How Twitter Found Me My Dream Job At OpenCandy!
In the Beginning
I must admit, I wasn’t looking for a job. In fact, I’ve got a small, successful technology consultancy of my own helping small businesses and home users plan, implement and maintain their computer systems and network infrastructure to keep them running smooth and malware free.
In my spare time, though, my passion was finding the best software to accomplish the tasks I needed to do. In late 2007, I began satisfying my desire to reach out to more people about great software by starting a podcast (The Appsolute Tech Show) and in February of 2008, I started using Twitter. On the podcast and Twitter, I chose the nom de plume “Dr. Apps” because many of my clients call me “The Doctor” and because I love applications. Since then, I’ve built up a nice “following” on Twitter by helping people solve computer problems and recommending software I love.
“Tasting the Candy”
I found out about OpenCandy in November, 2008 when I was updating one of my favorite apps, MediaCoder. I twittered about it and said that I thought OpenCandy was a “cool idea.” Someone named “chest” twittered back “thx for tasting the candy.” At first, I assumed “chest” was Twitter spam or a “Twitterperv” but “chest ” turned out to be Chester Ng, a co-founder of OpenCandy.
Fast forward to February 10th, 2009, I saw a tweet from Chester that said that OpenCandy was hiring and one of the positions was for a “Software Community Guru.” I couldn’t believe what I saw; the job looked like it was tailor-made for me! Without thinking twice, I direct messaged Chester.
Chester and I spoke the next day and I learned that OpenCandy was about much more than cool recommendations in some of my favorite apps’ installers. I learned that OpenCandy was conceived with the thought of helping developers of great applications reach a broader audience. The following day I spoke again with Chester and this time, Darrius Thompson, CEO of OpenCandy joined in on the call. It was as if they were reading a page from the Dr. Apps manual when they stated their belief that there was “a Firefox in every category of apps”, meaning that there is a superstar application in every software category just waiting to break out.
“Um, I Haven’t Flown in 15 Years”
On Valentine’s Day, Chester called and asked me to fly out to sunny San Diego (I’m a New Englander, sun and 60 degree temps in February sounded really nice). I hadn’t flown in 15 years, so the fact that I was willing to speaks volumes about how I felt about OpenCandy’s mission and how excited I was to meet the team behind it. It also gave me the opportunity to explain to the TSA that I was interviewing to be a Software Community Guru, so that they would actually let me board my flight. No joke.
Happy Birthday!
Since I’d be in San Diego for less than 24 hours, Chester lined up a marathon of one-on-one meetings with as many team members as possible. Each meeting confirmed the best case scenario to me, that OpenCandy really was passionate about empowering developers while providing the best user experience possible. I took the red-eye back to Boston and later that day, my birthday, I got the call that I was OpenCandy’s Software Community Guru! I was elated! Darrius remarked that he thought the OpenCandy and Dr. Apps story was way better than one of those match.com success stories. In this case, Twitter was “our match.com.”
My Dream Job
At OpenCandy, I’m tasked with spreading the word about what we’re doing and inviting developers of software I love to participate. Through my years of being a user advocate and educating people on safe online practices and trusted software, I’m living proof of OpenCandy’s commitment to providing a great experience for users. We have a long way to go before OpenCandy is a household name, but I believe that with a team of passionate, dedicated and talented individuals as we have, we’ve got a really good chance.
