The Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology just released a new study on the top six attributes of high-ranking women in technology, titled “Senior Technical Women: A Profile of Success,” examines the characteristics of high-level women in technology, their self-perceptions,  their top attributes for success, and their most valued organizational practices.

Not surprisingly, working long hours is on that list:

Attributes of Success

The top attributes for success for senior technical women identified by the study:

  • Analytical: The majority of senior technical women perceive themselves as analytical. Indeed, all technical employees tend to see themselves as high on this attribute, as technical careers tend to first and foremost look for analytical and problem-solving skills.
  • Unafraid to Question/Desire to Learn: A majority consider themselves as questioning – having the ability to ask the right questions, which is critical to problem solving.
  • Risk Takers: A majority of senior technical women view themselves as risk-takers, which was identified by technical employees as one of the top four attributes of success. Moderate amounts of risk-taking are an important part of leadership, and senior women and men are equally as likely to perceive themselves as risk takers. This research shatters the stereotype that men are more likely to be risk takers than women are.
  • Collaborative: Senior technical women are collaborators. A collaborative work style is perceived as a critical success factor in high-technology by both technical men and women, and is consistent with a culture that values innovation, which cannot be achieved without extensive collaboration. Collaboration is both a critical source of success but also a great source of career satisfaction.
  • Hard Working/Work Long Hours: Advancement for senior women comes with long working hours. This finding is consistent with the culture of technology where advancement is tied to increased responsibility and significant availability. This can be a barrier for women who seek advancement while juggling family responsibilities in dual-career couples. 72 percent of the senior technical women surveyed reported cutting back on sleep to advance their careers and nearly a third have delayed having children.
  • Assertive: A majority of senior technical women describe themselves as assertive – significantly more so than women at the entry and mid-levels. In a professional culture that rewards speaking up, self-promotion, and ambition, senior women interviewed uniformly said they had to learn to be assertive and promote themselves in order to advance. However, research also shows that women have less freedom than men in assertive behavior. Because women’s assertiveness defies long-standing gender stereotypes, women often experience a “likeability penalty” when they are assertive.

Then again, women represented only four percent out of 1,795 surveyed for the report; would the study results be different if even 25% of the study participants were female?

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Make Mine a MacBook … x 20

March 6th, 2010

Justin Long may have retired from Apple ad campaigns,  but at least several others want to claim his old role of Mac advocate:

Acrobatic thieves hit N.J. Best Buy avoiding cameras, motion sensors, alarms in daring heist
By Ryan Hutchins/For The Star-Ledger

March 04, 2010, 4:42PM

SOUTH BRUNSWICK — They never touched the floor — that would have set off an alarm.
They didn’t appear on store security cameras. They cut a hole in the roof and came in at a spot where the cameras were obscured by advertising banners.

And they left with some $26,000 in laptop computers, departing the same way they came in — down a 3-inch gas pipe that runs from the roof to the ground outside the store.

Police believe that’s how some brazen bandits managed to swipe 20 Apple notebooks early this morning at a Best Buy on Route 1 in South Brunswick without detection.

“High level of sophistication,” said Detective James Ryan, a police department spokesman. “They never set off any motion sensors. They never touched the floor. They rappelled in and rappelled out.”

Employees discovered the missing laptops, as well as a gaping hole in the ceiling, when they arrived to work around 6:30 this morning.

The thieves left boot prints on the gas pipe, which runs up the side of the building in Monmouth Junction, Ryan said.

On top of the building, they used a saw to cut through several inches of rubber and insulation, then sliced a 3-foot-wide square in the metal roof, he said.

Once inside, the burglars dropped 16 feet to 10-foot-tall racks — avoiding contact with the floor, where motion sensors would have set off an alarm. They snatched the notebooks from the racks, then went back out through the roof.

The effort was daring and unusual, said John Harris, an expert in security who has consulted on thousands of burglaries.

Read the full story here.

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Posted in Pop Culture, Strange but True, Technology

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Walmart vs. Netflix…?

February 23rd, 2010

On Monday Wal-Mart announced it agreed to buy online streaming video service Vudu, which allows customers to select online from 16,000′s licensed films, then view movies instantly on their TVs.

“Combining Vudu’s unique digital technology and service with Walmart’s retail expertise and scale will provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment,” Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart (WMT,Fortune 500), said in a statement.

Vudu is developing hundreds of Internet applications and services that will allow viewers to stream movies to their TVs and Blu-ray disc players, and the video service has already partnered with Internet and media companies such as Facebook, Twitter and the Associated Press, Wal-Mart said.

“The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.” – Oscar Wilde

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Moving Pictures, the Netflix Way

January 20th, 2010

Saturday I mailed a dvd  back to Netflix.

Since Monday was a federal holiday, I expected to Netflix to receive the returned DVD on Tuesday, then ship the next dvd in my queue to arrive on Wednesday.

But – no.

Netflix emailed me Monday morning they received the dvd I mailed them on Saturday.

Later that day my updated dvd queue noted the next dvd would ship on Tuesday and arrive on Wednesday.

Instead, it arrived TUESDAY.

Netflix gets a lot of things right – which is in line with its entertainment product offerings – but even better, sometimes its efficiency is magic, too. <G

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Hulu-baloo.

