Using Twitter to Enhance Your Job Search

Did you know you can use Twitter to enhance your job search? That’s right, Twitter! And what’s more, you don’t even need a Twitter account to do it. By now you’re probably thinking, “Okay, he’s lost it. How in the world can a 140 character text message help in my job search.” Stand by. You might be surprised.

Search.Twitter.Com is a direct link to the Twitter search engine. You do not need a Twitter account to use it.  Today, many recruiters and hiring managers tweet about available job openings, sometimes before they are posted to job boards. The tweet usually contains a tiny hyperlink to the actual job description and application process.

For example, go to search.twitter.com and type “IT director jobs” without the quotes in the search criteria textbox. Click the search button and within seconds you’ll return a list of tweets in a results set that matches your search criteria. I performed this search today as I wrote this article and on the first page of results I see a listing for an Assistant Director IT Project Management at Ernst & Young in Cleveland, OH. As you scan the results list, you will literally find pages of job posting tweets containing your search words, many of them just minutes old. The Ernst and Young position was tweeted just 3 minutes before I did the search.

So how do you capitalize from Twitter searches if you find a job posting that interests you? Make sure you say in your cover letter, “I saw your tweet.” Why? Because using Twitter to announce job postings is a bit…let’s say…unconventional? It’s very likely the recruiter or hiring manager who sent the tweet raised a few eyebrows amongst his/her peers when s/he told them what s/he was doing. By saying “I saw your tweet,” you are accomplishing at least two important validation tasks.

First, you’re making the recruiter or hiring manager look good. That person went out on a limb to try something unconventional and it worked. They received responses from qualified candidates for their job posting of which you are one.

Second, you’ve validated the recruiter or hiring manager’s ideas. If for nothing else, you just made that person’s day. You’ve confirmed that their unconventional approach works. How? You’ve applied for the position. By validating them, you’ve probably just moved to the top or near to the top of the list of prospective candidates. Or at the very least, they will certainly take a good, close look at your qualifications.

The news outlets have been reporting that this country has never in history suffered such a deep recession and such a flat recovery. With reported unemployment hovering over 9%, there is a lot of competition to find your next position. Thinking out of the box these days is essential to finding your new role. Be creative and use every tool at your disposal.

Best Practices for Job Hunting in the 21st Century—Part 3

This concludes the list of job hunting best practices as discussed by a cross-functional networking group that met at Colonial JobSeekers, Cary, NC on Monday, October 18, 2010.

Personal/Handwritten Communication—Corresponding on nice stationary in ink is mostly a lost art today. Yet, nothing says I care more than sending someone a handwritten thank you note. If a recruiter invites you to apply for a position, send them a note. If you have a telephone interview, send a note. If the source of the phone interview is local, drive over to the company and leave a note. If you have a face-to-face interview, leave a note at the reception desk for the interviewer on your way out the door.

Positive Perspective—No matter what, do your best to keep a positive attitude. Did you know, when you smile when you speak to someone on the telephone, the other person can actually sense it? A positive attitude communicates confidence.

Reconnect with Past Relationships—If you are like me, you probably have a drawer full of business cards you’ve collected from people over the years. When was the last time you touched base with any of them? For that matter, when was the last time you touched base with any of your friends. I recently reconnected with my best friend from high school on LinkedIn and a friend on facebook I used to play with in the park when I was five. Keep in touch with your past. You’ll never know who may be able to open the right door for you.

Remain Hopeful—This goes hand in hand with a positive attitude. British clergyman Charles Kingsley said, “The men whom I have seen succeed best in life always have been cheerful and hopeful men; who went about their business with a smile on their faces; and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men; facing rough and smooth alike as it came.” All of us who are unemployed are facing rough times; and sometimes, very long rough times. But the as the sunrises each day, there is hope on the horizon within our grasp. As do the United States Marine, we need to adapt, improvise and overcome obstacles as we accomplish our missions and win our battles. And we need to do it cheerfully

Small Business Groups—Get out and meet with small business groups. In the Raleigh area there is a group called TAFU which means To Avoid Future Unemployment. This networking group is a blend of both the employed and unemployed. Each person stands and gives their 45-second elevator speech. People throughout the room take notes and if anyone can help, they’ll meet offline to discuss possibilities. There is also a Raleigh Christian Business Man’s group called the His Biz Network. When I attended that one, I received several leads to conduct Lead Like Jesus servant leader encounter workshops. Don’t spend all your time online. Search your area for small business groups and get out and meet people.

Social Networking—A lot of doors have opened for me through social networking. I’ve received invitations for public speaking, opportunities to connect with new people and have become a member of the NC Executive Roundtable which meets weekly. As of the time of this writing, I have over 5,100 direct connections on LinkedIn, over 800 friends on facebook and 242 followers on Twitter. Through networking, I have been able to help others find jobs. Networking, whether the online social kind or face to face is about helping others. The more people you help, the greater the rewards.

Teach Webinars—Do you consider yourself an expert in your field? Do others? Do others come to you for advice? If this sounds like you, then teach webinars. If you’re on a shoestring budget, sign up for services such as Freebinar and conduct free webinars for up to 150 people. Marketing yourself as an expert in your field can gain you valuable contacts and open many doors of opportunity for you. With so many contacts on LinkedIn, I’ll be doing this myself in the near future.

