Rackspace® (NYSE: RAX) is the global leader in hybrid cloud and founder of OpenStack®, the open-source operating system for the cloud. We have delivered enterprise-level hosting services to businesses of all sizes and kinds around the world since 1998 and have grown to serve more than 205,000 customers. We operate on four continents, and have been featured on Sunday Times’ 100 Best Companies to work for.

We integrate the industry’s best technologies for each customer’s specific need. We deliver best-fit solutions by leveraging a portfolio of public cloud, private cloud, dedicated servers, and a combination of platforms. Most importantly, it’s all backed by our award-winning Fanatical Support.

We are looking for a technical guru to make some magic happen at a small but influential conference and event business. With your help, we can do more cool things.

Frustrated or under-appreciated in your current role? Come talk to us about how your work would make a real impact on our business and how we can support your personal development.

The Business Leaders Network is growing and we need a Developer and all round technical go-to person, who will be responsible for the development and day to day administration of the company’s online presence, as well as supporting the growth and automation of business processes including email marketing, social media, analytics, SEO and CRM.

You will have a knack for finding and implementing solutions to complex problems and want to work in an environment where you are both appreciated and appreciate the opportunities that we can offer to build your skill set and learn from some of the best people in the software industry in the world.

The role will require you to work closely with the management team and third parties to ensure that all identified improvements to the system can be integrated efficiently and with minimum negative impact. In addition to development, the role will encompass the day to day administration of the events website – including SQL and system maintenance, user configuration, task server administration and report design and execution.

What you’ll be doing:

•   Set up and adapt WordPress to meet business requirements

•   Discover new online channels for customer acquisition and improve existing ones

•   Ask questions about what drives growth, build analytics tools to capture relevant data and offer actionable answers and insights as a result

•   Monitor application performance and identify any technical problems

•   Turn project briefs into actionable plan and provide accurate price quotes

•   Create wireframes and design mock-ups

•   Discuss technical requirements with team and provide innovative solutions

•   Work on internal projects to optimise current processes

•   Maintain a high awareness of industry’s issues and trends

•   Work both independently and in conjunction with other project team members

•   Thorough quality assurance testing of all web projects

•   Managing email marketing and  SEM. Potentially also, display advertising, and retargeting 

What you will bring:

•   2+ years commercial experience of WordPress development

•   3+ years experience with the core elements of the WordPress stack: PHP & MySQL

•   Excellent written and oral communication skills

•   Excellent analytical and problem solving skills

•   Experience with Responsive Design

•   Experience with WordPress Theme & Plugin Development

•   Excellent HTML5, CSS3 programming skills (Expert)

•   Excellent PHP Programming Skills

•   Excellent jQuery & Javascript Skills

•   Experience with different CMS, such as Magento etc

•   Experience creating and maintain MySQL databases

•   Strong understanding of how to build and maintain email and social media marketing lists. No spammy crap though.

•   A track record of making things happen

Will also consider part-time/contractor in first instance though we want to find someone who will learn, grow and be part of the company for a long time into the future.

Please, no calls or emails from agencies

Interesting report from the Economist Intelligence Unit in collaboration with ARM about the emerging Internet of Things Ecosystem and how companies are preparing for the next industrial revolution…

Key takeaways

• The IoT is on the agenda of most companies in the report though there is significant disagreement on the industries that will be most impacted.
• While awareness of the IoT is high, investment in it from corporates is still very limited.
• Companies must understand collaborative business models to drive the development of  the IoT.
• Businesses need to prepare for an explosion of data. No one has quite worked out what to do with it all.

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A Friday afternoon diversion. Here is Amanda Palmer, the musician, on her relationship with her fans and why she doesn’t charge for her music online.

She does a brilliant job of articulating exactly where the value in the exchange is for her fans, and, along the way, explains some of the new rules in the music industry and the challenges they present to individual artists. I’m not sure her ninja level of fan connection (stripping naked and allowing drunk Germans to draw on you) would work for everyone, but it’s certainly a stretch goal to bear in mind.

If you’d like to understand how to find and foster your superfans then there is still time to sign up for our masterclass on the 22nd Nov with Nicholas Lovell, author of The Curve, and a panel of entrepreneurs exploring the opportunities that free products provide. As our own experiment in the power of free, we are offering a limited number of guest places, thanks to the support of our sponsors, Erevena Executive Search, Rackspace and Taylor Wessing.

Register here for a free guest place.

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Business of Software is a two and a half day conference for independent software vendors to gather, discuss and learn from each other and some of the most highly regarded thinkers in the industry how to build better, more sustainable, more profitable software businesses.

Over the years we have gathered an impressive back catalogue of contributions from speakers such as Clay Christensen, Kathy Sierra, Seth Godin, Dharmesh Shah, Joel Spolsky, Patrick McKenzie, Prof Rita Gunther Mcgrath, Eric Ries and many others.

But the real reason delegates come back year after year are the connections they make with each other – the help, the mentoring and the partnerships that are developed are something we’re very proud to support.

We love running BoS and are very proud of the fact that it is one of the most highly regarded conferences in the software industry, with 95% delegates saying they would recommend it to a friend. See the feedback (uncensored) from 2012 here – some edited highlights:

‘One of the best places to meet the people who actually make significant revenues in the software industry.’

‘You are guaranteed to learn something or meet someone that makes the trip worth it on their own. As a bonus you get to go to an awesome software conference.’

‘It’s rare that I can have an interesting business conversation with any random person next to me – this is one of the few venues where I can pick a person out of the crowd and have a deep meaningful conversation, help them, or learn from them’

You can keep up to date with developments on the BoS 2014 conference on the website here.

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We think this is very important and urge you to watch and share if you think the same.

At last week’s Business of Software Conference in Boston, Greg Baugues talked about his personal struggles with depression and ADHD. the talk is moving, very funny, thoughtful and actionable – whether you experience this yourself, or know someone who does – you almost certainly will. In a show of hands during the talk, Greg asked how many people in the room knew of someone close to them, either at work or at home, that had similar experiences. Every hand in the room was raised. More than that, a very significant percentage of people in the room of 400 people then, bravely, shared the fact that they had experience of depression or some form of mental illness themselves.

In subsequent talks, a number of Internet and software heroes who were speaking also acknowledged publicly their own, first hand experiences.

We rushed the editing of the video through as we felt it was important that this was shared as fast as we could.

The talk has been up for a week and has already been viewed by over 25,000 people in more than 150 countries. More importantly, people are watching this and finding strength from the fact that they are not alone and indeed, it helps to talk about how you feel. In a world that sometimes feels to be focused relentlessly on growth, profit and the heroic (but relentless) grind of entrepreneurship, this might just be the most important video we have ever posted.

Take care.

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Some interesting numbers on global economy from Kleinwort Benson’s recent CIO dinner in Cambridge. Debt and house prices are the biggest challenges across the world, not just the UK.

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