Small World Labs

Last week I had the pleasure of attending a Scottrade User Summit in San Antonio. These are online trading education events that Scottrade conducts on a fairly regular basis in person at various cities around the country. Scottrade has been a customer of ours for a while so when Scottrade’s community manager, Nina Card, let us know that a User Summit was taking place down the highway, I jumped at the chance to check them out in action.

Remember that old saying "Do right by a customer and they'll tell a friend. Do wrong and they'll tell 100 people."? Well, in today's social media world there seems to be a 1000x multiplier.

Case in point, professional musician David Caroll had a guitar broken by an airline baggage handler (witnessed by everyone on his side of the flight) a year ago. 9 months of back in forth with the airline resulted in no help. All other courses of action stripped away, David took to YouTube to air his grievances via a music video.

Just a quick post to let everyone know we are hiring a PHP developer. We're looking for someone with a passion for social networking and social media and also has an eye for design and UX.

Check out the full job posting here:
http://smallworldlabs.com/company/careers/social-media-developer

SXSW Interactive begins Friday the 13th and I know there are a number of out-of-towners coming in to Austin. In the spirit of making sure everyone has a good time, below are a few suggestions for optimizing your SXSW experience. For information about the things I've mentioned here check out our full SXSW Interactive Guide.

Shameless plug time! SXSW Interactive will feature a panel sponsored by Small World Labs titled:

My Boss Doesn't Get It: Championing Social Media to the Man
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm
Room A&B

It is moderated by Michael Wilson, Founder & CEO of SWL. In addition it will feature:

- Peter Kim of www.beingpeterkim.com fame
- Miles Sims of www.communitymetrics.com and SWL VP of Product
- Rebecca Caroe of www.creativeagencysecrets.com fame
- Christian Caldwell of www.heart.org

I'll be there to monitor the Twitter backchannel and blog the event. See you there!

Long time readers of this blog could very well have a drinking game set up that goes like this: One shot for every time I mention "transparency" or "customer voice". Granted I don't post enough to do any serious damage to one's liver but the game could definitely take the edge off a hard day at the office. And while social media's foundational mantra of generating power via conversation is still as valid as ever, Skittles has shown us the limits of open conversation.

Social media that is!

We'll have the job description up soon but wanted to spread the word that we are looking to hire a web application developer with social media prowess. Shoot us your resume now and look for an update when the full description is up!

I've been seeing more politicians on Twitter since the election but apparently it has more than few officials on the Hill addicted. I just came across a column from the Washington Post about some Senators and Representatives who were twittering from the floor of Congress. Hilarious! I think if we see a tweet from @ChiefJusticeRoberts we've officially jumped the shark.

*update*

It's official!!! SWL has a fantastic panel at SXSW Interactive titled "My Boss Doesn't Get It: Championing social media to 'The Man'" being held Friday the 13th at 2 in Room Room 12AB. The panel is moderated by SWL CEO Michael Wilson and features panelists including Peter Kim (www.beingpeterkim), Miles Sims (www.communitymetrics.com), and others to be announced.

In the last week a battle has been raging in the Twitterverse about the act of following someone on Twitter. The fight between two of the top ranked "twitterati" was sparked by a Valentine Day blog post on PragueBob's WebX. OH!. The post found here: http://budurl.com/xv8a focuses on Perry Belcher- who has over 41,862 followers on Twitter. His popularity, seemingly untarnished by the fact that he is a convicted felon, serving a suspended sentence of 10 years for marketing dubious herbal remedies.