Temp Jobs—Don’t turn down temp jobs if they come your way. One gentleman in the discussion group dressed as the Statue of Liberty to advertise Liberty Tax Preparation Service in Raleigh. He stood on the street corner waving to passers-by. He made more contacts while performing this temp job than he could ever imagine. Don’t be afraid to humble yourself for a temp job. With the holiday season fast approaching, there will be Christmas tree marketers looking for seasonal temp workers all over the country. Take one of these jobs if you can. The first person you sell a holiday item to or help them carry it to their car, could be the CEO of the company you’ve been targeting.

Trust God—For many, this is the toughest one of all because God asks us to accept His will by faith. Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We can’t see or touch God and He doesn’t speak audibly to us. He speaks to us through His Word and the impressions of His Holy Spirit. Missionary Kyle Sutton in Australia says, “The greater the thing God wants to say to the believer, the quieter He says it.” Proverbs 3:5–6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; And lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he shall direct thy paths.” God never does anything that isn’t for our benefit. Learn to listen for His still small voice and trust Him with all your heart that whatever it is you are going through right now will work out for the best. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. ”—Romans 8:28, (KJV)

Volunteerism—There are many ways to volunteer your time to stay connected with people and possibly land the job of your dreams. You’ll need to search out the opportunities in your own geographic location, but the following suggestions have worked for people in the Raleigh area. If you are in IT, volunteer for organizations that accept donations of old computers. In Raleigh, we have an organization called the The Purple Elephant. Information Technology resources that have volunteered for that organization have landed positions because part of the job is to call IT leaders in various companies to solicit donations. As the conversations progress and relationships are built, current job openings are discussed and the volunteers are invited to apply! Another great place to volunteer is Habitat for Humanity. Many corporations plan outdoor “give-back” days with Habitat. Volunteering for Habitat gives you access to the where and when resources from a target company may be building a new home. The day they are there, you go work as well. This allows you to work side-by-side with the company you are targeting to learn as much as you can about their culture and hidden job opportunities. It also gives them an opportunity to see what you are made of. The last volunteer suggestion for this post is to volunteer at your local convention center if there’s one near you. Convention centers are always looking for volunteers to work registration tables for different corporate events. Working a registration table gives you access to virtually everyone attending. This is networking to the max. Strike up conversations, give your 30-second elevator speech and you’ll never know where it can lead.

Wrong Hits? Check Out Company Anyway—In spite of all the best practices we’ve discussed, there will be times when a completely unsuitable job description hits your inbox. Check out the company anyway. Receiving information about job postings means the company is hiring. Check out their website. Even though the posting you received is unsuitable, there may be a very well suited job for you on their website.

Best Practices for Job Hunting in the 21st Century—Part 2

This continues the discussion of job hunting best practices as discussed by a cross-functional networking group that met at Colonial JobSeekers, Cary, NC on Monday, October 18, 2010.

Giant Fortune Cookie—Also Known as Thinking Outside The Box, this one got the person hired. A candidate did her homework and found out the hiring manager of the target job in the company she was targeting absolutely loved Chinese food. The candidate had a giant fortune cookie made and sent it to her prospective hiring manager. Rolled up inside the fortune cookie—her résumé! The candidate’s creativity so impressed the hiring manager that she was called in for the interview and got the job. I landed a big job once thinking outside the box as well. Instead of sending out my normally formatted résumés, I rewrote my résumé as a colorful tri-fold brochure on very expensive paper I bought from Paper Direct. The front cover said, “Look no further. The best has just applied!” I was hired for a 2-month contract assignment at AT&T Consumer Sales Division which was extended to more than a year. The hiring manager said he received over 200 résumés for the job on the first day. As soon as he saw my brochure, it went right to the top of the heap and I landed the position. Thinking outside the box will get you noticed, hopefully in a positive way.

Information Interviews—One of the best ways to gather information about your target companies is to ask someone. Information interviews involve talking with people who are currently working in your target field to gain a better understanding of an occupation or industry—and to build a network of contacts in that field. The person who brought up this best practice locates popular coffee shops and lunch destinations proximal to the companies he’s targeting. At break times he visits these shops and strikes up conversations with people working at the company to learn whatever he can about their culture and hiring practices.

Job Fairs—If you’ve never been to a job fair, it is an experience not to be missed. There’s nothing better than meeting recruiters face-to-face. At least twice, I’ve been given 45-minute interviews right on the spot, both at the same job fair. There’s something about adding your appearance and personality to the presentation of your résumé that attracts peoples’ attention. The job fair I attended was in Boston. Senior-level recruiters were present from companies all over New England. The job fair targeted IT staff positions. I achieved IT Director status in a major corporation and hadn’t done any hands-on development work for about 4 years, but I went anyway. I visited the booth from ESPN and started discussing my background. The senior recruiter asked me to step outside with him and told me he had just received requests for three Senior Director or Executive Director positions, but that the positions had not yet been approved. He wanted to get me in his queue so we could be ready to move forward should they get approved. We talked for almost an hour. A month later, I received an email from the recruiter explaining the positions had been cancelled. At the same job fair, a recruiter from a company in New Hampshire said my resume was the senior-most IT résumé he had seen all day. As he looked it over, he mentioned that there was a discussion at his company that they might start recruiting to hire a CIO in the near future. He said the discussions were in the early stages and their was nothing concrete yet. Nevertheless, we spoke for about 45 minutes. The job never materialized. The point to all this is that when you attend a job fair, prepare and dress to be interviewed on the spot.

