The new site is here, in all its rounded glory. It is long overdue, most of our company has lost hope for it ever seeing the light, but after 6 months of development, its finally here. The new, improved podast section, brand new articles directory which we invite everyone to keep track of as we will be posting some awesome things there in the coming weeks/months and of course the reworked video tutorials section that actually makes sense and is a lot more user friendly are finally here!

Some things to come are improved author profiles that includes links to our personal blogs as well as other social sites (did somebody say friendfeed integration?) Keep on the look out for more new features! We would also love to hear your feedback on the new design, nay or yay? Let us know in the comments.

Many of us observed back in 2006 when a man proposed to his girlfriend by utilizing the time lapse webcam set up in front of the Apple Store that opened in New York City. While public proposals are nothing new, the use of a 3rd party webcam in the middle of the night was a novelty.

With the rise of social media, it seemed inevitable that someone would eventually use one of the many tools to do exactly the same thing. And as it turns out, this is exactly what happened. Last week, the Wired blog reported that a San Francisco web designer proposed to his coworker via Twitter. It was conjectured that this was the first public proposal delivered over Twitter, but the blog was soon updated to report that earlier in the month, on March 2, another couple had already successfully become engaged. This couple lives in different cities and travels often, so the use of Twitter to seal the deal made the most sense to the husband to be.

While people certainly can and will propose any way they choose, is it more or less romantic to have these traditional rites of passage delivered in a very untraditional media? Would you be offended that it didn't happen the way it happened for your parents and grandparents, or would you just be too happy by what it symbolized to care how it happened?

It does take a certain amount of guts to publicly display your proposal, as a negative reply would be that much more devastating when it's visible to the whole world. While this does reflect a certain amount of commitment, and I do love social media, I have to say I think I'd still prefer the old-fashioned way. Though, I guess if you've waited 15 years to hear the question as was the case with the SF woman last week, getting that Tweet may have been the best thing she'd ever read. Perhaps her fiancee was just waiting for the right social media to come along to do the job??

Why a personal blog? Because now more than ever, the wave of social media provides an increasing ability to personally connect with others while naturally building search visibility and relationships. Through the expertise of individuals, companies can be part of communities.

An additional obvious draw is simply being able to share what you have to personally offer. We all love the community aspect of Capture the Conversation here at Room 214 - but each of us has our own skills, interests, opinions, etc.

For example, JennyU likes playing games on facebook and informing me of the Santa Barbara surf report when the waves get big (and I'm sitting here in Boulder). Stepan likes following any and every piece of news on Rage Against the Machine. Ben likes fantasizing about riding his bike again while popping percacets to ease the pain of his recent snowboard accident (brutally falling off a chairlift). Ingrid looks forward to spin class, and one day proving Stepan wrong. And James, well, James is all over the place.

For most of us, updating resumes is not something we do unless we're actively looking for a new job. At that point it always seems to be a struggle to remember how long you worked at a company, and to try to come up with fancy ways to make regular tasks seem exciting. Once completed and sent to a prospective company, your resume is just one in a sea of keyword-filled pieces of paper.

Seth goes on to say that "A resume is an excuse to reject you. Once you send me your resume, I can say, "oh, they're missing this or they're missing that," and boom, you're out." Like it or not, this is probably true--once you start listing your qualifications, if a skill is not on there, it is assumed that you do not possess it.

This is exactly a problem I had when I wanted to get into web work. My hobby was finding ways to write table-less, CSS-only code and configure blogs. This wasn't something I learned in school, and it most certainly wasn't anything I was doing for my day job. I wanted to be able to take my love of the internet and of blogs and somehow turn that into a viable occupation. I applied for jobs that I knew I was qualified for, but got little response because my resume's work history simply did not and could not show that I possessed the desired skillset, and putting "blogging" under hobbies hardly makes it sound like you are anything more than a dabbler.

As a way to rectify this problem I enrolled in a certificate program--even though I had already taught myself most of the things listed in the curriculum. I figured that a certificate was something concrete to put on a resume, and that it could provide good networking opportunities, as the classes were taught by local professionals in the field.

While the certificate MIGHT be useful, I didn't get my current job because of my resume--I got it because of networking and a demonstration of my skills. When this wonderful company I have the pleasure of working for needed someone with my skills, my name was passed along as someone who could provide exactly what was required. I was not hired because of what was listed on my resume--I was hired because I was known to have the desired skills and because I demonstrated my knowledge.

I consider this to be a great job, and as Seth concludes, "Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for... those jobs don't get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever."

I couldn't agree more.