According to Silicon Alley Insider, with data partly from Comscore, 38 million people watched Hulu at least once in July - a viewership which easily topped Time Warner Cable‘s July viewership of 34 million. That same month, only DirecTV (47 million viewers) and Comcast (62 million) pulled larger audiences: While impressive, Hulu.com has a long way to go before reaching the cable companies’ …

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Barbie Wants a Real Job, and Needs Your Help.

January 11th, 2010

Mattel is having a vote for Barbie’s next career – let’s give her a real job, as a computer engineer:

http://www.barbie.com/vote/

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Time Warner Cable shows subscribers how to cut cord

January 7th, 2010

As we are in the worst recession in 70 years, only three things are guaranteed: death, taxes, and a yearly 5% or more increase in cable subscription fees.

So – as a consumer, witnessing the on-g0ing scrimmishes between Broadcast TV providers and premium content (cable) providers is also entertainment.

Although this year’s skirmish between Fox and Time Warner was resolved at the 11th hour, Time Warner’s detailed instructions which show its customers how to watch Fox online, for free, with the suggestion viewers head to the likes of Hulu, Fancast, or any search engine–to find their favorite shows.

Time Warner Cable‘s instructions on “How to Connect Your PC to Your TV” can be accessed by clicking on the image at the bottom of this post.

Still, no matter how this resolves, the danger for both sides is that consumers really do take up Time Warner Cable on its offer and start watching Fox stuff on the Web, since Fox definitely wants people keep paying for cable TV since Fox really covets subscription fees from cable TV providers.

To paraphrase Douglas Adams:  Corporations, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

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Free is Not Always Free.

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Free: The Future of a Radical New Price is now…Free!

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Posted in Every Day Life, Fun, Innovation, Pop Culture, Technology, Theory, Think Green, free

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Comcast Takes on Hulu in the Battle for TV to be Everywhere

December 15th, 2009

thinkoutsidethebox

Via CNN.com today:

Comcast rolled out a Web-based on-demand television and movie service on Tuesday that gives customers access to more than 2,000 hours of television and movies.

- more –

The service, named Fancast XFINITY TV (formerly TV Everywhere),  is getting mixed reviews on Twitter,  and is in beta, with limited availability.

Customer access of XFINITY content is tied to the tiered level of service they subscribe to; a customer must subscribe to HBO via Comcast to be able to watch HBO content on XFINITY.

At least for now, Hulu‘s offering has is superior, in regards to both technical  quality and also value;  but I look forward to the continuing battle between broadcast tv and the web.

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Posted in Every Day Life, Fun, Innovation, Pop Culture, Software and Tools, Technology, Theory, Think Green

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Proud as a Peacock?

December 3rd, 2009

Comcast seems to be overflowing with joint ventures this past year; it invested approximately US  $1.2 billion in WiMax , and this week announced it will become majority owner of NBC Universal.

Comcast is spending $13.75 billion in cash and assets for a 51% ownership of a joint venture that will own two broadcast networks, over a dozen cable networks, a major movie studio and several theme parks.

Empire building on that level requires a lot of revenue; I’m starting to understand why my Comcast internet bill risen so quickly.

It will be very interesting to see whether Comcast’s gamble pays off – and how it will impact broadcast media – including Hulu.com’s – efforts to bring the cable-TV subscription model to the Web and other platforms.

Will this be the start of new era – or of a consumer revolution?  And what will Netflix add into this mix?

“Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure.”

– Edward Thorndike (1874 – 1949)

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Hello, Roku HD…!

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Today Netflix Corp. awarded its long-awaited $1M Grand Prize to team “BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos,” which consisted of Bob Bell, Martin Chabbert, Michael Jahrer, Yehuda Koren, Martin Piotte, Andreas Töscher and Chris Volinsky. The 3-year crowdsourcing contest motivated self-forming, unpaid volunteer teams to compete for one $1 million dollar prize by creating  an …

Roku + Hulu = The Killer App?

The Roku Channel Store will roll out 10 new (and free, at least for now) channels to users within the next two weeks:  Pandora, MotionBox, MediaFly, blip.tv, TWiT.tv, Facebook Photos, Revision3, framechannel, flickr &amp; MobileTribe. More channels are promised “as they become available.” Tip for Roku:  adding Hulu would be a lot more …

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Latest Use of Google Wave: Help Catch Seattle’s Most Wanted.

November 30th, 2009

For the past few months, a lot of people have tried to catch an invite for Google Wave.

For those who are already enrolled in the beta, there is a lot of discussion as to how and why Google Wave will change the world; but no real consensus.

The Seattle Times created a public Google Wave for area residents submit realtime information about the location of a man suspected of killing four Seattle police officers this past weekend.

I’m not sure the suspect’s friends are in the technology early adopter crowd; but then again, every tip helps.

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And One More Thing…

Steven Jobs, cofounder of Apple, has been labeled many things, from visionary to egomaniac. Often I think he is inspirational too: We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise why else even be here? Innovation is the distinction between a leader and a follower. The system is that there is no system. That doesn’t …

Android: the new new thing?

My friend Leslie recently acquired an Android phone which she swears surpasses the iPhone in sound quality, UI, and pretty much every other aspect as well. I’m taking her word since I don’t own either; but have to acknowledge the call quality of calls from her Android phone is pretty amazing. I …

For Whom The Bell Tolls… or, Another Business Model for $0.00

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  • Share/Bookmark

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Posted in Innovation, Pop Culture, Software and Tools, Technology

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