FreelanceCTO.com

• #SMCLA Come join us and @writeonglass at Hollywood Billiards 6.12.-11 AM for the USA vs. England World Cup! rsvp@writeonglass.com #

• Florian Drescher and Brian Maso put on an AWESOME EC2 training session today. Well done gentlemen!!! #
• http://cloudtraining.eventbrite.com/ was AWESOME. Maso and Drescher kick ass! #

• If you need to know anything about the state of entertainment & technology, look no further: http://www.ultralivetv.com/digitalhollywood.php #

Check out the live broadcast of the Streamy awards:
Free live streaming by Ustream

My new company, ultralivetv, is looking for an experienced Ruby on Rails developer with top-notch software design and coding skills to lead our development efforts. Our stack includes Ruby, Rails, Cassandra/hbase/Riak, Varnish, nginx, Flash, and HTML/jquery. This position will also be responsible for assisting in the design, implementation, and ongoing care of the company’s infrastructure in both Staging and Production.

Who we are:
ultralivetv is an angel-funded, Los Angeles-based startup. We are building a distributed contextual entertainment business that revolutionizes the community viewing experience by integrating predictive games and social interaction into live video and on-demand viewing. If you know what Convergence means to the set-top box, then you have an idea on what we are trying to do.

Who you are:

• You like internet startups and building Entertainment-oriented companies
• You like learning and exploring new technologies
• You have a passion for software development
• You want to work on software that will make a difference
• You value working on small teams

Responsibilities:

• Act as the lead developer
• Validate the technical architecture
• Build our 1.0 product offering with us
• Build, test and refine new products and services
• Develop and expand infrastructure to process many millions of page views and transactions with fault-tolerance and predictability
• Tackle a wide variety of coding problems throughout the stack – we all work on everything
• Brainstorm and prototype new concepts and approaches fast. Turn prototypes into real things
• Maintain a high level of flexibility with regards to job responsibilities

Required Skills:

• Strong knowledge of Ruby on Rails and strength in all the Rails fundamentals
• Demonstrable track record building distributed, clustered, high-throughput applications that can really scale
• Background in building highly scalable applications designing for n+1 clustering with zero downtime
• Ambitious, driven, and talented individual who wants to work on significant, game-changing problems
• Able to design and write well-structured, easily maintainable, well-documented code
• Demonstrable knowledge of Javascript and CSS (preferably leveraging jQuery)
• Solid SQL skills, preferable with MySQL
• Experience with Cassandra/hbase/Riak strongly preferred
• Ability to create well-designed API’s
• Experience with user-centered interaction design
• Familiarity with Amazon Web Services (EC2, S3, EBS, etc.) preferred

This is a contract position with the opportunity for permanent employment in the future. You will report to the CTO. We strongly prefer candidates reside in the Los Angeles region.

Please send your resume, LinkedIn profile, ancode samples to technology@ultralivetv.com.

Greetings,

Tony Karrer and I have been discussing ways in which we can get the community more engaged with the rest of Los Angeles. As part of that effort, I have put together a list of suggested networking events and why they might be of interest to you. This list is by no means complete, and has a definite Los Angeles slant to it, so please point out any interesting events that we may have missed

Here is the list of interesting technology-related events in Los Angeles for the month of April:

Digital LA – Digital Drinks @ La Vida – 4/6/2010 (Tuesday)
7-10pm Hollywood
If you are into video and entertainment, this could be good. Digital LA has a rep for being more marketing oriented, so be prepared.

LA Tech April Meetup – 4/6/2010 (1st Tuesday of month)
7pm Location TBD
It’s like a miniature, regular TechCrunch50 or Twiistup.

http://newtech.meetup.com/25/calendar/12765900/

Thursday Lunch on the Promenade – 4/8/2010
12-1:30pm Santa Monica
This is a fantastic meetup. Informal gathering of some super smart people. Highly recommended.

