One Mile Left

Part time sales position

Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:56:00 +0100

9miles Media is looking for a great sales representative to join our small team.

This is a part time position. We’re looking for someone who works well in a team, learns quickly, manages time well, and is available for 5-10 hours/week to work with us. If this sounds like your cup of tea (we like Earl Grey), examine the specifications below and drop us a line. We’re excited to hear from you!

Role & Responsibilities:

First, to understand how we operate: our process, what we do well, where we are lacking in our marketing / client acquisition efforts.
Lead the charge in acquiring new clients via phone, direct mail, email, & any other cool ways you come up with!
Scheme up new ways of marketing. We’re open to any idea and willhelp to implement campaigns.
Work with Ben to effectively hand off leads who request a proposal.

Requirements:

Prior experience selling design, consultation, development or other services.
Have an action plan for acquiring clients.

Be a quick learner and work well in a team.

You know and can admit when something is not great. You can recognize when something you’ve done needs improvement.
A quick internet connection. Ability to meet via Skype audio.

Nice-to-Have’s:

Prior experience selling design, consultation, development or other services.

Proficiency in a foreign language.

Being within 6 hours of GMT is a big plus. We’re on the East Coast of the US, and in England.

Familiarity with some of the tools that we mention in this post.
Design and development know-how isn’t necessary, but it’s great if you know the terms we throw around!

We believe that our work is of great quality, our prices competitive, and that our services would be easy for an experienced person to sell.

We’re all under 25, working from home (and the occasional coffee shop), doing what we love, and having a blast. This position is open to anyone young at heart!

Does this sound like something you would enjoy and benefit from? Drop an email to jobs@9mil.es with the following:

A very short biography
A brief summary of your skills and weaknesses (what you hope to improve upon over the course of the next year)
Where and how you have been successful in this role in the past, a photograph, and a paragraph or so about why you want to work with us.

Talk to you soon!
Ben, Joel, and Donald

Teen developer position

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 00:52:00 +0000

9miles Media is looking for a new developer to join our small team.

This is a part time position. We’re looking for someone who works well in a team, learns quickly, manages time well, and is available for at least 10 hours/week to work with us. If this sounds like your cup of tea (we like Earl Grey), examine the specifications below and drop us a line. We’re excited to hear from you!

Role & Responsibilities:

Design, wireframe and create interfaces for websites and web applications on a deadline.

Assist in programming web applications and sites, working alongside other programmers.

Learn. We provide resources to make it easy to pick up a new language or design technique.

Help seek out project opportunities & come up with ideas for internal projects. For example, instantinstall.org

Requirements:

Be familiar with HTML, Javascript, and CSS.

Have a strong grasp of image editing software and techniques.

Joel cares about one pixel. You should too.

Be a quick learner and work well in a team.

You know and can admit when something is not great. You can recognize that something you’ve done needs improvement.

Nice-to-Have’s:

Familiarity with at least one programming language, ideally Python, is a big plus.

Prior experience building web applications.

Experience with version control systems like Git.

Proficiency in jQuery.

Proficiency in Python or equivalent.

Unix/Linux experience

Being within 6 hours of GMT is a plus.

Familiarity with some of the tools that we mention in this post.

About 9miles:
Our vision for 9miles Media is to allow young people to experience what the working world is like and gain first-hand knowledge of how the creative field functions while taking on real client projects that have an impact.

We’re all under 25, doing what we love, and having a blast.

Does this sound like something you would enjoy and benefit from? Drop an email to jobs@9mil.es with a very short biography, a summary of your skills and weaknesses (what you hope to improve upon over the course of the next year), any relevant links to your work, a photograph, and a paragraph or so about why you want to work with us.

How We Get Things Done

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 18:39:00 +0100

Below, I’ve given an overview of the services and products that make a small distributed company tick.

Communication

Google Voice: Low-cost telephony service [link]
Google Wave: Collaborative document editing [link]
Skype: Our favorite (free) telecommunications alternative, with video and more. [link]
Google Apps: Hosted and shared apps, email, calendar, contacts [link]
EtherPad: Collaborative Text Editing [link]
Dropbox: Centralized file storage and backup [link]

Scheduling/Planning

EasyTZ.com: Helps find times that will work for everyone on a conference call [link]
ScheduleOnce.com: Set times that work for you, and invite others. Connects with Google Calendar. [link]
Google Calendar: The best sharing-oriented calendar as part of Google Apps. [link]

Getting Things Done

Everyone here likes something different for personal task management. Here are a few:

Remember The Milk (Web/iPhone/Android): Used by Ben, this GTD app is drop-dead simple and web-based. [link]
Things.app (Mac/iPhone): Used by Joel, this task management app allows a lot of customization. [link]
Plain old text files: Used by Donald, this ~~task management app~~ old way of doing things works just fine, thanks.

Administration

Pelotonics: Outstanding project management service [link]
Invoice Machine: Integrates with PayPal to send elegant, browser-based invoices. Allows clients to pay directly via credit card / PayPal [link]
PayPal: Online Banking [link]
Mint.com: Budgeting/Financial Planning [link]
Toggl: Time tracking [link]

Marketing

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
Good SEO Practices!
Tumblr: Our blogging platform that enables you to read this. [link]

Creativity

Adobe Suite [link]
The GIMP: A popular, raster image editor loved by those team members using Linux [link]
Inkscape: A vector image editor loved by those team members using Linux [link]
960.gs Grid System: An outstanding way to prototype designs, on paper and on the screen [link]
Mockingbird: Fast, some-what collaborative site wireframes [link]
Google Docs Drawing: Collaborative, free-flowing drawing editor that we sometimes use for wireframes [link]
Droplr (Mac): Quick screenshots and sharing [link]

Coding

Firebug: An easy way to find coding errors, and track down specific elements [link]
Komodo Edit: Preferred code editor for our Linux-users [link]
Espresso: My favorite Mac editor [link]
Textmate: Joel’s favorite Mac editor [link]

DNS/Hosting

GoDaddy: Domain registration [link]
Linode: VPS Hosting [link]

I know that when we started, it was really difficult to find quality services available for free/cheap. The majority of these are either free or low-cost, and we just love them too much to go on to bigger/better things. I hope this has been helpful. Keep on creating!