Keep Skills Current—When you finally land an interview and a recruiter or hiring manager is holding your résumé in his/her hand and asks, “What have you been doing since you lost your last position?” What are you going to say? It’s critical at this juncture that you demonstrate that you’ve been actively keeping your skill set current. For my example, even though I haven’t worked as a hands-on application developer for some time, I am keeping both my development and management skills current. I’ve taught myself how to write applications for the Android operating system, popular in the smartphone and tablet PC world. For the management skills, I have been appointed to leadership positions in volunteer groups and am a member of an executive round-table. What are you doing? How can you show that you’ve been keeping your skills current or learning new skills during your transition period?

Networking & Seminars—Attend as many networking events and seminars as you can. In the Raleigh area, they are all over the place. Are you on LinkedIn? Do you belong to groups specific to your geographic location on LinkedIn? If not, you ought to be. Networking has led me to land public speaking engagements and meet some very interesting people I might not have met elsewhere. Most networking events are free, but there are some that charge a nominal fee. The idea is to introduce yourself at a networking event and then get alone with a person of interest over a cup of coffee later to discuss synergies. It’s kind of like speed dating with the intent of landing a position. If there are no networking events in your area, start one. You might be surprised where it could lead.

Pay It Forward—The concept of paying it forward was popularized in a 2000 movie of the same name starring Kevin Spacey, Haley Joel Osment, Helen Hunt and Jay Mohr. The idea of paying it forward has been documented to exist from as early as 317 BC. In his 1841 essay Compensation, Ralph Waldo Emerson,  wrote: "In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody." Paying it forward is giving to others. As we get out and network, keep in mind that it’s not all about you. It is all about what we can do to help others. Case in point is something that happened just a few weeks ago in the IT Special Interest Group I lead at Colonial JobSeekers. A women visited us for the first time after being out of work for a number of years to raise her family. Reentering the job market after such a long period of absence is not easy. She formerly worked as a corporate technology trainer and wants to get back into teaching. Later that evening I received an email from another member of the group who said he landed an interview with, of all things, a tech training company. I asked if there were any opportunities for this new person. He forwarded her résumé to the hiring manager he was interviewing with. She landed a contract position teaching SharePoint. When we put the interests of others ahead of our own interests, paying it forward works. You’ll definitely receive dividends.

Well, it looks like I miscalculated how long I would have to write to share all of the best practices we discussed. So it looks like there’s going to have to be at least a Part-3 to this series. We have 11 more best practices to go and I’ll do my best to cover them in one more article.

Best Practices for Job Hunting in the 21st Century—Part 1

Despite the proliferation and ubiquity of technology, one of the best benefits to job hunting in today’s economy is networking. Not the social kind mind you, but really getting out to meet and greet people. It’s a great opportunity to engage with individuals you wouldn’t normally encounter in an every-day business-as-usual routine. I’m a very active networker. Almost every Monday you’ll find me at Colonial JobSeekers (CJS) in Cary, NC. An outreach ministry of Colonial Baptist Church, CJS has grown to become one of the largest and most trusted networking groups in the Triangle. If you live outside of North Carolina, the Triangle is the area comprising the cities of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill.

One reason CJS is so popular is the diverse activities that take place. Generally, guest speakers are in at least once a month and training classes are offered every week for interviewing skills and LinkedIn. Other special training classes are held regularly as well, such as resume writing or the difference between W2s vs. 1099s, a common topic of interest for anyone considering a contract position. In addition to classes, we regularly segment into Special Interest Groups (SIG). I sit on the groups steering committee and facilitate the IT SIG which runs about 20-30 attendees.

This past Monday we did something different. We held cross-functional discussion groups. Normally SIGs are grouped according to chosen profession. The cross-function groups are distinctive in that attendees are randomly assigned to specified meeting rooms where facilitators await to guide the pre-planned discussion.

Normally, one can expect 200 or more attendees at CJS. For some reason, overall attendance was lower than usual this week which could be a very good sign the economy is improving. If job seekers aren’t showing up, it could mean they’re landing or at least getting interviews.

I volunteered to facilitate in Room 208. I had about 4-5 people show up. This is too small for a cross-functional discussion so I ended up merging my group with two other small groups and co-facilitated with Carol, a Meyers-Briggs facilitator and organizational development expert. In her 45-second elevator speech, she describes herself as a person who teaches adults to play nice with each other. (Don’t we all need that kind of training at times!)

We ended up with a group of about 20. The three-fold topic of the day is to give your 45-second elevator speech, share a blessing that came out of the unemployment situation and discuss best practices of the job hunt. Everyone has an opportunity to share what’s been working for them and what hasn’t been working for them. The discussion turned out to be an extremely fruitful and educational experience for us all. At the end of the day, we walked away with a list of 22 best practices to ponder and embrace as our own if we’re so inclined. Everyone, me included, left that room with new ideas and renewed energy.

