More on recruiters (say it fast)

Ai is currently hiring a user experience lead to add to its UXD resources. (We're hiring a freelance IA, too... email me if you know anyone for either position. But I digress.)

I have gotten an unsettling amount of recruiter contacts in the days since we posted the job ad. Most of them are polite enough, and I turn them down, politely. This is nothing new; Loren and I have a long history of frustration with muscle-in tactics.

But I occasionally get inquiries that just blow my mind. Consider this, which came to me via LinkedIn, which is usually a good place for targeted communication:

While Linked In is a great resource, it cannot give you access to the most elite talent in the Internet arena. We can. Our difference is that we aggressively call directly into your top competitors and leading firms in your field to source candidates who are among the top 10% in your industry.

Holy smokes! Here I am, trying to wisely use networking to extend the reach of my job ad. And I get a networking reply that suggests I use them to cold-call the competition until they unearth some good candidates.

Underneath the letter was some marketing copy, equally flabbergasting:

* Aggressive cold call recruiting.
Our recruiters make 150 or more calls per day. We directly call into your competitors to recruit the top 10% in North America.

The company promises quantity and quality! I was still working on the math behind that one as I read the last bullet:

* We work exclusively for you.
The candidates we recruit are exclusively yours, and we will never send someone we recruit on your behalf to any other company.

Somehow it's hard to believe that a recruiter with hard-nose tactics like these won't be sharing what little bits of successful entry it finds with every client it recruits.

I suppose there are employers out there who employ, and enjoy, these tactics. But I'm not on that list. (I wonder if I'm on the call list, though....)

Sports Museum of America

The long-awaited Sports Museum of America opens to the public today.

It is an experiential place, full of tangible exhibits and games. One can hold Alex Rodriguez's baseball bat, compare the weight of an Olympic javelin and shotput, and do skill tests in cycling, skiing, rowing and--most interesting--Nascar pit crew.

SmA is an Ai client, and a few of us had the pleasure of attending their opening night gala last night. (I posted a few photos after the event.) Having toured the museum firsthand, I can confirm that it's great fun for any sports fan. We expected to just poke around during cocktails but wound up spending more than an hour reading, watching and playing.

Congratulations and best of luck to the Sports Museum of America and its founding team.

Fenders and Benders

The tech team at Ai is split into two parts. Roughly two-thirds of our staff are developers, the behind-the-scenes programmers and creators of software and rich applications.

The other third are front-end engineers, handling the HTML, CSS, and scripting languages rendered by browsers. Both teams are tight-knit and collaborative, particularly the front-end team.

In this spirit the smaller crew coined itself a little ways back: they are the Fenders, short for "front-enders" (obviously). They take great pride in their work, compete for compliancy accuracy, and play some mean foosball. Most importantly, they work as a team. With a great name.

By extension, the developers are Benders, for back-end, although the term hasn't made the same impact. The Fenders, on the other hand--or "Fendas," as our Bronx-style lead Fender likes to say--are really making a name for themselves. Two of our clients have started using it regularly.

The next time you hear about web page creation, don't think simply in terms of client-side coding or web design. Think: fender.

Fun with focus groups

Ai is conducting informal usability testing for a client this week. We've had a small procession of strangers come to our office for 45-minute sessions, and in exchange, we're handing out American Express gift cards.

This is the first time we've done tests on-site, and it may be our last. The testing has gone great, but we've had one person double-air-kiss our moderator and another demand twice as much compensation as we offered in our ad.

Then there's the job candidate who stopped at our front desk on her way out. Our office manager, Katie, was in deep discussion on the phone, and handed the woman a gift card, inadvertently paying her $50 for her job interview.

Imagine Katie's surprise when she got off her call and discovered the usability tester still in her session.

(The interviewee kept the card. What would you have done?)

Ai at the Circus

We took a little field trip yesterday. (The guy in the clown suit is our front-end tech lead.)

The new guy

Our newest developer is an affable California actor/musician named Mike. He came to Ai very deliberately: not just to take on a new job, but to have a new experience, shifting from freelance life on the west coast to a full-time gig at a boutique agency in Manhattan.

We thought it'd be interesting to hear Mike's take on joining Ai. Here is his story.

It's 80 degrees in California. The sun is shining, the surf is epic, and I'm enduring a bone-chilling winter in New York City; I've accepted a job here at Alexander Interactive, and these are my reflections on my first couple of months here.

Prior to taking this job, I've spent a long time freelancing, largely because I wanted the flexibility to pursue music and acting, but also because there's a certain stubborn pride in flying solo.

As a freelance developer you have opportunities to interact with so many different kinds of organizations. You see their strengths and weaknesses; the star players that make them great, and the mediocre-types that weigh them down. You bounce in for a while to launch a new web property or maybe to incubate a fledgling app idea with a prototype.