This post was written by Ben Armstrong, project manager at 9miles Media.

April Fools!

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:05:00 +0100

Dear friends,

We’re writing today with heavy hearts, due to the fact that we have tricked you.

Our CEO, Ben Armstrong, was reported to have been dismissed from 9miles yesterday. Because the main perpetrator is located in England, our April Fools’ Day Joke launched a few hours early (for those in the U.S.).

We surprised Ben with an email indicating that he had been ousted, removed him from the about page, and posted here. All in all, it took him approximately 3.141 seconds to realize it was a joke, but the resulting reactions on Facebook and Twitter were far more humorous. See the gallery of our favorite reactions.

In any case, we apologize for tricking you! Hopefully you can understand our humour.
All the best to you on this April Fools’ Day! Happy pranking.

This prank was orchestrated, perpetrated and laughed at by Donald Harvey, with assistance from Joel Drapper and Jylan Wynne.

P.S. If you’re into science, http://bit.ly/cp0QNi has some great webcams of the LHC.

Saying goodbye to Ben

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 00:43:00 +0100

Today marked a sad day for 9miles. We have today had to dismiss Ben Armstrong, our CEO, after a vote of no confidence from the rest of our board members. Though Ben has been a wonderful and steady leader over the past year, his inefficiency and increasingly frequent inaction have made us reconsider his role in our group.

Joel Drapper, project manager and front-end developer at 9miles, will be assuming Ben’s duties until a more permanent replacement can be found.

We’re sorry to see Ben leave, but sometimes such things must happen for the good of the company. We’d like to thank Ben for his leadership and most importantly the fun times we’ve had over the last year.

It’s been an amazing journey, and long may it continue for 9miles.

UPDATE: As of 12:00 BST on 01/04/10, this post is no longer correct. Please see this post for more information.

Single-Handedly Ruining the Market!

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:52:17 +0100

That was an email we received a few weeks ago. If you look past the grammatical errors, I think it really highlights the impact we are having in this industry.

I think that the lesson to be learned from this is that you should most definitely not use us unless you would like to save a lot of money, and enjoy the process! I’m sure loads of folks absolutely cannot stand that!

All jokes aside, however, we’re a bit saddened by Michel’s message. We will continue to care about our clients’ needs, and endeavour to treat them fairly. We understand that there are many things to think about when developing a website, and we enjoy the challenge that this presents.

As to whether or not we’re ruining the market?.. Well, it is my view that if we’re meeting the needs of the people we care about, our clients, and are providing the upcoming generation with a fantastic learning experience, all else is secondary. What do you think?

This post was written by Ben Armstrong, project manager at 9miles Media.

P.S. If you’re looking for a fresh approach to achieving your web goals that doesn’t cost a fortune, get in touch!

We're Hiring!

Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:01:00 +0000

We’re looking to expand our team a little over the next few months.

A bit about us and our history first: We’re a sincere company with a straightforward vision. We believe that there is an amazing amount to be learned by working in a “real-world” web production environment, alongside other like-minded teens. With this in mind, we began to gather people together in October of 2008. From there, the group quickly expanded to nine members, and we decided upon the name “9miles Media”. After a slow start, we found four solid, dedicated members who are in the group today. You can learn more about each of us individually by visiting the About Page.

We’re looking for someone who works well in a team, learns quickly, and is available for at least 5 hours/week to work with us. Ideally, we’d like a good knowledge of HTML and CSS, and experience with other programming languages would be valuable. However, we’ll also consider applicants without much prior knowledge (we find that learning is really enhanced by working with and being around skilled others), as long as they’re eager, quick to learn, and love technology as much as we do.

Our vision for 9miles Media is to allow teens to experience what the working world is like and gain first-hand knowledge of how the creative field functions. One element of us being a learning company is that we charge slightly submarket rates, on purpose. In this way, we are able to learn and gain experience while making a bit of money along the way.

Does this sound like something you would enjoy and benefit from? Drop an email to enquiries@9milesmedia.com with a short biography, a summary of your skills and weaknesses (what you hope to improve upon), any relevant links to your work, a photograph, and a paragraph or so about why you want to work with us.

Houston, we are go.

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:09:00 +0000

We’re delighted to announce the launch of our new website!

With this design, we’ve taken a fresh look at our values as a whole, what we bring to the table, and really what we hope to accomplish in this field.

As a result, we believe that our new site, coupled with renewed marketing efforts will give us the push we need to continue to be successful throughout 2010.

A huge Thank-You goes out to Mr. Donald Harvey for his instrumental role in coaching this project to completion. Also, to all of our family members who put up with “Does this color look better like this, or?…” and the like. Also to all of our industry contacts from whom we’ve drawn inspiration

Thank you for journeying with us… It’s been a pleasure, and we look forward to what is ahead!

This post was written by Ben Armstrong, project manager at 9miles Media.

Salutations, World!

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:37:00 +0000

We’re working hard on our new website and are looking forward to the prospect of having it finished, so that we can focus on client work once again.

Here is a sneak preview of our new design!

This post was written by Ben Armstrong, project manager at 9miles Media.