The balance of this article and the full content of the next one contain descriptions of the best practices we discussed. You’ll find a lot of articles out there written by recruiters or other experts that highlight best practices from their professional perspective. That is not what this list is. This list is actual best practices being used by job hunters today to land interviews or open new doors of opportunity that might never have been available to them otherwise. The list is practical and sage. So let’s begin with Accountability Groups.

Accountability Groups—One principle taught in many leadership programs is the concept of a personal board of directors. A personal board of directors is a group of not more than 10-12 people who you readily trust. In fact, if you have 5-6 count yourself fortunate indeed. These may include your spouse or significant other, your closest friends and colleagues whose opinions you value. They have your best interest at heart. They watch your back and you watch theirs. One young lady shared that she uses this concept to help her stay on track with her job searching. It’s so easy to get distracted or discouraged these days, especially if you’ve been out of work for a long while. Your accountability group will hold you responsible for the goals you’ve set for yourself and help you remain focused.

Alumni Organizations—How many of your classmates do you stay in touch with? I’ll bet the answer lies somewhere between not many to more than a few. Unless you’re comfortable waiting for your next reunion, if you’re out of work reconnect with your classmates through your Alumni Association. You’ll never know if the nerd you once despised is in a position to introduce you to your next boss or could very well become your next boss.

Automated Job Agents—Virtually every job board has some sort of automated job agent. Instead of logging in and scanning hundreds of job postings each day, let your virtual headhunter do part of the job for you. Automated job agents are relatively easy to setup as long as you understand how to execute computer searches. You establish the search criteria, save it and schedule it to run at specified intervals. The results are sent to you in an email. Automated job agents are very useful if you are considering job markets outside your geographic location.

Bcc—One enterprising gentleman keeps in touch with the large number of recruiters he’s connected with on a weekly basis using his email program’s Bcc feature. Not sure what Bcc means? It means blind carbon copy.  In the context of correspondence, blind carbon copy refers to the practice of sending a message to multiple recipients in such a way that it conceals individual email addresses from the complete list of recipients. To see it work, put your own email address in the “To:” field and everyone else in the “Bcc:.” Some email clients don’t display the Bcc field automatically so you may think you don’t have one, but rest assured you do. When you send the email, it will appear as though you sent it to yourself even though everyone in the Bcc received it. Take the time to learn how to use Bccs within your email client.

Employment Security Commission Professionals—In North Carolina, all issues related to employment or unemployment as the case may be, fall under the oversight of the Employment Security Commission or ESC. The goal of every professional working for the ESC is to help the underemployed or unemployed find work. And they have access to resources that the common person cannot get their hands on such as inside information on job postings. One service the ESC can provide is to tell you the name of the hiring manager for almost any job posting within the state. That’s valuable information to have as you plan your follow-ups. Your state may have similar services to North Carolina’s. Take advantage of it if you can. The ESC professionals are here to help you. Schedule a one-on-one appointment with an ESC professional to learn how the agency can help you in your particular circumstance.

Well, that’s it for today. I’ll complete the list of best practices in my next post.

Use Word/Tag Cloud Technology to Determine Your Resume Keywords

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts make a ton of money teaching people how to achieve a higher ranking in search results. It doesn’t matter if the results are from a Google search or for a jobs database for a position to which you just applied. They all promise to help you move to the top of the list. The problem with such promises is that there is only one slot at the top of any list. We all can’t be on top, but we can definitely improve in our rankings.

For example, if you search my full name in Google, “Victor M. Font Jr.,” I come up in the 1st through 4th and 7th places. If you search a partial variant of my name (i.e. “Victor Font”), I come up in the 4th and 9th positions. That’s not too bad considering most people don’t read past the first or second page of Google search results. In both examples, I am on the first page.

In this time of high unemployment and stiff competition for open positions, if my name came up in a recruiter’s search like it does on Google, I’d be pretty pleased. And I’m confident that you would be just as pleased with rankings like that in a recruiter’s candidate search, wouldn’t you? Of course you would and so would I.

Since I’ve been seeking my next role, I’ve received more spam from SEO experts promising to help me move to the top of search lists using a technique called “keyword optimization.” All of them ask for money to teach the technique or perform the task themselves to optimize your resume with the right keywords. Whatever you do, don’t buy into this service. It’s a bunch of malarkey that optimizing your resume keywords one time for a fee will consistently bring you to the top positions in a search result. In fact, it’s a pet peeve of mine that so many out there are willing to take advantage of the unemployed to line their own pockets with green. So I’m going to teach you one technique, that I use myself in this article. Best of all, you’re learning this for free!

To understand keyword optimization, it’s first important to recognize how jobs are posted and recruiters search for candidates. I’ve spent the better part of my IT career supporting Human Resources and HR systems including job posting and recruiting applications. I’ve also hired a lot of people over the years and the process is simple. As the hiring manager, I write the job descriptions and send them over to the HR talent acquisition team. A job board administrator modifies my job description to add the requisite HR, benefits and legal information and then posts the position on Dice or Monster.com. Then I wait.