OCTANe/FIRSTY – OC Networking Event – 4/8/2010 (Thursday)
5:30 – 7:30pm Aliso Viejo
OC members, don’t miss it! Though I’ve never been…this event sounds great…especially as this is the big kick-off for the merger of 2 big OC networking groups.

http://www.octaneoc.org/calendar/view_event.asp?CalendarID=659

DigitalLA – Digital Music Panel: Artists Go Social – 4/12/2010 (Monday)
7-10pm Beverly Center
If you or your company are into music and social media, this looks to be good.

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=377946387339

Los Angeles High Scalability Group April Meetup – 4/13/2010 (Tuesday)
7pm in Santa Monica
Also known as “the hadoop meetup”. High signal to noise ratio. Highly recommended.

http://www.meetup.com/scalela/

Los Angeles PHP Developers – 4/13/2010
7pm @ CoLoft in Santa Monica
Check out the new co-working space at CoLoft. I haven’t been, but Oleg is a new member to the group, and I have heard good things. Recommended.

Social Media Club LA – 4/14/2010 (Wednesday)
Left, Right and Twitter: Social Media and Its Impact on Politics
7-9pm Santa Monica
Network with the Social Media crowd. Be warned: saying you are a technologist is like throwing chum in shark infested waters. I like this event, have gotten work out of it, but you have to have some good people filters to make it a good use of time.

http://www.socialmediaclub.la/

Copyrights and Design Patents – Filling the Gaps in Your IP Strategy – 4/13/2010 (Tuesday)
7:30-9:30am San Diego
Purely educational.

http://www.commnexus.org/programs/special-interest-groups/event_20100315.php

Mindshare – 4/15/2010 (Thursday)
7pm+
Where art meets science. I still haven’t been…but this is #1 on my list of new events to attend.

http://www.mindshare.la/

CalTech/MIT Enterprise Forum – 4/17/2010 (Friday)
8am – noon Pasadena
The Business of Social Attraction and Aggregation – How Do Fast Growth and Fads Become Successful Ventures?
Still haven’t been yet (Pasadena, eh?), but the CalTech/MIT forum is great.

http://www.entforum.caltech.edu/

LAMPsig – 4/17/2010 (Saturday)
1-3pm mid-Wilshire
Haven’t been. Any feedback from the group?

http://lampsig.org/new/

LA C# – 4/20/2010 (Tuesday)
7-9pm Manhattan Beach
Haven’t been. Any feedback from the group?

http://lacsharp.org/

Los Angeles Web Application Developers – 4/20/2010 (Tuesday)
7pm Location TBD
Will Jessup’s meetup. Very popular. Haven’t been yet, but will check it out soon. Any feedback from the group?

http://web.meetup.com/34/

From CTO to CEO – 4/22/2010 (Tuesday)
Irvine
Self-explanatory!

http://www.tcvn.org

StartUp Venture Summit – 4/22/2010 (Thursday)
9-5pm Los Angeles
For Entrepreneurs and Investors to Grow a Successful Venture. Tech Supper Club/Tech Cost Angels – $195

http://techsupperclub.com/Startup_Venture_Home.html

LA Flash Users Group – 4/22/2010 (Tuesday)
7-9pm
Haven’t been. Any feedback from the group?

http://laflash.org

LA Games Conference – 4/29/2010 (Thursday)
9-5pm Hollywood
A conference on gaming…pretty obvious choice for gaming companies and technologists. I may be there.

http://www.lagamesconference.com/

LA CTO Forum – 4/9/2010 (Friday)
8-10am Santa Monica
Content Categorization

http://lactoforum.org/

The Israel Conference – 6/3/2010 (Thursday)
9-5pm Los Angeles
This is a couple months away, but I went last year and it was a great event. Currently $180, soon to $210 ($295 at door)

http://www.theisraelconference.org/

Here are a couple other events with no confirmed dates for April or May. These are fantastic events that I look forward to going back to.

Startups Uncensored – http://www.jasonnazar.com/
Dorkbot – http://dorkbot.org/
LA Web/Mobile Software Entrepreneurs – http://lawebmo.com

Happy networking!

