Are you a smart, creative and outgoing person that spends a little too much time on blogs, Facebook and social media? Have a gift for strategic marketing promotions, PR and creating buzz? Consider your phone a fashion accessory? Cloudbrain is looking for a new team member to help us create social media content - the blog posts, photo albums, videos, images and Facebook pages that create buzz and will get people talking about our latest products.
Coursework in marketing, PR, advertising, creative writing or equivalent experience is required, as is at least 100 Facebook friends. Experience with Photoshop, Wordpress, iMovie, writing, photography or digital music helpful but not required.
Hours for this are flexibile and the position is part-time or available as an internship. If you are interested in working at Cloudbrain, please send a resume and any applicable links to jobs@cloudbrain.com. Feel free to email with questions as well.
Things have been really busy around here as we work to get our latest product launched that I forgot to blog about our latest addition. Jenn is a graduate of the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia (which we hear is the best undergrad business school in the country) and joins Cloudbrain as our new Marketing Director. We were so impressed with her t-shirt company idea (part of the interview process) that we hired her to create tshirts for us full-time (when we said “Marketing Director” we really meant “tshirt designer”). When not making tshirts, Jenn is heading up our marketing campaigns and partnerships. We’re excited to start implementing all the crazy ideas we’ve been throwing around.
Jenn also came with our office’s second yorky puppy, bringing our total office dog weight to 168lb!
Watch this video. This guy is dancing alone. He looks crazy. One person joins him at 20 seconds. They both look kinda nuts. A couple more join at 1 minute. Now it starts to look fun. Then they hit the Tipping Point and the dance party explodes. Hundreds of people coming running in from every direction. You wish you had been there.
Lessons for those of us trying to start a movement - be it a business, a non-profit or a revolution: No one likes to be “crazy dancer #2″ but everyone wants to join a Big Fun Party. Sometimes all it takes is three or four crazy friends to join your stupid dance to spark a movement. Who are your crazy friends?
Kyle is the newest member of Team Cloudbrain. He’s our new Graphic Design / UI Director and will be overseeing all the visual aspects of what we do here. If things start to look a lot prettier on all our websites, you know who to thank. Kyle has a lot of experience in online design and web development, having worked on a range of projects and sites. You can follow Kyle on Twitter or check out some of his previous work. Look at that amazing MySpace layout!
There’s an article in the current issue of The New Yorker that everyone running or starting a small business needs to read. Seriously. Read it. It’s long (8 pages!), but read the whole thing. The stories and examples are worth it. It’s written by Malcolm Gladwell (you know, Tipping Point, Blink etc.). Here’s a summary (but read the article!):
1) In David vs. Goliath conflicts throughout history, David actually beats the giant about 29% of the time. There is a repeatable strategy underdogs can use when competing against established giants.
2) The established giant sees the “game” a certain way, with a certain set of rules, protocols and strategies. These are the rules the giant mastered on his way to becoming the giant. He is really good at them.
3) The underdog almost always wins *if* they break the rules and play a different game than the giant is used to. This doesn’t mean faster or with more flare, it means a totally different game.
4) The giant (and game observers) almost always find the underdog’s rule-breaking morally objectionable. Think the British vs. the American Colonies, Al Qaeda vs. U.S.A., I’m a Mac vs. I’m a PC., Netflix vs. Blockbuster.
Conclusion: If you are a startup competing against established or larger competitors, break the rules. If your website, marketing material or business plan is similar to your competition’s, you’re doing it wrong. David didn’t just use a fancier sword than Goliath. He didn’t use a sword at all. Better design, a slightly faster product or more colors isn’t enough. You have to change the game.
Cloudbrain is hiring a Marketing Manager. Responsibilities will include developing, deploying and managing marketing campaigns for one or more Cloudbrain products and managing relationships with our advertising partners. If you are smart, fun, creative, have an unhealthy interest in marketing and are very familiar with online social networking (like Facebook and Blogs) you may be what we’re looking for. Requirements include a degree from a great school with related coursework (marketing, pr, advertising etc.) or equivalent experience and at least 100 Facebook friends (or equivalent internet experience). Send us an email and read more here.
Cloudbrain is in the market for a talented designer to help us with graphic, web and user interface design. If you love making things fun, easy to use and beautiful, email us at jobs [at] cloudbrain [dot] com. As a Graphic Designer, you will be a part of all aspects of our business - from application and interface planning, graphic and website design and marketing development. We’re a small, fast paced company that likes to quickly turn good ideas in to something we can play with. This is a full time position and you will need to work out of our office in Charlottesville, VA (though, we go outside on nice days). If you love great design, are a photoshop wizard, spend way too much time on the Internet and want to build things that millions of people will use, email us. More info here. Must love dogs.
One of Cloudbrain’s summer interns has just launched his first iPhone application: iSkip. The program is deceptively brilliant and something only a 17 year old high schooler could come up with: iSkip simply asks you how sick you want your mom (or dad or boss) to think you are (”not feeling so well”, “under the weather”, “about to die” etc.) and then it transforms in to a vary convincing and high-tech looking thermometer which you hold to your head while it “reads” and displays your vitals. Brilliant.
Once even more impressive is that this is John’s first application and he taught himself the iPhone programming language in just a few weeks. He now has an application for sale ($0.99) in a store that reaches millions of people every day and a revenue sharing deal (70/30) with one of the world’s largest electronic manufacturers. Anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch can use their computer or phone to buy his software and Apple sends him a check in the mail. And all this took him three weeks to set up. And he isn’t old enough to vote.
This brief 3-second clip from Pepsi’s “Refresh” Superbowl ad caught my attention. What a contrast these two frames show. We don’t have spaceships, flying cars or time machines, but the world has changed a lot in the last several decades. A lot has been written about how mobile devices, instant communication, the internet, location-awareness etc. etc. is going to change the world. And it will. It already has. This is just cool.
Seriously. See the picture. It came with a certificate congratulating us on getting one million AdWords clicks. Yikes. Apparently we spend a lot of money on Google. What a great marketing idea: Of course, it is now displayed in my office and I’m telling everyone who reads this blog about it. Easy buzz for Google.
A few details: It’s pretty large: big enough for several two-liters plus a shelf above. It has a car power adapter and hot-cold settings (so I can use it to keep coffee warm?). One thing: The hot / cold switch labels on the back are reversed. I’ll be placing a call to my Google account manager.
Things have been really busy around here as we work to get our latest product launched that I forgot to blog about our latest addition. Jenn is a graduate of the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia (which we hear is the best undergrad business school in the country) and joins Cloudbrain as our new Marketing Director. We were so impressed with her t-shirt company idea (part of the interview process) that we hired her to create tshirts for us full-time (when we said “Marketing Director” we really meant “tshirt designer”). When not making tshirts, Jenn is heading up our marketing campaigns and partnerships. We’re excited to start implementing all the crazy ideas we’ve been throwing around.
Kyle is the newest member of Team Cloudbrain. He’s our new Graphic Design / UI Director and will be overseeing all the visual aspects of what we do here. If things start to look a lot prettier on all our websites, you know who to thank. Kyle has a lot of experience in online design and web development, having worked on a range of projects and sites. You can follow Kyle on 
Cloudbrain is in the market for a talented designer to help us with graphic, web and user interface design. If you love making things fun, easy to use and beautiful, email us at 
Seriously. See the picture. It came with a certificate congratulating us on getting one million