The job is assigned to a talent acquisition specialist who is an expert at picking top talent to invite for interviews. But with hundreds, if not thousands of resumes competing for the eyes of this one talent acquisition specialist for this one job, how do you move yourself to or near the top of the list, especially since the recruiter is searching for resumes that match the keywords found in the job description? The answer is keyword optimization. To be effective, keyword optimization needs to be done for every job to which you apply. This means slightly changing your resume for every job to which you apply. It takes work, but it can produce results!

I know! You’ve probably spent a long time getting your resume just right so it speaks of your accomplishments, what you did and what your results were. And it took hours of wordsmithing to say exactly what you mean in your objective or professional summary so you can market yourself effectively. But do you know what? The computer you enter your details into when you apply for a position doesn’t care a hill of beans about the hard work you put into your resume. All it cares about is mapping the resume’s keywords to the job description. And when the talent acquisition specialist searches for resumes based on the job description’s keywords, if your resume matches, you get on the list. If your resume doesn’t match, you’ll probably never hear from the company again.

When you look at a job description, you can probably pick out a lot of keywords, many of which may already be on your resume. But how do you know what the right keywords are? How do you know that you’ve chosen the right keywords for your resume that match the major keywords of the job description. This is where Word or Tag Cloud analysis can help you dramatically. I’m not going to tell you what tool to use, but if you do a search in Google for “word cloud tools,” you’ll find a lot of them, many of them free.

The first thing to do is analyze the job description. In the following example, I’ve created a Word Cloud for the job description for a “Systems Administrator Level – 3” position posted on Dice.com.

 

 

Now let’s do the analysis part. Looking at the word cloud, what keywords jump out at you? The words that jump out at me are “system,” “installation,” “experience,” “administration," etc.. Why? The more important the keyword to the context of the job description, the larger its size in the word cloud. In fact, if you look closely you’ll notice the word “administration” appears in the cloud twice, once with a lower case “a” and once with an uppercase “A.” What I should have done was convert the entire job description to either upper or lower case so the word cloud tool would have analyzed each word only once. It would have produced much more accurate results.

If you were applying for this position and you were to create a word cloud of your resume, would the same keywords jump out at you? If not, they won’t match a computer search either. You won’t be on the top of the heap and may not even be called for an interview even though you may be the most eminently qualified individual to have applied for the position. Computer searches are cold hearted and never take the person into account.

Before you apply for the position, modify your resume so the keywords of the job description stand out in your resume. Wordsmith your accomplishments or summary objective. Make sure the keywords sound natural in the context in which you are using them. But whatever you do, don’t resort to a just creating a list of keywords anywhere on your resume so a computer will pick up on it. This is lazy and the talent acquisition specialists will recognize this.

Motorola Acknowledges Droid X Froyo 2.2 Bugs—Fixes Coming

Matt, the Droid X forums manager inn the Motorola support forums, posted this blog article yesterday acknowledging some of the issues with the Droid X Froyo 2.2 release:

If you have already upgraded to 2.2 for Droid X, you have found some new capabilities. Unfortunately, some owners also found new issues.  Here are some of the known issues raised by forums members, with some information about each. It is not intended to be a complete list at this time -- there are many more fixes and improvements in the works. I’ll update this list as information becomes available.

• Stuck on Moto logo after reboot – this was tough on a few owners. Very sorry about that. A fix has been developed for this and should eliminate the problem. It will be distributed in a future software release. If you are still experiencing this issue, click here.

• Random rebooting – while there always seem to be new conditions that can cause an electronic device to panic, we do have improvements coming that address and eliminate identified panic states. They will be distributed in a future software release.

• Wi-Fi connection and stability – improvements in Wi-Fi have been developed, to address several problem areas. They will be distributed in a future software release.

• Battery Manager “force close” errors – under some circumstances, pressing the battery icon under Menu > Settings > Battery Manager results in a forced close error. A fix has been developed for this and should eliminate the problem. It will be distributed in a future software release.

• Media won’t play – includes “sorry the player does not support this type of audio file," custom ringtone stop working, video won’t play, etc., until after a reboot. We believe we have identified the cause of these errors. A fix has been developed for this and should eliminate the problem. It will be distributed in a future software release.

• Music files cutting off the final four seconds or so – a solution has been developed. It will be distributed in a future software release.

At this time I don't have information about when the next software update will be available -- when I have it, I'll share it here.

https://supportforums.motorola.com/thread/38876

Setting Up an Android Development Environment

My HP DV8T laptop is now setup as an Android application development environment. It was very easy to do so and everything worked the first time. I was able to create, test and debug the infamous “Hello World" app within 5 minutes of having completed the environment. The instructions I am providing here are for the Windows platform only. If you want to program in Linux or on a MAC, please visit the Android Developer Site for those platforms’ details.

To get going, you only need four things, two of which are required and two are optional:

1. Java Development Kit (JDK) version 5 or 6
2. Android SDK
3. Optional: Eclipse Version 3.4 or 3.5
4. Optional: Android Development Tools (ADT) Plugin

If you are new to programming, the term “SDK” means “Software Development Kit.” SDKs are sometimes called “devkits.” Typically, a SDK is a set of tools that allows for the creation of an application for a specific software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system or similar platform.

