As part of the Big Bad Recruiting Blog Swap, today's post is brought to you by Glenn Gutmacher, creator of Recruiting-Online.com. He actually called me eclectic which I take as a compliment. Enjoy...

This week, the Recruiting.com blogswap has assigned me to post to a fellow Microsoftie's blog. One would think that easy, except Tod Hilton is a software programmer and I'm not. But I am an Internet researcher, curious about how to find things online, and have learned to do so fairly quickly. Those skills can serve any programmer well, especially on sites like Koders, Krugle, etc.

But also please spend some time mastering the search syntax and special commands available on (at least) Google, MSN and Yahoo. The help section of each site cover these in decent depth. It will make a big difference in getting to the results you want, and eliminating the chaff. And why all three? Because the overlap in results is exceedingly small (typically under 10%), which means you won't get all the relevant results from just one of them. Don't believe me? Compare the top 100 results visually for your favorite search string (at Thumbshots Ranking).

Good search skills have also enabled me to:

• create a sideline business that couldn't have existed pre-Web,
• virtually and physically meet great people, such as Frank and Shally, who have tangibly furthered my main career, and
• find cool functionality to help enhance about a dozen websites I've designed for small business clients over the years so they were more effective than the brochureware typically seen at that level.

What have I learned from these experiences?

1) If you have an e-product that claims to help people become more skilled at something, then you must develop a personal brand that supports the assertion that you're an expert. It isn't enough to BE an expert; you need to show it. In another blogswap post (scroll way down at The Desk), I explained ways to develop this perception of expertise. Though geared to recruiters, I think the recommendations apply to anybody in this situation. So, next subtopic...

2) What matters from a small business website customer's perspective:

• SEO to get their page rank up (and even getting them to dabble in pay-per-click purchases),
• finding specific products/service offerings easily on their site (read visual and text search),
• keeping their sites fresh in an automated way,
• easily getting the word out to attract leads (read e-newsletters and blogs),
• and most importantly, NOTHING ELSE. So if you find yourself spending time on other things, it's probably unnecessary and you could be using your time more productively elsewhere.

3) What matters from a web developer's perspective -- automating and otherwise optimizing all of the above, so you have time for other stuff. That means:

• not being embarrassed to go through step-by-step examples on tutorial websites (because you'll miss stuff if you skip around and you'll end up spending more time in the end being able to do what you want)
• reviewing interfaces and sourcecode on other websites you admire for creative ideas, and
• utilizing free-tier products of commercial functionality where available, because it saves you time from reinventing the wheel and it still impresses the heck out of most small businesses even if there's an embedded ad or three.
• and there surely are more things, but if I knew them, I'd probably have made this my vocation instead of an avocation.

And finally, since Tod's eclectic interests come through in the range of topics on his blog, I'll throw in something that may fit the parenthood category (being a father of three boys under age 9 myself). Many software developers lament the difficulty of exposing kids to programming concepts when the entry bar is high to learning languages they use at work like C++ and Java, and LOGO is decades old now.

Fortunately, some ex-Microsofties invented something called Kids Programming Language. It has a lot of power, but lends itself to creating games which kids relate to. The language apparently appeals to older programmers as well, so to get more takers at the high school/college level, KPL v2 will be rebranded and launched as Phrogram with a sister site with links back to the original KPL. Click here to learn more and/or download the full-featured KPL Beta 2 before they start charging for the program next month to recover some costs on their labor of love. However, I'm sure it will remain affordable.

Glenn Gutmacher is a Recruiting Researcher for Microsoft Corporation and creator of Recruiting-Online.com, the world's first comprehensive online course on candidate sourcing methodologies and tools, in 1997. His blog was voted the #2 recruiting research blog for 2005 in Recruiting.com's annual competition, which answers Internet sourcing questions submitted by real recruiters and researchers. Visit Glenn's blog to read the Q&A or submit your question for possible inclusion.