Beantown Web

Sunday, January 09, 2011

Best Business Books | 2010

Seven books stand above the rest as the Best Business Books of 2010.

What follows is Beantown Web's annual quasi-scientific analysis of the Best Business Books published in the previous year. The search began with an online review of 10 "Best of" lists from the following sources:

All told, 103 books were mentioned on at least one "Best of" list. Among these offerings twenty books were mentioned on two lists (The Honorable Mention).

Best Business Books | Runners Up

Here are the four books identified on three lists (The Runners Up):

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy
Rework

Best Business Books | Winners

~ Third place, mentioned on five of the 10 lists: Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?

~ Second place, mentioned on six of the 10 lists: The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

~ First place, mentioned on seven of the 10 lists: Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard?

Personal Recommendations

I can personally vouch for four of the seven books identified, having read and posted reviews for the following:

I look forward to chilly winter nights getting acquainted with the other three recommended books. [ Note: Check out additional bookshelf recommendations in the right-hand column. ]

Suggested Success Strategy

Identify one book from the seven listed above and commit to learning more about the business world. Making a study of best business practices can only help improve job prospects and career success as we continue to establish a foothold in "the new normal."

Check out previous lists:

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Monday, December 20, 2010

Startup Watch | November 2010

Openings for IT (information technology) contract workers are at their highest level in more than a decade, according to a Boston Globe article. David MacKeen, CEO of Eliassen Group, an IT staffing firm, was quoted as saying, "I think we’re on the verge of a substantial growth cycle."

One place to look for opportunities is in the start-up community. According to StartUpHire there are more than 800 job openings at Boston area startup companies. talentGraphz provides a listing of nearly 300 startup companies in the Boston area.

Startup Watch for November

Mass High Tech highlights startup companies each week in a series called "Five You Should Follow."

Here are 23 startup companies in the greater Boston area that Mass High Tech suggests you keep your eye on:

[NOTE: Hover over company name to view a tooltip summary of that company's value proposition.]

» Active Interview | Cambridge

» BookBlunder | Boston

» CardStar, Inc. | Boston

» CaringWise, Inc. | Boston

» Carrot Medical LLC | Boston

» CellMosaic LLC | Worcester

» Entheogen Corp. | Boston

» EximFlow, Inc. | Boston

» eZuce, Inc. | Newburyport

» FloDesign Sonics, Inc. | Wilbraham

» iCar | Somerville

» Karyopharm Therapeutics, Inc. | Newton

» Media Armor, Inc. | Boston

» Nemucore Medical Innovations | Worcester

» Practically Green LLC | Boston

» ProctorCam LLC | Boston

» Retroficiency, Inc. | Boston

» Styleta, Inc. | Cambridge

» TapWalk | Medford

» Tarpon BioSystems, Inc. | Marlborough

» VisitorsCafe | Boston

» VivoPath LLC | Worcester

» Wingu, Inc. | Cambridge

Five new startups are listed every Tuesday at Mass High Tech -- The Journal of New England Technology. Access Startup News for details. If your company was founded within the last three years, and would like to be considered for the Watch List, contact the Startup Watch editor.

Access previous Startup Watch lists:

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Friday, December 10, 2010

Boston Market | December 2010

Two new hiring reports promise a bright New Year for information technology professionals with in-demand job skills.

Manpower Employment Outlook Survey, Q1 2011

After five straight quarters of employment growth Manpower has released the most optimistic hiring expectations in more than two years.

A survey of more than 18,000 employers revealed the following expectations for the first quarter of 2011:

14% expect an increase in staff levels
10% expect a decrease in staff levels

The result is a Net Employment Outlook (NEO) of +4%. The following industry sectors have the highest outlooks:

Leisure & Hospitality (+12%)
Professional & Business Services (+11%)
Information (+10%)

Information technology professionals will be in demand in 2011. Access a press release for a summary or a more detailed 12-page report.