Java JDK

The Java Development Kit is available at Oracle's Java Download site. Simply download either the 32-bit or 64-bit version of the JDK depending on your OS version and run the program to install.

Eclipse

Eclipse is a very popular and free integrated development environment (IDE) available from Eclipse.org. An IDE provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of: a source code editor, a compiler and/or an interpreter, build automation tools and a debugger. For developing Android applications, it’s recommended that you install one of these packages:

• Eclipse IDE for Java EE Developers
• Eclipse IDE for Java Developers
• Eclipse for RCP/Plug-in Developers
• Eclipse Classic (versions 3.5.1 and higher)

There’s one BIG caveat to installing Eclipse. The Android Development Tools Plugin has known incompatibilities with the current version of Eclipse (3.6). If you are installing a fresh environment, it is recommended that you install version 3.5.x. I decided to install the 3.5.2 classic version and it was a painfully slow download. The package is a 168mb .zip file that took two days to download. The download kept timing out and I had to restart it many, many times. I’m very grateful that each time I restarted the download, it picked up again from where it had previously stalled. Unzip the Eclipse .zip file to the location of your choice and create a shortcut to the Eclipse executable and you’re ready to go. There is no Eclipse installer to run.

Android Development Kit

The Android Development Kit (ADK) is another .zip file like Eclipse. Once it’s downloaded, unzip the file to the location of your choice. Again, like Eclipse, there is no windows installer to run. It’s important to note that what you have just downloaded is the ADK starter package only. You haven’t downloaded any of the real ADK SDKs yet. To download the actual SDK and Google application programming interfaces (APIs), run the SDK Manager program located in the directory in which you unzipped the ADK starter package.

When you run the SDK Manager, you’ll be presented with a list of available SDK and API packages. I installed the Android 2.1 and 2.2 SDKs, samples for the two SDKs, APIs 7 and 8, documentation for API 8, USB Driver package and Market Licensing package. Once selected for download, the items download and install automatically. Google has done a great job making the install as easy as possible for developers.

After the SDKs are downloaded and installed, create at least one virtual device with the SDK Manager. The virtual device is a SDK platform specific emulator you can use later for testing your applications.

Android Development Tools Plugin

The Android Development Tools Plugin is installed from within Eclipse itself. To install the ADT, follow these directions from the Android Developer web site:

1. Start Eclipse, then select Help > Install New Software.
2. In the Available Software dialog, click Add....
3. In the Add Site dialog that appears, enter a name for the remote site (for example, "Android Plugin") in the "Name" field.

   In the "Location" field, enter this URL:

   https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/

   Note: If you have trouble acquiring the plugin, you can try using "http" in the URL, instead of "https" (https is preferred for security reasons).

   Click OK.

4. Back in the Available Software view, you should now see "Developer Tools" added to the list. Select the checkbox next to Developer Tools, which will automatically select the nested tools Android DDMS and Android Development Tools. Click Next.
5. In the resulting Install Details dialog, the Android DDMS and Android Development Tools features are listed. Click Next to read and accept the license agreement and install any dependencies, then click Finish.
6. Restart Eclipse.

Hang in there, we’re almost done. There’s one step left and you’ll be on your way to developing your first Android application. Now that the ADT is installed, it needs to be configured to work with the Android SDK. To configure the ADT, you must point it to the Android SDK directory. From within Eclipse:

1. Select Window > Preferences... to open the Preferences panel
2. Select Android from the left panel.
3. For the SDK Location in the main panel, click Browse... and locate your downloaded SDK directory.
4. Click Apply, then OK.

Android Market Developer Account

Once you start writing your own Android applications, you might just be the one to make a fortune with “the killer app” that everyone else dreams of writing. To sell on the Android Market, you must have an Android Market Developer account. Google charges $25.00 USD to open an Android Market account. They also make it very easy to accept payments through the Google checkout system once you have an Android Market account by offering you to open a Google checkout merchant account. As with any merchant account, Google charges a transaction fee on each of your sales. The normal transaction fees are based on a sliding scale determined by the amount of your monthly sales. For example, if you sell less than $1,000 per month, you pay 2.9% + $.30 for each sale. But for anything sold through the Android Market, the fee structure is vastly different.

As of the time of this writing, the transaction fee for anything sold through the Android Market is 30%. Yes, that’s right! Google charges a whopping 30% fee on anything you sell through the Android Market and of course, you are responsible for collecting and paying any applicable sales taxes. If only I had the foresight to buy Google stock back in the day!

Reinventing Yourself as an Android App Developer

I’ve spent a large portion of my professional life as a software developer. I’ve written applications for video stores, doctors, lawyers, insurance companies, banks, and some of the world’s largest corporate entities both as a consultant and full-time employee. For the last eight years, I’ve worked purely in corporate management, but to keep my development skills somewhat honed, I’ve taught myself .NET, specifically C#. My personal web sites are all C# .NET. Over the years, I’ve written applications in C, C++, xBase, Smalltalk, Turbo Pascal, Java, Perl and PHP, just to name a few of the languages in which I’m conversant. I never went to school to learn how to be a programmer, yet it’s been a great source of my success, satisfaction and income over the years.

