We're looking for freelance PHP Web Developers to work with the 76design team


76design
is looking for a few great freelance developers to round out our skill set and provide us with the capacity to deliver all of our projects during the busy autumn and winter business cycle.

If you’re interested, you’ll possess a strong combination of the following expertise and experience:

Strategic and Analytic Thinking

• Understanding of fundamentals of new marketing and communications principles
• A solid understanding of information architecture practices
• Gathering, reviewing and validating project requirements

Skills and Assets
• Demonstrated experience with the following: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP5
• Experience with a modern MVC web framework like Zend Framework, Java Spring, etc.
• Background in web API programming
• Polylingual programming beyond PHP considered an asset (Java, .Net, Ruby, etc)
• Comfortable with use and function of a variety of modern CMS: WordPress, Drupal;
• Experience customizing WordPress development, themes, and plugins
• Direct experience with social media tools and platforms, such as Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc.
• Work with tiered deployment environments
• Experience with a version control system like SVN
• Experience with automated deployment using tools like Phing, Ant considered an asset
• Use of OO and design patterns
• Working knowledge of web standards, SEO and accessibility
• Front end development experience working with XHTML, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript, Ajax

Bonus Points
• Unix system maintenance, shell scripting
• Apache web server configuration, virtual host management
• Experience with Microsoft SilverStripe CMS
• Experience with modern ORM such as Doctrine
• Knowledge of Apache Software Foundation Projects: Lucene / Mahout
• University degree in computer science or software engineering

Interested in working with us? If so, click over to the 76design Careers page and apply on the link provided on that page.

Marketing with Integrity – Selling Likes and Followers

Do you sell Facebook Likes or Twitter Followers to your clients?

I received this email in the middle of the night. You may have received it or something like it too.

It asks, “I was wondering if you sell Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers to your clients to improve their social media credibility?” The writer then goes on to suggest that, “Some companies sell 500 Facebook likes to their clients for $100, and buy the service from me for $15. It’s a huge profit margin and is a really easy add-on to sell to your current customers.”

My answer in a word is NO!

No, we don’t sell Facebook Likes, Twitter Followers or any other kind of social gesture. Buying followers amounts to pure deception, in my mind. Especially if the intent is to suggest that a large number of followers conveys greater credibility.

True credibility is earned. It is ascribed to you by others based on their experience of you. If you believe that the number of likes or followers conveys credibility, then purchasing them amounts to deception. 

If you are a marketer, don’t follow this path. It is marketing without integrity.

This is what it looks like on the in-flight map when your plane aborts its landing

Life is like a plane ride. It doesn’t always go as planned.

If you’re wondering what that green paper clip drawing is on the map above, it’s the flight path Air Canada 445 followed when it had to abort its landing in Toronto Pearson this morning.

Yep, an aborted landing. A sudden acceleration and ascent just before you touch down on the runway, followed by 60 seconds of uneasiness (fear?) as you wait for the pilot to come on the PA system and tell you why you and the other 100 passengers aren’t safely on the ground. In this case, the plane ahead of us failed to clear the runway and the pilot pulled up and went around. We made a safe landing on the second try.

And thanks to GPS and the in-flight map app, we got to watch ourselves on the map throughout the whole experience.

By the way, the pilot was great this morning. He was on the microphone telling us what had happened in under a minute after the event. I’ve been on other flights that aborted landing at the last instant and had to wait for three or four minutes (which can be terrifying) before we were reassured that there was nothing wrong with our plane.

Of course, there’s always a bonus by making it through the tough days. Maybe I’ll get extra frequent flyer miles from Aeroplan and Air Canada for the extra miles we flew to make the second landing attempt. 🙂