Dice Report, December 2010

For a drill-down into information technology skills most in-demand, access a Special Edition of the Dice Report for December 2010.

Six in ten hiring managers and technology recruiters expect to increase hiring in the first half of 2011 as compared to the previous six months. When asked what their top hiring priority was for 2011, developers held five of the top six slots as follows:

#1 ~ Java developer
#2 ~ .NET developer
#3 ~ Software developer
#5 ~ Mobile developer
#6 ~ Web developer

Nearly 850 human resource managers and recruiters responded to the Dice survey.

Boston Market, December 2010

The list of Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated and appears in the right-hand column. Consistent with the Dice findings Top 10 developer skills include the following:

#3 ~ Java | 510 job listings
#5 ~ C# | 288 job listings
#10 ~ ASP.NET | 160 job listings

Surprisingly, the following mobile technologies barely crack the Top 50:

#48 ~ iPhone | 21 job listings
#49 ~ Android | 20 job listings

Best Training Opportunity

If you are new to Web development consider joining the Boston PHP Meetup. The December 15 meeting will feature a presentation on Google Analytics by Jay Murphy.

The meeting will also feature an announcement of the introduction of PHP Percolate!, a virtual self-study group designed to help beginners learn PHP programming.

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Friday, November 26, 2010

Web Innovators Group | WebInno28

Ten companies. Ten hundred networking opportunities. All in one room. All FREE.

If you are interested in previewing the latest innovations on the Internet and mobile devices, and networking with industry leaders, then check out the next gathering of the Web Innovators Group.

This fifth anniversary event -- and 28th installment overall -- will feature the following presentations:

Main Dishes

FanSwarm | A game that allows you to back real life celebrities and watch their buzz rise and fall.

HowAboutWe | putting the date back in dating: magical dates, simple dates, wild dates, lovely dates.

Moontoast | create connections with real impact -- on your audience and your bottom line.

Side Dishes

Ginger Software |the leading contextual spell and grammar checker on the market today

My-Take | the ultimate community to declare, discuss and share your opinions and earn rewards

Penmia | an application that allows you to record any moment in life

SocialSci | connects researchers with a global online community

Smashion | a social fashion site connection people with a passion for fashion

Promoboxx | create world-class social promotions and contests that drive leads

Woopid | watch free technology training videos

Event Details

Monday, November 29, 2010, 6:30 pm

Royal Sonesta Cambridge

Registration is FREE and the networking could prove invaluable! Check out the Attendee List of more than 1,000 pre-registrants to determine if this networking event is right for you.

Registrants are encouraged to join the Boston Web Innovators Group on LinkedIn and connect with more than 1,300 members.

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Sunday, November 21, 2010

.net Magazine Awards | 2010

The .net Awards celebrate the best in web design and development. Awards are determined via a combination of public opinion and the insights of a leading panel of judges.

The results of the 2010 awards will be published in an upcoming issue (#210) of .net magazine, a U.K. magazine for web designers and developers sold in the U.S. as Practical Web Design.

Best of The Web

Here are the 16 award winners for 2010:

+ Web application of the year » Typekit

+ Community site of the year » Ravelry

+ Best API use » Flipboard

+ Interactive site of the year » Chrome FastBall

+ Blog of the year » Smashing Magazine

+ Podcast of the year » Sitepoint

+ Video podcast of the year » The Big Web Show

+ Design agency of the year » Happy Cog

+ Innovation of the year » Node.js

+ Web personality of the year » Jason Santa Maria

+ Viral campaign of the year » Old Spice

+ Standards champion » Jeffrey Zeldman

+ Open source application of the year » Modernizr

+ Redesign of the year » BBC News

+ Mobile site of the year » Flickr

+ Mobile app of the year » Dropbox

Details are available at the .net Magazine Awards website which lists two additional nominees in each category.