The first language I ever learned was basic. I had been given a Timex Sinclair 1000 as a Christmas present. In 1982, computers were vastly different than they are today. My Droid X has more processing power than my old Timex did. It hooked up to a TV as a monitor and it stored data on an audio cassette. Primitive as it was, for me it was the beginning of a life-long learning experience. Using that computer, I learned how to write software and I started getting my software review articles published in a variety of magazines. It was definitely a launching pad for my IT career.

I’ve never been afraid to try new things and learning new languages generally comes very easily to me. After all, how many different ways are their to write loops and branches. And of course, there’s always pointers and garbage collection to contend with! But object-oriented is object-oriented. I believe that if you know the basics, it’s a rather trivial matter to apply them to different languages. But rest assured, I  didn’t always have the confidence in my abilities as I have today. If anyone should receive credit for building the confidence I have as a developer, it is Lynn Lehman.

Lynn was a manager I reported to for a time when I was a contractor at JP Morgan Bank on Wall Street. I didn’t care for Lynn very much. I think I rubbed him the wrong way and it showed. I thought he was arrogant, condescending and held a superior attitude over others. (These are exactly the same adjectives people used to describe me in my first corporate 360 evaluation after I became a manager at Warner-Lambert.)

Lynn called me into his office one day and asked me to write an application in Lotus Notes. At that point I had never even seen Lotus Notes, let alone know its programming language well enough to write an application. Lynn wanted an issues tracking database. The foreign exchange currency trading system we just spent 2.5 years developing had rolled into production. Now the development team was transitioning into maintenance mode and Lynn wanted an application to track issues and bugs. He wanted it done in Lotus Notes.

My initial reaction was to protest and say no because I didn’t know Lotus Notes. Lynn just looked at me and very calmly asked me, “Are you a professional programmer or not?” After pausing to recover from this lightening strike, I said, “Yes I am.” Then he said, “So write me a program in Lotus Notes. I want it complete in 6 weeks.” I delivered the fully functioning and tested application in 4 weeks.

A May 2004 article in USA Today called Madonna “The Mother of Reinvention.” This was because she was travelling the world at that time on her “Reinvention Tour.” With today’s high unemployment and significant competition for jobs, many people today are  reinventing themselves, perhaps transitioning into completely different careers than they did before.

So far this year, I’ve written my first book and became a registered facilitator for the Lead Like Jesus servant leadership encounter workshop. As I continue to seek gainful full-time employment, I’ve decided to reinvent my developer skills somewhat and perhaps create an income stream in the process. I’m going to reinvent myself as an Android app developer in addition to all the other irons I have in the fire right now.

How am I going to do it? Well, I’m going to take baby steps at first. It’s been a while since I’ve written any production-level code. Finding my next job and continuing my networking activities are still priority #1. The first step though is setting up one of my computers as a development environment. I’m going to use my HP DV8T laptop for this. In my next post, I’ll share how to setup the development environment.

Top 20 Favorite Android Applications

Never have I been more pleased with a cell phone than I am with my Droid X. I don’t know if it’s the sophistication of the hardware, the capabilities of the Android operating system or the enormous amount of apps that are available in the market place. But whatever “IT” is, I am enthralled.

I’ve spent more time in the past two weeks browsing forums, reading reviews, and trying out specific apps to make the phone work the way I want it to work. I’ve found many lists for what certain writers consider to be the “best” or “essential” or their “favorite” droid apps. I was pleased to see that many people agree with the choices I’ve made independently of these lists, but then again, there are some apps that I love that nobody else seems to know much about. And I know, I’m only beginning to scratch the surface. So let me share with you what I subjectively consider to be favorite android applications. All of them are either completely free or have free versions available that can be upgraded to “Pro” versions.

