A Few Cool Finds From Last Night

Okay, so now that I’ve had a couple cups of coffee and my head’s not quite as fuzzy as it was earlier this morning…I wanted to recap a few conversations that were had last night.

As I mentioned earlier on, the group dynamic is shifting yet again…which is great.  Sure, there are still job seekers.  Sure, there are still recruiters.  But more and more we’re getting back to the foundation of what ITintheD.com always was – networking.  So to have folks from companies showing up last night just looking to make business contacts, as well as more people just looking to do the same and expand their network in the industry a bit…awesome.

So let’s talk about a few of those cool finds from last night…

SoBuzzMe (SOcial BUZZ MEdia…get it?) is a startup that offers outsourced IT support, cloud services, and digital marketing.  Definitely start up, and in the early stages, and born out of a story that a lot of folks are familiar with – jobs eliminated, and it’s time to create your own opportunity.  Good for them.  You can check them out over at http://sobuzzme.com/

LookUpDetroit…well, it looks like it wants to be a portal for all things Detroit.  I clicked around a bit this morning, and it has potential.  You can poke around and make your own decision by going to http://lookupdetroit.com/

Now, possibly the coolest conversation last night was with a startup named Are You A Human?  Phenomenal.  We all hate CAPTCHAs, don’t we?  And, more and more…they don’t work.  And, more and more…when they do work, they work too well, and even an actual human being sitting down and reading it can’t decipher it and actually make it through the gate.  So, enter Are You A Human? Instead of CAPTCHA, why not have a cutesie little game embedded in your site for form submissions, etc., that a user has to play before they can continue?  Nothing too heavy, nothing too time consuming…but still serves the purpose you’re looking to achieve while making it a little more fun (and less painful) for your users.  Very cool stuff.  Check it out at http://areyouahuman.com/

On top of that, there were, of course, the usual suspects when it comes to recruiting, but there were also a lot of new faces in that same realm that showed up, too.  Including quite a few companies looking to direct-hire.

The short answer is this – IT is back.  It’s not “back to 1999 levels” or anything…but it’s definitely turned around and positive again.  High demands for .Net, Java and PHP developers.  Oracle and MSSQL DBAs.  Quality Assurance and testing peeps.

If you’re in any of those areas and even remotely thinking of looking…now’s a good time.