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Saturday, November 20, 2010

Top 50 Requested Skills | Q3 2010

Freelance developers and designers can compare their current skill set with marketplace demand by accessing State of the Work-From-Home and Freelancing Economy. This third quarter report is presented by DoNanza, the largest search engine for work-from-home and freelance jobs.

Content Management Systems

The report begins with a comparison of the Big Three Content Management Systems (CMS):

WordPress | #7
Joomla! | #17
Drupal | #43

CMS Conclusion

While the highest demand in the CMS freelance market is for WordPress developers, project budgets are highest for Drupal developers, perhaps because these projects tend to be more complicated and time consuming.

What is most striking is the average budget per project:

WordPress | $455
Joomla! | $473
Drupal | $915

Does this mean that in order to generate $50,000 per year in revenue, WordPress and Joomla! developers need to complete approximately two projects per week?

Bigger Picture

Buried at the bottom of this report is the Top 50 Requested Skills. A comparison of this list for freelancers with the Top 20 Twenty Web Technologies in Boston (right-hand column) for job seekers yields some interesting results.

Caveat: With all ranking systems someone will likely be unhappy. Just take a look at the NCAA College Football Polls. Apples and oranges comparisons should never be taken as gospel. The two lists in this comparison measure different things. None-the-less, general patterns emerge.

Twenty technologies appear on the Top 50 versions of both lists. Only six technologies are common to both Top 20 lists.

Top Six Skills

Web developers and designers who are open to BOTH job opportunities and freelance gigs can maximize their universe of possibilities by focusing on the following six technology skills (freelance ranking vs. job list ranking):

Web professionals who want to be in position to play for a national championship should develop these six fundamental "blocking and tackling" skills and take on projects that demonstrate proficiency with these technologies.

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Boston Market | November 2010

Here are two reasons why Bostonians should be optimistic about employment prospects:

Boston ranks #2 in overall job creation over the past 12 months
Boston ranks #5 (tie) in job opportunities per unemployed worker

NOTE: Factoring in population size, Boston drops from #2 to #13 in overall job creation as many smaller markets outperformed Boston on a percentage basis. The only larger metropolitan area to outperform Boston was Washington, DC.

If you live outside the Boston metro area, check out the rankings for your home town:

Job Rankings for 100 Biggest Markets
Job Market Competition for the 50 Most Populous Metropolitan Areas

Top 20 Web Technologies

Drilling deeper, what does the job market look like for workers with Web technology skills?

The monthly listing of Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated and appears in the right-hand column. The list is ordered by how many times that technology was mentioned in job descriptions at Boston.com (managed by Monster.com). As expected, programming and database skills dominate the list.

To add a new twist this month, let's explore emerging programming skills.

The Magnificent Seven

InfoWorld published an article entitled 7 Programming Languages on the Rise. Dice provides a compact summary listing the languages as follows (links to Wikipedia):

An analysis of the market demand for these programming skills reveals the following opportunities in the Boston marketplace:

Python | 116 job opportunities
Ruby | 52 job opportunities
MATLAB | 79 job opportunities
JavaScript | 286 job opportunities
R | ?? job opportunities **
Erlang | 3 job opportunities
COBOL | 7 job opportunities

** NOTE: Searching on "R" offers up too many false positives, such as nursing jobs (RN).

So, the major players in this shootout are as follows:

JavaScript (286)
Python (116)
MATLAB (79)
Ruby (52)

MATLAB is not used in Web applications, R is a mystery in the marketplace, and Erlang and COBOL offer few job opportunities.

Therefore, Web professionals should consider beefing up their filmography by adding one or more of the following character roles to help boost box office clout:

JavaScript | Yul Brynner
Python | Steve McQueen
Ruby | Charles Bronson

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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Strategic Technologies for 2011

Which strategic technologies will have a significant impact on your organization (and your career) over the next three years? Gaining experience with these technologies can position you for future opportunities.