1. Astro File Manager by Metago: Rated by many websites as the best file manager available for Android, Astro allows you to manage files on your SD Card. You can execute functions such as copy, delete, move or rename; send files as attachments or manage running applications. Modules are available to Bluetooth OBEX FTP and SMB (Windows) networking features.
2. Compass by Catch.com: Displays a compass, location and geo-tagged notes.
3. Congress by Sunlight Foundation: Everything you ever wanted to know about Congress. Find your representatives using your location, get their contact information, see how they vote, follow bills through the process and read the newest laws.
4. Dial Zero by Next Mobile Web: Tired of wading through endless interactive voice prompts when trying to reach a real person in customer service? Not anymore!. Dial Zero provides direct customer service numbers to over 600 companies. 
5. DroidLight: A flashlight app from Motorola that allows you to turn the camera’s LED flash on and off like a flashlight. The Droid X’s twin LEDs are very bright. The flashlight app helps you to easily find the keyhole in the dark.
6. Google Goggles by Google Inc.: This is an amazing app that you need to use to believe! Take a picture of an object with your cell phone, Goggles attempts to recognize the object and return relevant search results.
7. Google Shopper by Google Inc.: Shopper uses the camera to recognize cover art, barcodes and can perform voice and text searches to find local and online prices, reviews, specs and more.
8. Google Sky Map by Google Inc.: Turns your Android based phone into a mobile planetarium. Hold the phone up to the sky and it uses your location to display the constellations you are seeing.
9. Google Translate by Google Inc.: Instantly translate text between 50 languages. Can use speech to text for recording and text to speech for playback.
10. Handcent SMS by handcent_admin: Full featured SMS/MMS replacement app for Android phones. Overcomes the weaknesses of the built-in app. Includes group sending options.
11. Key Ring by Mobestream Media: Tired of all the little membership reward cards cluttering your key ring? Scan them into this app and make room in your pocket. Display the barcode on your phone at checkout and have the clerk scan the phone instead. I’m still on the fence about this one. I’ve used this at two different stores and the scanner was unable to read the barcode on the phone. presumably due to the reflective nature of the phone.
12. Kindle Book Reader: Free app from Amazon.com that is preloaded on the Droid X. I was pleasantly surprised to see there are over 3,000 free books available for the Kindle Reade, most of them classics and all either in the public domain or offered free by their authors.
13. KJV BibleReader by Olive Tree: Nary a day goes by where I don’t do at least some devotional reading. The Olive Tree KJV BibleReader is a free download and includes the King James Version. Makes searching for specific passages easy. Tap “Library” to browse the store and download many free books and study guides.
14. Lookout Mobile Security by Lookout, Inc.: Provides antivirus, system backup and phone finder features for free. The phone finder is really cool. If the phone is lost of stolen, you can locate it on the map. If you’ve misplaced the phone around the house as I often do, you can send a blaring siren signal to the phone. Siren works even if the phone is silenced.
15. Mileage by Evan Charlton: A very simple app, Mileage lets you track your vehicle’s fuel consumption history and calculates lots of useful stats.
16. Note Everything by SoftXPerience: This is the most comprehensive note taking application I’ve found for Android. Create Textnotes, Paintnotes, Voicenotes, Photonotes, Checklists, Durable Checklists (ToDo lists), Gallerynotes, Notes from barcodes, Reminders or Notes from Google docs. Stick notes to the status bar and automatically back them up on the SD Card.  Great support and frequent updates.
17. Ringdroid by Ringdroid Team: Creates ringtones from your own music tracks or record a new one directly from the phone.
18. Scanner Radio by Gordon Edwards: As a former professional paramedic, I still enjoy listening to emergency calls from time to time. Scanner Radio allows us to listen to live emergency audio from over 2,300 police and fire scanners, railroad communications and weather radio broadcasts from around the world.
19. Shop Savvy by Big in Japan, Inc.: If there’s only one shopping application for you to get, this is the one. Shop Savvy uses your location to comparison shop products in your area or online. Supports QR Codes.
20. TuneWiki Social Media Player by TuneWiki: Shows subtitled lyrics as you listen to music, watch music videos, or stream songs through SHOUTcast radio. Integrates with Facebook and Twitter.

The Race is On—Microsoft Tags vs. QR Codes

Last week I wrote an article about QR Codes that predicted they would become ubiquitous in the not too distant future. At least they are today in Japan, the country that invented them. Little did I know that just a couple of days later, I would be browsing the Android Market and stumble upon an app called the Microsoft Tag Reader. Curious, I downloaded it and started playing with it on my Droid X. At first I thought it might be just another run of the mill barcode reader. I was wrong.
I started searching the internet for information about Microsoft Tags, I quickly came to tag.microsoft.com. This is a new website for Microsoft’s latest invention that competes directly with QR Codes—the Microsoft Tag. Are you curious to know what a Tag is? So was I!
I downloaded the Microsoft Tag Implementation Guide. Here is an excerpt from the overview section:

Tag is a high-capacity color barcode (HCCB) with encoded information. Organizations and individuals can create specific Tags by using the Microsoft Tag Manager Web service. When the Microsoft Tag Reader application is installed on a mobile device, the Tag Reader can be used to scan a Tag using the device’s built-in camera. When a Tag is scanned by the Tag Reader, the information encoded into the Tag becomes available on the mobile device.

Here’s an example of a Microsoft Tag I created using their web service:

Pretty, isn’t it? According to Microsoft:

Microsoft Tag lets you seamlessly connect almost anything in the real world to interactive experiences from your mobile phone. Consumers scan Tags to engage at the maximum point of impact by using the device that is central to their daily lives: the mobile phone.
Print, online, TV, billboards, point-of-sale—the range of places where businesses can use a Tag is almost infinite.

Despite their claims, I thought I’d prepare a quick comparison of Microsoft Tags and QR Codes.

Attribute	Microsoft Tag	QR Code
Black & White
Color
SMS
Data Capacity	1,000 alpha-numeric characters	7,089 Numeric 4,296 Alpha-numeric 2,953 Binary 1,817 Kanji
Phone Numbers
URLS
Custom Background
vCard
Advanced Design

There are other attributes we could probably compare as well, but I’ll leave it to you to do so. So which is better? I suppose it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. QR Codes were designed for industrial purposes. Microsoft Tags are designed with advertising in mind. I’ve started to see Microsoft Tags pop up on LinkedIn as people’s avatars. I haven’t scanned any yet, but I ‘m willing they probably contain the person’s vCard or advertisement for something they’re selling.

If you want to learn more about Microsoft Tags, visit the URL above or scan the Tag below.

To download the mobile Tag reader, search your smartphone’s marketplace, visit http://tag.microsoft.com/download.aspx or scan the Tag below: