Ant’s Eye View continues to grow and we are looking for the next ant to join our colony. The open position is a Senior Consultant in the Seattle, Washington area to lead client engagements, build out project deliverables, and contribute to internal business operations/processes.

Successful candidates will meet the following criteria:

• 5-7 years experience in Product Management, Product Marketing, and/or Strategy Consulting.
• 1-3 years experience with online community management/strategy (specifically experience with applying social media and/or web 2.0 technologies to solve business problems)
• Experience project managing medium/large scale, multi-phased client engagements or product/service launches.
• A base level of knowledge in business strategy, marketing, finance, operations, and data analysis techniques Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Need to be able to present comfortable to executive audience.
• A bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Marketing, or some related discipline is required. MBA is a plus.
• Ability to travel – TBD on exact frequency, but expect 1-2 trips per month, could be more or less.
• Approximately 50+% of work can be accomplished at AEV office and via conference calls with clients.

Benefits include:

• Healthcare plan
• 401K
• Fun and collaborative work environment
• Bragging rights to be part of the ant colony
• Chance to become an expert on Ant trivia

Ant’s Eye View is sponsoring a pretty cool event next week. It’s all virtual and it should be all awesome. From the official AEV blog post, here’s the details:

This year there have been a lot of online discussions on Social CRM – what is it? can it work? who is doing it? Now is the time to hear from the informed and thoughtful on how Social + CRM enable new business opportunities.

The Ants are proud to be a sponsor at the Lithium Social CRM Virtual Summit on Tuesday, November 11 – the largest online conference for Social Media and CRM professionals. The Social CRM Virtual Summit is a five-hour online conference, which includes webcasts by industry leaders in an interactive exhibit hall, a resource center with extensive materials for download, and a virtual networking lounge to chat live with speakers and prospects.

The virtual event is featured in two time sessions on November 11th:

• 5am to 10am PT / 8am to 1pm ET / 1pm to 6pm GMT
• 10am to 3pm PT / 1pm to 6pm ET / 6pm to 11pm GMT

Check out the full post for more info on how to register and what the agenda looks like. Hopefully we’ll see you there!

If you’re a fan of awesome conferences and events, never pass up a chance to go to one put on by Andy Sernovitz. He’s a master of the fun time.

Andy invited me to speak about my LEGO experience at Word of Mouth Supergenius in December, and it’s sure to be one hell of a good time.

Here’s the official event description:

Word of Mouth Supergenius is where you’ll learn to be a fantastic word of mouth marketer with 12 how-to classes, 12 real-world case studies, and 6 brilliant authors. You’ll learn practical, hands-on techniques to get started, grow your program, and earn amazing word of mouth.

Taught by masters of word of mouth from Starbucks, Maker’s Mark, Domino’s, LEGO, Coca-Cola, and many more, you’ll gain the knowledge and skills you need to get people talking about your brand. Captivating speakers like Jason Falls, Mitch Joel, John Jantsch, Saul Colt, Spike Jones, John Moore, Rod Brooks, and our own Andy Sernovitz (to name a few) will take you through a day jam packed with innovation and intellect.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, and get answers from people who have been there, done that — and learn it all in just one day.

If you’re interested in going (and really, why wouldn’t you be?), use this discount code to get $101 off your registration.

JAKEISMYHERO

The lineup of speakers is truly impressive, including Ant’s Eye View clients Rod Brooks (PEMCO) and Kira Wampler (Intuit). What are you waiting for?

As a long time Amazon fan (I remember when the site was a solid tan background and only sold books), I’ve been so very impressed with the way their site and their community efforts have developed over the years. It’s disappointing that they don’t get more credit for the sheer volume of community/social features each and every page of their site has.

If you’re looking to be part of an impressive team and an impressive product, check out this job listing:

Amazon’s Community team is looking for a seasoned Community Moderation Manager to help shape our vibrant online community of reviews and discussions. As a key member of the Community team, you will have the unique opportunity to define the kind of community that Amazon creates on our websites around the globe. You will drive the definition and guidelines for all community based content, with a direct and visible impact on Amazon’s core customer experience.

The position will require working closely with the business managers and technical leaders on community direction and goals. You will also be responsible for managing moderation activity by our customer service teams. Above all, candidates must have excellent judgment and project management skills coupled with a passion for customers and community building. Ideal candidates will have five years equivalent demonstrated work experience, great analytical skills, strong customer experience judgment, superb communication skills, excellent interpersonal skills, the ability to resolve conflicts and set priorities, and outstanding customer insight.

Specific responsibilities include the following:

• Work with business and product teams to define the tenor and character of community activity that we would like to cultivate.
• Establish the policy and guidelines that will shape the large online community on Amazon’s global websites.
• Collaborate with our customer service groups around the world to ensure consistent and clear moderation.
• Acting as an advocate for all participants in the community from customers to authors to vendors.

For more open positions, or to post an open position, head over to the Community Guy Job Board!

Customer Service Manager
Hollywood, CA

Community Manager for a B2B IT Community
Austin, TX

Program Manager (Word-of-Mouth / Social Media Marketing)
New York, NY

Social Media Program Manager
Minneapolis, MN

Community Manager
Brisbane, CA

Director of Community (Managing 20+ Employees)
New York City, NY

Community Manager for Teen Social Networking Site
Los Angeles, CA

Wikia Community Manager
San Francisco, CA

Community Manager / Tech Evangelism & Support
Mountain View, CA

Community Manager
New York City, NY

Community Manager @ Communispace
Watertown, MA

H&R Block – VP Marketing – Digital
Kansas City, MO

What I have learned is – online listening to your customers is about reading. There is no tool that is going to eliminate the need for you to truly listen to your customers. The tools just make it quicker, easier, and even a little fun! Listening only to influencers will not tell you what your customers are saying. You need to listen to all discussion on different media types (forums, blogs, tweets, tags). Forum discussions can give you a very different view than blogs alone.

Be sure to read the rest of Jenn’s post.

I’m am proud to share the news that after having an informal presence in Austin, Ant’s Eye View has opened our second official office here! With the hiring of Jennifer Hughes, our second Austin employee, our need to formalize our Austin office took on greater necessity.

My business partner, Sean, and I talked through options on how to make this work and coupled with some significant personal life changes, it made a lot of sense for me to move back to Austin and oversee the growth here.

And yes, I just moved to Seattle. And yes, I love Seattle. But hey, I also love Austin, so I feel like I’m hitting a double jackpot. Austin, after all, is the Live Music Capital of the World ^TM

We have a great office space here, and we’ll soon have an open house event. I’m even considering re-instituting an age old tradition: the NVD Nooner. Years ago when I worked at NVision Design in Dallas, we held an afternoon event the last Friday of every month. We’d get a keg, invite industry friends, hide our confidential materials and open the office up. Since we have a great deck at the office, the AEV Nooner is a moral imperative!

I’m stoked to be an Austin resident, have already discovered I live down the street from Hey Cupake!, and am trying to readjust to October humidity and heat. I’m baaaack, baby!

Last week on the Ant’s Eye View blog, I posted an interview with Amy Krause from Velocity Marketing. Velocity, together with CBS Radio and the North Texas Chevy dealers built a very cool outreach program to get the word out about the new (and highly awesome) Chevy Traverse.

To find out more about the program, check out the AEV blog post.

I had a chance to get a few questions answered by Donna, one of the Mommy Madness mommy bloggers.

1. How did you find out about the Mommy Madness program?
I heard about the promotion on the radio, and had every intention of going to the website to apply but I forgot. Then a few days later, I got a message via Facebook from the contact at CBS Radio who was running the program for them. I think they found me via you actually.

2. Tell us about how you were immersed into the program?
We had a meeting a few weeks before the program kicked off with the CBS Radio and the agency contacts, we got to meet each other and swap blog names and emails. The day of the kick off we had a big meeting with the people from Chevrolet and the North Texas Chevy dealers, as well as the CBS Radio personalities who would be talking to us and about us throughout the program. We were given cards to hand out, a video camera, and documents on how to blog our adventures. We also were given gas cards and the materials for our first Mommy Mission. Then we got to spend a long time with our dealers going over all the details of the cars.

3. What was your favorite part of the program?
I loved the Mommy Missions – they were fodder for our blog entries and created stuff to talk about.

4. You were able to drive a new, cool car for 8 weeks – was it hard to give it up at the end?
Horribly painful to part with it. I still miss that car every day. Especially when I am at the store or loading and unloading. I really want the auto liftgate back.

5. You were given “mommy missions”, specific tasks where you were asked to generate and share content. Did you like doing those?
I loved them. I wish we had had more of them to do!

6. How did you explain the program to friends and family who asked where you’d gotten a new car from?
I explained how Chevy was rolling out the perfect family vehicle and I was lucky enough to be chosen to test drive one and write about its features and how versatile it is.

7. Did you befriend the other moms? Do you still talk to any of them after the program ended?
I did. We were all very friendly with one another during the project. I started doing “unofficial” mommy missions with Brooke and her daughter (although we invited all the other moms, we were the only two who seemed able to get together at the same times). We both have left Dallas but we still keep in contact. Also Jen and I met up at BlogHer and had some fun chatting.

8. If you were running Mommy Madness 2, what would you change? What would you keep the same?
I would make more Missions, and I would make them more formal. For example, sending us to the Rangers game was nice, but they could have made some arrangements with the Ballpark to make a fuss over us, maybe set up a table so we could talk to people and show them around a parked Traverse, give away the gift certificates for the massages. Same with the outing to Six Flags. Those were opportunities to reach a TON of people who would totally have stopped at a table and a parked car for freebies. We could have convinced them to go test drive more cars. Also at the very end, they came up with the idea of asking us to throw a party for our friends, and have a Chevy dealer bring a Traverse and let people take test drives. That was great, but it was so last minute that I couldn’t pull it off. They should have come up with that at the beginning and more of us would have been able to have the parties and attend each others’ parties. As it stood, only one of the five of us was able to host a party. Also, I think we should have been on the radio more. We did one group recorded interview, but we could have scheduled a call in interview once a week to do something one on one and in more detail.

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Don’t forget to check out the interview with Amy!

The Ant’s Eye View team has four sessions in the SXSW 2010 Panel Picker this year. We need your help! Can you vote us up?

It’s Never What They Say, It’s What They Mean
When someone yells online, it’s easy to get caught up in the negativity, seeing visions of doom and gloom. But more often than not, negativity is a form of passion. This session will introduce you to the fine art of translating community discussions into actionable decisions.

Ensuring Everybody Goes Home Happy
This session will convince you that any company/community relationship that is not built on the belief that success doesn’t exist unless “everybody goes home happy”, company and community members alike. You’ll learn how to find the right balance between serving your community while also delivering business results.

Social Business Vitamins
Discover the overlooked, but essential mental vitamins necessary to prepare the social body to function inside the Enterprise. Case studies that showcase what needs to in place to operate and benefit with the myriad of social tools and content.

Watch Out For The Ugly Babies
Everyone has seen an ugly baby, but no one has given birth to one. Online Communities are similiar, a lot of online communities are ugly and need help, but the parents who gave birth to the online community site are last to realize. Learn some ways to prevent ugly babies and if you believe you have one, get ideas to help your community become more attractive for your audience.