Gartner, the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, has identified 10 technologies that should be on your radar screen today. Here are the top three:

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing which frequently takes the form of web-based tools or applications that users can access and use through a web browser, as if it were a program installed locally on their own computer.

Cloud computing service providers include companies such as Salesforce, Amazon and Google.

Mobile Applications & Media Tablets

Mobile application development is the process by which applications are developed for handheld devices such as mobile phones and, increasingly, media tablets, such as the iPad.

Gartner estimates that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry commerce-enabled mobile devices.

Social Communications & Collaboration

A social network service is an online service, platform or site that focuses on building social relations among people who share interests and/or activities.

Most of us are familiar with services such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. However, Gartner identified four sub-categories as follows:

social networking
social collaboration
social publishing
social feedback

CMS Networking Opportunities

You can best remember these three strategic technologies with the acronym CMS:

Cloud
Mobile
Social

Access a Gartner press release to reveal the complete list of Top 10 Strategic Technologies for 2011.

Cloud

If you live in the Boston area you can attend the inaugural gathering of the Cloud Innovation Showcase on Wednesday, November 10. You can also join the CloudInno Group on LinkedIn.

Mobile

If you live in the Boston area you can join Mayor Tom Menino as he introduces Citizens Connect 2.0 on Monday, November 8. This Mobile Monday Boston Event is open to anyone interested in developing mobile apps which connect the people of Boston with city government.

Social

If you live in the Boston area you can join Social Media Club Boston for their next event, Social Nation Tweetup on Thursday, November 4. You can also join the Social Media Club Group on LinkedIn.

All three Boston CMS (Cloud, Mobile, Social) Networking events are FREE!

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Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Startup Watch | October 2010

The fall appears to be a good time to unleash your inner entrepreneur.

Startup Weekend

Startup Weekend events are being hosted in more than 50 cities across the United States and Canada, and an equal number of international cities.

For details about an event near you access the Startup Weekend website for a list of participating cities. Boston Startup Weekend will be held November 12 through 14 and will focus on mobile technologies.

Cloud Innovation Showcase

In addition, a new event arrives in Boston on Wednesday, November 10 called the Cloud Innovation Showcase.

Modeled after the popular Web Innovators Group, the event focuses on cloud-related startups, as well as, organizations adopting cloud computing. Access a press release for additional details.

The conference will be held at The Charles Hotel, Harvard Square, Cambridge. Registration is required for this FREE event which features keynote speaker Raymie Strata, Chief Technology Officer at Yahoo!

Startup Watch for October

Mass High Tech highlights startup companies each week in a series called "Five You Should Follow."

Here are 18 startup companies in the greater Boston area that Mass High Tech suggests you keep your eye on:

[NOTE: Hover over company name to view a tooltip summary of that company's value proposition.]

» AdelaVoice Corp. | Boston

» BirthData Pro, LLC | Scituate

» Close-Haul Communications, Inc. | Boston

» CoupMe Worldwide, LLC | Needham

» FYItag, Inc. | Andover

» Goozzy | Newton

» Graphene Laboratories, Inc. | Reading

» ImageRights International, Inc. | Cambridge

» JoyTunes Ltd. | Boston

» Jumper Networks, Inc. | White Horse Beach

» Ligon Discovery, Inc. | Cambridge

» My Digital Afterlife, LLC | Quincy

» SmashFly Technologies, LLC | Stow

» Sonian, Inc. | Needham

» Symmetric Computing, Inc. | Boston

» VideoAResume, LLC | Sharon

» Viridity Software, Inc. | Burlington

» Wikibon | Marlborough

Access previous Startup Watch lists:

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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Boston Market | October 2010

One in five employers expect to hire full-time staff during the next three months. One in four plan to hire contract or temporary workers. If you live in the Northeast the percentages are likely higher.

Professions in Demand

Information Technology (IT) professionals are three times more likely to be in demand than creative/design professionals.

