Cut&Paste returns for its annual Digital Design Tournament! This year’s Call for Competitors is open for entries, so show off your skills in 2D, 3D, or Motion Design in fast-paced, single-elimination rounds, each with a unique theme and time limit.

Deadlines for Entry

North America: September 10, 2010
Europe/Asia/South America: October 15, 2010

Select competitors will be invited to Test Rounds, short weekend events that serve as both auditions and a chance to get to know the candidates. This is a show of one’s design skills, experience what live design feels like, and potentially earn a spot on stage.

More Information and How to Enter

This workshop is specifically geared to those that are either currently working or looking to work in PR and communications and need to get up to speed on social media quickly. Whether you’re planning on creating campaigns for clients or strategizing on how to use it for yourself, in this 2-hour seminar you’ll get a broad overview of the most popular social media tools and how to put them to work for you. We’ll also cover:

• Programs used to monitor your social media presence

• Ways to analyze and measure results

• Promotional techniques to build your followers

• Pitfalls

• The social media press release

This will be a highly interactive class where you’ll get a chance to get all your questions answered. Join us and learn more about how to use this valuable information for yourself and your clients!

Details:

Date: Tuesday September 14, 2010
Time: 6:30 to 8:30 pm
Location: MyPRGenie, 1501 Broadway, 25th Floor, New York, NY
Cost: $30 in advance/$35 at the door (Light snacks & beverages will be served)
RSVP: Email socialmediapro@yahoo.com or phone 212-650-0226

You’re invited to a gathering of the most influential leaders in digital media, to discuss the way forward. Hear insights from digital leaders from Coca-Cola, OMD, MediaVest, Conde Nast Digital, Bank of America, PHD, ADWEEK, Electronic Arts, PepsiCo and more. Moderated by former CNBC Europe anchor Kavita Maharaj.

Details:

Date: Tuesday September 21, 2010
Time: 8 am to 1 pm
Location: Museum of Art and Design Theater, 2 Columbus Circle, New York, NY
Registration Fee:  $200 before August 20, $300 August 20-September 20, $400 day of the event

More information, speakers, and registration

P3 is a network of IDEAlliance, focusing on Continuing Education, Career Advancement, and Media Best Practices.

Details:

Date: Thursday September 23, 2010
Time: 5:30 to 8 pm
Location: Inc Lounge, 224 W. 49th St., btwn. 8th & Broadway, 2nd Floor of the Time Hotel, NYC
How Much: Free! Your first drink is free! Bring a friend and get a second free drink! Bring your business card for fabulous door prizes, including an iPad donated by Intelligencer Printing.

Registration, membership, and sponsorship information

Film, Stage & ShowBiz Expo is a five-star event that brings everyone in show business together under one roof.  Whether you are a producer, studio executive, director, musician, filmmaker, performer, designer, writer, stage manager, or anyone else involved in film, stage, fashion, live events, and concerts, this event is for you.

Details:

Date: Saturday October 9, 2010
Time: 10 am to 6 pm
Location: New York Hilton, 1335 Avenue of the Americas, 2nd Floor, New York, NY

More Information

Overview:

This Hired Guns client, a leading brand for financial and business news, is seeking a Product Manager who can lengthen their lead over the competition in mobile products.  You’ll start by getting an iPhone app up and out the door.  From there, the future is largely in your capable hands!

Gun Profile:

You are a digital Product Manager with a track record of leading mobile site and mobile app development.  You have a solid command of the technology with an in-depth understanding of on-deck versus off-, ad-serving platforms, and the challenges of optimizing web CMS for mobile.  More importantly, you are dialed into the users’ needs and can translate your grasp of their media consumption behavior into a superior mobile experience.  You have the ability to select and manage third-party vendors, as well to assemble in-house capabilities when it makes sense.

Nitty Gritty:

The good news:  their mobile site is already one of the leaders of the pack.  The bad news (well, actually this is also good news):  the bar is set very high, and only a true star is going to cut it in this gig.

You will own the mobile product and feature roadmap, write requirement docs, and communicate the reqs to the business, design, and development teams.  You’ll inform your plans by analyzing competing and comparable products in the the mobile marketplace.  And you’ll prioritize features and make trade-offs among customer experience, site performance and operational support load to ensure that your products are not only elegant but also commercially viable.

Job One for the Mobile Product Manager will be to design and launch a new iPhone app, including the key task of leading the search and evaluation process for a third-party vendor to do the build.  After that … hey, it’s your roadmap!

Inside Skinny:

These guys love their product managers very techie, so let your geek flag fly and impress us with your technical knowledge and insight into the mobile innovations just over the horizon.