But then when it comes to evaluating these engagements as full-time employment opportunities, you start to sound like Goldilocks - this company's too big; that one's too small. This one's too structured or limiting; that one's too disorganized or perhaps underfunded for their expectations. Some companies define us too rigidly, while still others lack enough methodology and process for us to grow as individuals, team members, decision-makers, artists and engineers.

At the end of the day, the choice of employment is an exercise in personal branding ... and I was fundamentally unwilling to marry my personal brand to that of an organization, big or small. Was it a fear of commitment? Was it that I felt the other "hats" or interests would somehow be lost upon taking a "full-time" job as a web developer? Did I think that somehow an employer would dismiss my range of possibilities? Or had I simply not found an organization that I was going to be proud to be a part of?

Some people said I had the perfect LA life - 5-minute commute to my own office, flexible schedule to surf and rehearse with my band, coding through my twilight primetime as I pleased. I had complete flexibility, which was great, but it was a lonesome existence. Encounter a problem? Just me and The Google, baby. I was lacking community, challenge, and direction; and I knew it.

What makes this Ai place special, isn't that everyone here is excellent at some piece in the web development puzzle. It's that the people here are real people, bringing their talents as "individuals" to the team - and trying to excel in disciplines beyond those called upon at work.

A tech lead is leaving work with a violin amidst a 60-hour week, on his way to orchestra rehearsal. Another dude is reading Chekhov ... in Russian! Yet another has made a career change from teaching, and enjoys discussing philosophy. One of the javascript gurus plays bass like Jaco! The list goes on, of course, but already it's sounding contrived. My point is that people here are fascinated by a lot more than just elegant code and sleek design - they're drawn in by the patterns of the world at large.

And this drive to see order in the world and in our work pays off big for clients. People here kill themselves to build things the right way. Folks here groan when clients stubbornly choose less-than-usable solutions. Everyone here hang their hats on goodness, and it's not in a taking-credit or competitive sense - it's in the genuine appreciation of a solid product.

I'm really fortunate (and stoked, in the California vernacular) to have discovered a group of 40 men and woman that are doing solid work, and having fun while doing it. If my fooseball skills can improve half as much as my programming has, I'm going to be all set -- actually strike that -- my fooseball skills need a pretty severe overhaul.

When I came in for interviews in December, my final interviewer had googled me and found a goofy YouTube video of me dancing at a wedding a couple of years ago. I shook my head and thought "Oh man, that's it - there's no way I'm getting that job" as I left the interview. Upon recounting this episode now to one of the founders, he responded "Are you kidding me? That video's *why* we hired you." Amen to people with a sense of humor in an age with no *real* privacy.

There's great stuff going on here. We've just built a social network using Ruby-on-Rails, we're building beautifully-usable websites, and we're helping our clients extend their brands everywhere from Facebook to the iPhone. And you know what? It feels really good to say "we". And for my old colleagues and clients reading this - I'm happy to say, I'm still available to build to help build your digital idea. Because now I'm part of a killer team, doing just that. No longer a solo artist - I'm with the band, man.

And for all you maverick freelancers out there that could never imagine ever setting foot in an office again, consider that this is a golden time to be at this company of this size - a delicate balance of freedom and know-how accountability. And though I'm miles away from "home", it feels a bit like a homecoming.

Ai Fridays

Today marks the start of Ai Fridays, a new way for us to wind down the workweek. This is a hard-working office, and we're doing our best to acknowledge the need for a) targeted, stress-free time and b) a little bit of fun.

Our new Friday format is threefold.

1. Breakfast in the office. Some of our peers buy everyone lunch daily, but that's more of a perk, and this is more of a thank-you for a job well done. It's also a nice way to start the day. The breakfast station behind my desk has been convivial all morning. Our routine will be bagels, orange juice and the like, although at an unspecified Friday in the future I'll be rolling in an omelette station.
2. Fuss-Free Friday. This applies to how we're supposed to work: no meetings, no calls, no instant messaging, infrequent email. In a client-driven business, we often spend the bulk of the week in conversation, leaving little time to get things done. Fridays are now earmarked for "me" time, where we can all focus on projects with minimal distraction.
3. An early whistle. At 4 or 4:30, we're turning on music and taking the beer out of the fridge. Ai employees typically work past 6, so the last few hours of the week are now a weekend kickoff. We'll get a little work done, but we'll get to enjoy some communal downtime and finish Fridays with a smile.

This isn't particularly innovative; it's just a nice way for us to wind up each week. It's also year-round, unlike the summer or casual Fridays found in many offices. (Indeed, I'm not sure we can get much more casual.) Mostly, it's a way for Ai to show its appreciation to the team, with a little added productivity as well.

I'm posting this on a Friday, so if you'll excuse me, I have to grab a bagel....