Here are the positions for which employers are most likely to hire contract or temporary staff for the remainder of 2010:

IT | 27 percent
Administrative | 25 percent
Engineering | 12 percent
Finance and Accounting | 12 percent
Sales and Marketing | 10 percent
Creative/Design | 9 percent

Size of Companies Hiring

Large companies are more likely than small companies to hang a Help Wanted sign during the fourth quarter:

~ employers with more than 250 employees | 26 percent are hiring
~ employers with 51 to 250 employees | 24 percent are hiring
~ employers with 50 or less employees | 13 percent are hiring

These findings were obtained from a survey that included more than 2,400 hiring managers and human resource professionals and more than 3,100 workers. A press release is available from CareerBuilder. A Flash player version of the survey results is also available.

Boston Market October

The list of Top 20 Web Technologies in Boston has been updated for October and is presented in the right-hand column.

The biggest monthly movers on the upside include Microsoft technologies:

~ ASP.NET | up 32%
~ C# up | 26%
~ SQL Server | up 12%

Other technologies also saw double digit monthly gains:

~ Python | up 23%
~ PHP | up 17%
~ Web Services | up 13%
~ Ajax | up 11%

Year-End Rally

Clearly, programming skills are in demand. If you are looking for work, here is a two-part strategy for participating in a successful year-end jobs rally:

develop and highlight your information technology (IT) skills
target companies with 50 or more employees

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Sunday, October 10, 2010

Startup Watch | September 2010‏

Entrepreneurship is crucial to job creation. In a Newsweek article entitled The Real Jobs Machine, Robert J. Samuelson discusses the experience of Morris Panner, founder of Boston-based OpenAir and current CEO of TownFlier.

According to StartUpHire.com there are currently more than 800 job openings at startup companies in the Boston metro area.

Mass High Tech highlights startup companies each week in a series called "Five You Should Follow."

Startup Watch for September

Here are 14 startup companies in the greater Boston area that Mass High Tech suggests you keep your eye on:

[NOTE: Hover over company name to view a tooltip summary of that company's value proposition.]

» Anagraph Medical Solutions, Inc. | Cambridge

» Athleague, Inc. | Boston

» Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. | Cambridge

» ConnectScholar, Inc. | Swampscott

» Eleven Learning | Cambridge

» Episend, Inc. | Watertown

» FashionStake | Boston

» HanGenix | Chelmsford

» Metamark Genetics, Inc. | Cambridge

» My Life List, LLC | Swampscott

» netBlazr, Inc. | Newton

» Qwobl, Inc. | Cambridge

» ResearchGATE Corp. | Cambridge

» TDC, LLC | Brookline

Access previous Startup Watch lists:

[ NOTE: If you are interested in learning more about entrepreneurship in Boston, check out the BREW Calendar of Events. ]

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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

5,000 Fastest Growing Companies | 2010

Fast growing companies emerge, even during the Great Recession. The median growth rate over the past three years for the 5,000 fastest growing companies in the United States is 96 percent.

The 5,000 fastest growing private companies are featured in the September issue of Inc. magazine. The metro areas with the most fast growing companies are as follows:

New York City | 401 companies
Washington, DC | 365 companies
Los Angeles | 260 companies
Chicago | 199 companies
Boston | 184 companies
Atlanta | 178 companies
Dallas / Fort Worth | 158 companies
San Francisco | 156 companies
Philadelphia | 132 companies
Houston | 116 companies

Fast growing companies are more likely than slow growing companies to be hiring as the economy begins to improve.

Fast growing companies are more likely than slow growing companies to be receptive to the business-to-business services you and your company might offer.

Access the Inc 5000 list and see which companies are growing the fastest. Use the advanced search feature to identify the fastest growing companies in your state. Or simply click the following link and change the two character state abbreviation (MA) to your state:

http://www.inc.com/inc5000/search/2010/x/x/x/x/x/MA/

Fastest Growing Companies in Massachusetts

Inc. magazine has identified 194 fast growing companies in Massachusetts. Facebook Fans of Beantown Web gain instant access to a database of these 194 companies, searchable by city. Become a Facebook Fan today.