Net-Net:

Nab this gig and you’ll be positioned to define a world-class customer experience, bridging the online and mobile channels and delivering a best-in-class product.

Overview:

If your idea of a hot celebrity sighting is Edward Tufte, you’ll want to tune in to this one.  This Hired Guns client, a cutting-edge consulting and enterprise software company, is looking for an Information Architect to help build intuitive user experiences that will make an analytically complex enterprise web application an unexpected pleasure to work with.

Gun Profile:

You’ve got the instinct for great usability and user interaction it takes to really excel in this world, combined with a passion and flair for visual design that puts you right at the top of the heap.  You have solid business intuition and impressive analytical and quantitative skills.  As a highly motivated, self-directed kind of Gun, you can manage multiple projects simultaneously and have a keen attention to the most minute of details.  Your skill set includes a working knowledge of Photoshop, proficiency with Balsamiq or other wireframing application, and a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and the like. And, if you have experience with large-scale software applications in an agile development environment, even better.

Nitty Gritty:

As IA, you’ll switch gears smoothly between projects involving information architecture, page layout and visualization of data. You’ll be expected to create high quality interactions and conduct rapid translation of complex business ideas into easily digestible and effective visual solutions (sketches, workflow diagrams, wireframes, mockups). And, as the champion for the end user’s experience, you’ll be an important voice on the project team. Collaboration is key, and you will work closely with product managers, engineers, and client teams to deliver an exceptional end product.

Inside Skinny:

This company is truly interested in the best and brightest UX brains out there. So, while flawless wireframing skills are important, it’s your strategic insight that will set you apart from the pack.

Net-Net:

At any one time you might be overhauling information collection and display, evolving the overall workflow of the application, or wireframing interactive pages.  This is a fantastic shot at growing your user interaction career and gaining exposure to the software development process.

Overview:

This new Hired Guns client, a huge professional organization focused on serving the informational, educational and networking needs of engineers, has its sights set on creating a website that’s vibrant and user-friendly, thereby maintaining its status as the online epicenter for the engineering community.  To make that happen, they need an outstanding Online Editor to come in and whip things into shape.

Gun Profile:

The perfect Gun for this gig is already an accomplished online editor with experience leading new site development.  With a decade or so of journalism behind you, and lots of that time spent in digital publishing, you’ve got the necessary chops to craft enticing content and drive audience engagement. You know the ins and outs of content management systems and are building mobile apps for the iPad and iPhone, telling stories with video, and producing podcasts and syndication-ready content.  Bonus points for blogging experience, social media expertise as it relates to elevating a content brand, and insight into deployment of SEO and SEM.

As befits a modern Editor, you’re also a great manager, negotiator, and product visionary.  You can work effectively with staff and freelance writers, in-house developers and outside agencies. And you know how to mold subject-matter experts (in this case engineers) into confident content producers.

Nitty Gritty:

You’ll be joining the organization at an exciting time, because there is a launch happening, and the company is investing heavily (they’ve hired one of the top agencies in NYC to strategize and build the site). And you will be a key partner in the success of that implementation. As Editor, you’ll head up the creation and management of both short- and long-term content strategy, so be ready to be in it for the long haul.

A key element of this role is sourcing content from internal and external parties, negotiating any necessary agreements, and managing to tight deadlines.  That means you need to be the consummate motivator.  You’ll be a liaison for the engineering profession, ensuring that the organization’s members – and the larger engineering community – are strongly engaged with a plethora of existing and new online products that you will envision.

This is an excellent organization to work for: the people are driven, and their mission is clear. Your challenge will be coalition-building around the full potential of what a true digital offering can do for this organization.  The new website is just the tip of the iceberg, so we need a dreamer who is also a terrific leader to help them meet their full potential.

Inside Skinny:

Write a terrific pitch letter – and really demonstrate what you could deliver if given open road.  If you’ve got an engineering, technology or science background, this would be a great time to mention it. B2B experience is a plus.

Big brownie points if sometime in your history you’ve been able to take dry educational content (webinars/webcasts) and make it a little sexy.

Net-Net:

This is a primo opportunity to synthesize new engineering ideas, technology developments and general engineering occurrences impacting our world.

Overview:

This Hired Guns client, a media giant with a portfolio that includes TV, radio, and interactive, knows a thing or two about holding onto and growing an elusive audience and is always looking to productize new digital offerings to build trust and loyalty to their brand.  To keep their much-loved viewers content and coming back, they are looking for a Vice President who can develop and deploy a creative new loyalty program that does for their unique audience what AARP has done for seniors.  We need a true general manager who can think well beyond your typical “rewards” programs to create a compelling offering for the fastest-growing demographic in America.

Gun Profile:

The ideal Gun will be a true innovator – we’d love it if you’ve spent time evaluating or building ground-breaking companies that are pioneering new customer relationship models (think Gilt Groupe or Groupon).  You’ve done this before.  In fact, you’ve got quite a few years under your belt creating attractive new revenue streams and offerings around big audiences, and establishing loyalty programs is a big part of your experience.

This means you are super-skilled in assessing the needs of targeted customers, then developing successful digital and offline offerings based on a combination of data, gut feel, and good old-fashioned experience. You’re adept at understanding the motivations of your audience, enabling you to fine-tune offers, discounts and benefits to create compelling experiences that keep customers coming back. The audience for which you’ll be building the product is highly mobile, so experience with social media, texting and app development is a major plus.

Nitty Gritty:

You’ll be paving the way and setting the tone as the first person to hold this entirely new position within the company, so you self-starter Guns will love this.  Expect to be responsible for managing the program as a stand-alone business line, maximizing revenue, profit and customer satisfaction.  The ultimate objective of your role is to create acquisition, usage and loyalty behaviors which will allow the business to hit its financial goals.

To do this, you’ll need to gain a thorough understanding of the customers’ needs, analyze the capabilities of the company’s media platforms, and assess overall operational feasibility.  Then the real fun will begin as you develop the product offering, identify the unique value proposition and size up the total addressable market. From there you’ll blow out the pro-formas and do the heavy lifting to understand the true value of the business.  There may be more than one path to success, and we need a brain that’s genius at business planning and corporate development to discover the right solution.

A big measure of your success will come from the development and management of distribution channels (Web, phone, events, retail) to acquire new customers and the orchestration of the activities of various internal and external parties to build and run the program.

Inside Skinny:

The client has a strong preference for Guns who are fluent in Spanish and/or can demonstrate an intimate understanding of Hispanic consumers.

Net-Net:

Working in an entrepreneurial environment tucked within a larger organization – this is a chance for you to shape and foster an incredible new loyalty program.

Overview:

This Hired Guns client, a reality-based cable television network in the midst of a truly meteoric rise, needs a Web Editor to help turbo-charge their website and get it headed on an equally impressive trajectory.

The current site is essentially a marketing vehicle promoting tune-in to the TV network.  The right Gun for this gig will help lead the transformation of the site into a prime destination for guys 18-34 with an incurable curiosity for all things reality.  After all, with reality like this, who needs a script?

Gun Profile:

Equal parts idea generator, creative conceptualist and pop-culture addict, you are the ideal blend of strategic brain and artistic spirit.  You’ve got solid experience writing short-form, easily digestible content for the Web.  Your writing abilities reflect a clever, pitch-perfect tone of offbeat humor and we-know-our-stuff-but-don’t-take-ourselves-too-seriously attitude.

If you’ve held the role of Editor before, you know what’s involved in assigning stories and managing teams.  If not, maybe you’re feeling like now is the time to step up to that level.  Either way, you understand the blog ecosystem and feel strongly that content is the best marketing tool to drive traffic.  You’re skilled and savvy when it comes to best practices in social media, including that impressive network of writer pals who can promote your content and get your thoughts heard by a broader audience.

Nitty Gritty:

As Editor, you’ll be taking the helm of a quirky, niche site; these guys take great pleasure in highlighting things that fall squarely into the “you can’t make this sh*t up” category.  You will set the tone, drive the voice and write your butt off, all while overseeing a team of staff and freelance writers.  By constantly monitoring the hot trending topics, you’ll come up with brand-relevant story ideas that can keep even the most reluctant readers and reality haters riveted.  We know as well as you do – sex sells, especially when you’re working on a website aimed mainly at guys.  But that’s not part of the brand position, so what we need from you is the tricky balance of keeping things sexy … without listing toward pervy.

Creating a new content strategy is big work, and you will be squarely in the middle of the mix helping to conceptualize and launch a number of completely new digital features that deliver on the brand promise and support the site evolution, yet still find a logical link to pimp the shows – without sounding like you’re pimping the shows.  You will lead the charge with the strategy and execution of all social media for the brand, with the dual goals of growing the fan base and driving traffic back to the site.

Inside Skinny:

We need you wired into this world; tell us about that killer contact list of other web nerds you’ve got, and how you can leverage those connections to get your content out to an ever-broader audience.

Net-Net:

What’s taking place here is the evolution of a brand, and this is your shot at leaving a major mark.