-=John

We are broadcasting the Media Summit 2010 live from NYC today. Take a look at our shareable and embeddable widget:

It’s just a taste of things to come…

The Social Media Club panel on Google Analytics event that I participated in is now online. I had a great time speaking with Erica Fourette and the other panelists. I hope that everybody who attended (both offline and online) got at least one or two good bits of knowledge or science out of the discussion. 150+ people were in attendance at Mahalo. SMCLA also had a very large online viewing turnout, too. At one point before the event, I realized that I was trying to do 3 things at the same time: a) talking to Efren (TechZulu) about how he broadcasts the event b) setting up pizza and beverages and c) meeting my fellow panelists (I only knew the moderator) before panelizing together. I went with c), but I made sure to buy (later that week) the same Canopus encoder that Efren has for our own efforts and grab a slice and a soda on my way to the panelists meetup. The whole event was a most enjoyable – well done, SMCLA!

Here is TechZulu’s recording of the event:

I am helping OpenColony look for an Interaction Design Manager. Do you know of anyone who fits the bill? This is a great gig. Here is the job description:

We seek an interaction design manager with agile design and technology experience, a leader with vision and the ability to execute and productize their ideas. Can you make an impact in a smart, culturally diverse environment? Do you enjoy dynamic interactions, services and systems? If you have been successful at integrating interaction design into an agile development environment, this is an opportunity to significantly impact our organization’s products and product development processes. You can make an impact on the overall culture and processes here. If you care about being socially responsible and working for justice, we share your values. Sound good? Then email us: contact@opencolony.com

Responsibilities
• Participate in cross‐disciplinary round table discussions.
• Design for rapid product and service development in global, innovative Web Product and Services Company.
• Help hire, manage and develop a team of product‐specific interaction designers with strong programming and rapid prototyping skills in San Francisco and Bangalore.
• Help hire and introduce a graphic designer to organization in order to design across products and services offerings.
• Design and Deliver flexible, consistent, collaborative interaction guidelines/tools for products and services organizations.
• Provide vision and leadership for Studios and Professional Services teams.
• Interact with the customers and in‐house stakeholders to conduct Customer Research (contextual inquiry, interviews, exploratory sketching, card sorting, etc) and effectively translate it into actionable experiences
• Design and build solutions for complex applications, including analysis of workflow, creation of Lo and Hi‐Fi wireframes and functional prototypes for content‐driven web sites and applications
• Manage workflow and deliverables for the Interaction design team.
• Impact existing products and services offerings as well and new product and service offerings in the pipeline.

Qualifications
• 7‐10 years interaction design experience.
• Demonstrable experience designing and implementing flexible customer experiences and products.
• Experience hiring, training and managing interaction designers.
• Experience managing or peer‐peer with technical, design and UXD functions.
• Demonstrable technical and interaction design innovation experience.
• Degree in human computer interaction, digital arts, social science or computer science.
• Rapid prototyping and coding experience in HTML/CSS and JavaScript a must.
• Business Strategy and Organizational Design Experience a plus.
• UXD, Research and Visual Design experience a major plus.
• International management experience and/or experience managing teams in different countries a must. Multiple languages a plus.
• Excellent communication, collaborative and presentation skills.
• Portfolio of work to demonstrate conceptual, research and implementation processes and skills.
• Expert in interaction design and industry best practices.
• Experience in client facing role in an agency, management consultancy or professional services firm a plus.
• Passion for complex web applications, process and system design.
• Strong attention to detail.
Sound good? Then email us: contact@opencolony.com

Fast Company has a great article on why you should start a company in Los Angeles.

Since 1994, I have spent about half of my time in the Bay Area and the other half in Los Angeles. LA beats the Bay for a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is that Los Angeles focuses on building viable businesses, whereas the Bay Area largely focuses solely on technology…for the sake of technology. Los Angeles has a lot more opportunities in a number of very large-scale verticals, which means a wider variety of work and types of work for tech workers than the Bay Area. Speaking of industry verticals – Entertainment, Advertising, Automotive, and Lead Generation (to name a mere few) are all based in the Southern California area. And of course, there is the weather!