Listed below are the 50 fastest growing private companies in Massachusetts:

Carbonite | Boston
Gazelle | Boston

Food Should Taste Good | Needham Heights

Reveal Imaging Technologies | Bedford

Crowe Paradis Services | North Reading

PlumChoice | Billerica

Cube 3 Studio | Lawrence

LoyaltyExpress | Woburn

Rapid7 | Boston

Bridge Energy Group | Marlborough

aPriori | Concord

BackOffice Associates | South Harwich

Guidance Technology | Sharon

InBoxer | Burlington

Kurgo | Salisbury

Pro Teck Services | Waltham

Zipcar | Cambridge

Genuine Interactive | Boston

Bioengineering Group | Salem

IneoQuest Technologies | Mansfield

Staticworx | Watertown

Culbert Healthcare Solutions | Woburn

Blue Cod Technologies | Marlborough

Sullivan and Cogliano Training Centers | Brockton

Quantech Services | Lexington

Senior Whole Health | Cambridge

Neighborhood Diabetes | Woburn

eClinicalWorks | Westborough

SEI Boston | Boston

NWN Corporation | Waltham

Winslow Technology Group | Boston

Litle & Co. | Lowell

Watermark Environmental, Inc. | Lowell

Long Term Solutions | Natick

Universal Mind | Westfield

CNE Direct | Beverly

Cambridge NanoTech | Cambridge

Radius Financial Group | Norwell

Planet Shoes | Waltham

Trinity Building & Construction Management Corp. | Woburn

Massachusetts Technology Corporation | Allston

Boston Interactive | Charlestown

Johnny Cupcakes | Hull

WorldAPP | Braintree

VoIP Logic | Williamstown

LifeSpan Technology Recycling | Newton

AVEO Pharmaceuticals | Cambridge

EMBER Corporation | Boston

TPR Media | Jamaica Plain

Plenus Group | Lowell

[ NOTE: Facebook Fans gain instant access to a database of all 194 fast growing companies, searchable by city. Become a Facebook Fan today. ]

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The Great Recession | RIP 2007 - 2009

The Great Recession lasted 18 months. It ended 15 months ago.

OK. That's out of the way. Now, how do we get people back to work?

Source: The New York Times

According to The Times, each of the three most recent post-recession recoveries have been "jobless recoveries."

Learn More to Earn More

In each recession some jobs go away and don't return. New opportunities are created. Training might be required to take advantage of these new opportunities. This might be especially true in the fast moving world of Web technologies.

Training Opportunity #1

Flash | Flex | AIR | ColdFusion

According to Adobe's Brian Rinaldi, "the Wall Street Journal recently reported that demand for Flash developers has been growing."

Brian coordinates "RIA Unleashed : Boston 2010, a two-day event (November 11 - 12) covering general web application development and the Adobe Flash Platform including Flex, AIR, ColdFusion and related technologies and disciplines.

Training Opportunity #2

Ruby on Rails

Business Insider offers the following thought: Looking for work? Learn Ruby on Rails. Mass High Tech reports a similar demand for Rails developers in Startups Competing with Big Firms for Boston Tech Talent.

Boston Rubyists offers an informal Rails Coding Mashup on Saturday, September 25. If you are looking for something more formal, check out Thoughtbot's Test Driven Rails, a two-day training opportunity in Boston, October 12 - 13.

Training Opportunity #3

SharePoint

Talbott Crowell is one of the co-founders of the Boston Area SharePoint Users Group. He is one of the co-organizers of SharePoint Saturday. This event will be held for the third time on Saturday, September 25.

