Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Mayor Bloomberg Unveils The Made In NY Digital Jobs Map For Silicon Alley Startups

Mayor Bloomberg Unveils The Made In NY Digital Jobs Map For Silicon Alley Startups: Screen Shot 2012-05-15 at 12.00.30 PM
Today Mayor Bloomberg rolled out the Made in NY Digital Map, an easy way to find New York City’s tech startups and job opportunities. The interactive map keeps startups, investors, developers and designers in the know about what’s going on in Silicon Alley.
From the Made in New York Map site: “The Made in NY Digital Map is a visual testament to the vibrant state of New York’s digital industry – showing a powerful constellation of over 500 homegrown startups, investors and coworking spaces across the five boroughs. Browse by neighborhood, review job postings, or add your own startup to the digital landscape – the Made in NY Map is a living resource that reflects New York City’s dynamic innovation ecosystem.”
According to the site there are currently 324 NYC tech companies looking to hire. Every startup, investor and shared workspace in all five boroughs is mapped out with links to each respective company and job board. This is yet another feather in Bloomberg’s cap in an effort to push New York as the next tech hub.


Ask That Job Candidate if He or She Ran a Lemonade Stand

Ask That Job Candidate if He or She Ran a Lemonade Stand:
Around this time each year, career-minded college students are busy sewing-up internships for the summer months. A new study by Millennial Branding illustrates that entrepreneurial experience is in demand by nearly 1 out of three employers.
The study, conducted with Experience Inc., compiled information from 225 companies about their hiring practices.
You might assume that experience would rank at the top of employer wish lists.  But for entry-level positions that students and recent grads apply for, employers say they place a high degree of importance on so-called ‘soft skills.’  Effective communication, a positive attitude and teamwork skills ranked as important or very important to employers.
Even more interesting: 29% said entrepreneurship experience is either important or very important in the hiring process.
Dan Schawbel, Managing Director of Millennial Branding LLC, says he’s not surprised at all that employers are looking at entrepreneurship experience when hiring for entry-level positions:
“Companies need innovators in order to stay relevant. Employers, especially the ones I’ve spoken to, value entrepreneurship experience over internship experience because you learn a lot more about business. A lot of internships are unpaid and you do clerical work … whereas entrepreneurs get their hands in sales, marketing, product development, etc. Student entrepreneurs are seen as leaders, innovators and have a good sense of personal accountability.”
Consider what it means to be a young entrepreneur.  Whether it’s a lemonade stand, paper route, lawn care services, house painting, bake sales — all teach hard business skills like marketing, sales, pricing, managing a P&L, accounting, production and customer service.
hiring skills in demand
But perhaps the most important things entrepreneurs learn are the skills that employers value so highly according to the study (see excerpt of accompanying infographic above):
  • Communication skills -  Communication is a must if you want to sell your products or services.  Successful entrepreneurs quickly figure out what words and body language help close sales, and what doesn’t work.
  • Positive attitude - You have to have a positive, can-do attitude in order to get a new venture off the ground.  People who constantly look at all the downsides and can never see the upside, will talk themselves out of starting a business.
  • Adaptable to change - Running a business requires frequent adjustment.  You start your lemonade stand and it rains all week.  So you grab your pitcher and go door to door, because you know people won’t be walking along the sidewalk. Entrepreneurs simply adjust.
  • Teamwork - Being an entrepreneur requires working with others to get things done.
  • Goals oriented - Entrepreneurship is all about setting goals. “I’m going to get my lemonade stand started this week. I’m going to make X in sales this month.” Entrepreneurs intuitively work toward a series of goals.
So what’s the conclusion?  If you’re in hiring mode, you might just ask the next job candidate whether he or she “ran a lemonade stand.”  It could signify that the candidate has the kind of skills you value in the workplace.
From Small Business Trends

Ask That Job Candidate if He or She Ran a Lemonade Stand

Hard work on the right things

Hard work on the right things:
I don't think winners beat the competition because they work harder. And it's not even clear that they win because they have more creativity. The secret, I think, is in understanding what matters.
It's not obvious, and it changes. It changes by culture, by buyer, by product and even by the day of the week. But those that manage to capture the imagination, make sales and grow are doing it by perfecting the things that matter and ignoring the rest.
Both parts are difficult, particularly when you are surrounded by people who insist on fretting about and working on the stuff that makes no difference at all.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Fancy telemetry control display for a quadcopter

Fancy telemetry control display for a quadcopter:

Most of the quadcopter projects that we’ve seen use a joystick-based control system. This lets you fly the thing around like any RC vehicle. But [Saulius] is augmenting his control system by pulling and displaying telemetry data. It doesn’t really change the way the vehicle is controller, but it lets the craft roam much further away because the operator can watch the computer screen and forego the need for the quadcopter to be within sight.
A Carambola board (also used in this weather station project) is used to provide connectivity. This is WiFi based, which helps us understand the range it can travel. The quadcopter carries a camera, which is shown in the lower right box of the image above. There is also an artificial horizon, and feedback dials which display the telemetry data.
It looks like there’s a satellite view in between those two dashboard widgets. We don’t see anything coming up right now, but it’s possible this is meant to overlay a virtual marker for the aircraft’s position based on GPS data. That last part is really just conjecture though. Catch the 80-second test flight after the jump.



Filed under: wireless hacks