Hasta La Ideas

Go West, young designers. Silicon Valley powerhouse Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is putting its money where it’s…money is, with new in-house initiatives to attract and develop design talent. Today the venture capital firm, which backs companies ranging from Agilyx to Zynga, launched the KPCB Design Fellows Program, a three-month work-based program intended to give top design students experience working on design challenges at KPCB-funded start-ups such as Flipboard, Klout, One Kings Lane, and Square. Applications are being accepted through January 31, 2013.

Fellows will be matched with members of KPCB’s newly formed Design Council, a group of design luminaries that will provide mentorship, lead discussions, and create a community for designers to network. “The importance of design as a critical part of product development and a vital strategy for companies to win in the marketplace is increasing, and KPCB sees design as a key factor in evaluating today’s consumer digital investment opportunities,” said the company in a statement issued this morning. “In addition, to build the next generation of successful companies, the firm is also committed to attracting and developing top emerging design talent.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

This week a team of sharp-eyed astrophysicists announced their discovery of a new planet: a young, cold, and roguish type that refuses to orbit any star. They’ve named the sunless planet…CFBDSIR2149. While this is an improvement over “Uranus,” it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. An astronomy- and space-focused startup is seeking to end this squandering of planet-naming opportunities with its first commercial project. Uwingu–”sky” in Swahili–is challenging the people of Earth to create a “baby book of planet names” for the 160 billion or more planets astronomers now estimate inhabit our galaxy, the Milky Way (cut to image of delicious candy bars).

“You can nominate planet names for your favorite town, state, or country, your favorite sports team, music artist, or hero, your favorite author or book, your school, your company, for your loved ones and friends, or even for yourself,” suggests Uwingu founder and CEO Alan Stern, an aerospace consultant and researcher who formerly directed all science program and missions at NASA. Each nomination costs 99 cents, with proceeds going to create a private sector fund for space projects. Names can be up to 50 characters (latin letters only), from any language or culture, and “can be anything the average grandmother would be proud to hear her grandchild say.” A contest will determine the 1,000 most popular planet names in the database, which will be communicated to planet-hunting astronomers for consideration. Voting is now open (votes also cost 99 cents each). Among the early leaders are “Pale Blue Dot,” “Heinlein,” and “Ron Paul.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates is a big proponent of vaccines, but he’s also a sucker for highly infectious ideas, like the ones that spread rapidly thanks to the viral envelope known as the TED Talk. Gates is not alone. Today comes word that the TED Talks posted online have topped one billion views–every 17 seconds, a new person around the world begins watching one of the 1,400 or so videos, according to TED HQ. Thanks to an army of volunteer translators, the talks are available in more than 90 languages.

“The spread of these talks across languages and borders suggests that intellectual curiosity is demonstrably alive and well,” said TED Curator Chris Anderson in a statement issued today. “Maybe the Internet isn’t dumbing us down after all.” To celebrate the billion-view milestone, notable TEDsters have created playlists of their favorite TED Talks. Among the first crop of “TopTED” lists is that of Gates, whose 13 favorite TEDtalks include one by his wife and another by Microsoft alum Nathan Myhrvold as well as Susan Cain‘s discussion of “the power of introverts” and magician David Blaine explaining how he held his breath underwater for 17 minutes.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Google is doing its part to distract the country from the hurricane set to pummel its eastern flank. Today visitors to the web giant’s U.S. homepage are greeted with a Google Doodle honoring the late Bob Ross, born seventy years ago today. The fuzzy-haired host of PBS’s The Joy of Painting promised—in a soothing voice—that “All you need is the desire to make beautiful things happen on canvas.” His “wet-on-wet technique” armed amateurs with a two-inch brush and plenty of encouragement to daub snow-peaked mountains and “happy trees” onto canvases pre-soaked with liquid paint. “Within one hour of touching the brush to canvas for the first time, my students have a total, complete painting,” Ross told The New York Times in 1991. “I really believe that if you practice enough you could paint the ‘Mona Lisa’ with a two-inch brush.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

MOO is growing in more ways than one. The East Providence, Rhode Island-based online printer, best known for its snappy and ultra-customizable business cards, recently acquired personal identity site Flavors.me, from web product incubator HiiDef Inc. Financial terms of the all-cash deal were not disclosed, but MOO plans to keep the Flavors.me website, brand, technology, IP, and customers—the site has attracted around half a million members in 200 countries. Both companies are touting the acquisition as a match made in design-centric, usability-focused heaven. “Identity is core to what we do and this acquisition is a great fit for the MOO brand, giving us a 100% digital identity product to add to our existing range of print products,” said MOO founder and CEO Richard Moross in a statement announcing the deal. “It’s a fantastic complement to our line-up, offering customers a beautiful personal web page that they can use to promote themselves or their business.” In other MOO news, the company will soon release near field communication (NFC)-enabled business cards. The chip-embdedded cards, slated to launch early next year, will allow users to share contact information and marketing content via any NFC-enabled smartphone.
continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.