SharePoint Saturday is FREE and open to the public. Three session tracks are available: End User, Developer and Administrator. Register now and begin learning this in-demand Microsoft technology and start networking with Boston area technology professionals.

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Sunday, September 12, 2010

Web Innovators Group | WebInno27

Eleven companies. Eleven hundred networking opportunities. All FREE.

If you are interested in previewing the latest innovations on the Internet and mobile devices, and networking with industry leaders, then check out the next gathering of the Web Innovators Group.

This 27th installment (WebInno27) will feature the following presentations:

Main Dishes

Play 140 | we make social games with words

TurningArt | rotate artwork in your home

AisleBuyer | the world's first virtual shopping assistant and mobile self-checkout

Side Dishes

Discovir | follow your interests; follow anything

HuddleHub | manage all of your fantasy sports teams in one application

Webiva | performance inbound marketing platform

Custommade | your source for all things custom made

Brass Monkey | an SDK which connects multiple devices over a WIFI network

Athleague | intramural sports made easy

Zazu | tells you what you need to know to start your day off right

Episend | send anything to anyone

Special Breakout Session

A panel discussion entitled Self-Funded Success Stories will be conducted with the following entrepreneurs:

[NOTE: Simply click the "in" icon to view the individual's LinkedIn profile.]

Steve Conine | Co-Founder of CSN Stores

David Hauser | Co-Founder of Grasshopper

Todd Garland | Founder of BuySellAds

Event Details

Monday, September 13, 2010, 6:30 pm

Royal Sonesta Cambridge

Registration is FREE and the networking could prove invaluable! Check out the Attendee List of more than 1,100 pre-registrants to determine if this networking event is right for you.

Registrants are encouraged to join the Boston Web Innovators Group on LinkedIn and connect with more than 1,300 members.

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Saturday, September 11, 2010

Boston Market | September 2010

More than 4,000 business executives were surveyed about their hiring plans for the fourth quarter. Here are two highlights:

nearly half of executives (47 percent) said it is challenging to find skilled professionals today
executives in the business services sector anticipate the most professional-level hiring in the fourth quarter, a net 16 percent increase

These findings bode well for workers who have a proven track record of delivering high quality professional services. Additional details are available in a press release available from Robert Half International, a recognized leader in professional staffing services.

Boston Market | September

The job market for technology professionals in the Boston marketplace continues to demonstrate resilience. Fifteen of the Top 20 Web technologies posted an increase in demand during the month of August, a period of traditionally sluggish hiring.

Here are the Top 5 most in-demand technologies according to a keyword search at Boston.com:

SQL | 798 09%
Oracle | 727 18%
Java | 443 02%
XML | 310 08%
SQL Server | 307 08%

Here are the technologies that round out the Top 10:

JavaScript | 272 03%
C# | 227 03%
HTML + CSS | 176 09%
"Web Services" | 175 08%
Perl | 170 02%

The remaining technologies that comprise the Top 20 are listed in the right-hand column.

The Boston Two Step

To succeed in this economy, it's helpful to develop dance moves like John Travolta. Here is a two-step plan to expand your business prospects for the remainder of 2010:

Step #1: Workers who provide professional services, including Web designers and developers, should consider targeting companies in the business services sector for the remainder of 2010. These companies are most likely to be expanding their staff to meet demand.

Step #2: Develop a plan to become a skilled professional that nearly 50% of executives say are difficult to find. For Web designers and developers this means demonstrating proficiency in several Top 10 Web technologies. Add country coding moves to your disco design skills.

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Friday, September 03, 2010

Startup Watch | August 2010

Two services provide insights into the Boston startup community.

The Boston Startup Tracker identifies the Top 100 startups in the Boston area based on website traffic and engagement. Clicking on a name provides a profile of that company including current job openings. The tracker is updated monthly.

Mass High Tech highlights startup companies each week in a series called "Five You Should Follow." These companies may not be as established as the ones that make the Boston Startup Tracker list.