Just about every blog search engine does a decent job of returning recent posts that contain a particular keyword, sorted by the overall popularity of the blog, freshness, etc.

But what if I want to find a blog most relevant to a particular topic? Every blog search engine does poorly on this task, including the new “blogsearch.google.com”:http://blogsearch.google.com.

Suppose, for instance, that I wanted to find out the best recruiting blogs.

“Technorati’s search results”:http://www.technorati.com/search/recruiting give me fresh postings that happen to mention recruiting, but does nothing to help me find the best blogs about recruiting.

What about Google, the king of relevance? “Google’s results”:http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&q=recruiting&btnG=Search+Blogs do in fact include a list of related blogs at the top of the page. It’s the right idea, but their implementation leaves much to be desired. The list is far from complete or authoritative– it has only five blogs of no special relevance.

As I’ve grumbled in the past, the problem is that search engines miss the forest for the trees– they treat a blog as a collection of individual postings rather than as a whole from which a unified theme can be inferred. Fixing this shortcoming is important not only for end user but also advertisers… If you can infer a theme for a blog, you can do a much better job of targeting advertisements that are likely to be of interest to the readers. It’s just too easy to get a false keyword hit on an individual posting and end up with advertisements that detract from the blog content.

No doubt Google intends to improve on the relevance of their related blogs feature over time. I really do think that finding blogs related to a particular topic is a key end user scenario, and that the ability of companies like Technorati to survive depends on beating Google at that game.

We all do what we can to help heal the wounds caused by Katrina, and the long-standing ills that made it so destructive.

Jason Goldberg, Jobster’s CEO, has announced several steps that we’ll be taking. First, “free usage”:http://jobster.blogs.com/blog_dot_jobster_dot_com/2005/09/free_use_of_job.html of the Jobster service by any nonprofit providing relief efforts and any company headquartered in Louisiana or Mississippi. Second, featured placement of relief jobs on our “job search site”:http://www.workzoo.com. Last but not least, we have a “relocation and an account management position”:http://jobster.blogs.com/blog_dot_jobster_dot_com/2005/09/fantastic_katri.html for a sourcing recruiter impacted by the hurricane. The idea is not only to help the recruiter but also the people in that recruiters network. If you know such a person, please help connect us with them.

Help Relocate a Recruiter Affected by Katrina

Inquire for Yourself or Tell a Friend

Click here to learn how

This post is part of a “continuing series”:http://thebogles.com/blog/category/jobster/innovation on growing a culture of innovation.

One of my favorite measures of prospective coworkers– after they’ve passed the minimal bars of fit and experience– is to
hear about hear about a project that they’ve worked on that wasn’t their job. It could be a pet project they’ve done on their own, or an open source project they contribute to, or even a charity they volunteer for.

With surprising frequency, it’s possible to predict they likelihood that they’ll get the job, and the likelihood that they’ll be an innovator, based on the way they describe the project and the things that they did. This accuracy is surprising because more traditional questions often fail to give accurate results in the limited space of an interview. Candidates are often well prepared for standard questions, even probing technical ones, so it’s easy to game the system.

Creating useful technical innovations requires a combination of technical insight and an understanding of customer and business needs– a broader view than is typically required if you’re just doing your job or doing what your told.

A project outside of work forces you take this broader view– you might be one part marketer, one part technical writer, one part tester, program manager and developer– and this broader view develops skills that are invaluable in creating innovation within the workplace.

Outside interests naturally also demonstrate a depth of commitment, passion, and entrepreneurial spirit beyond that required every day in the workplace.

A good side project can be offshoot of work, community of service, or even both. For instance, Mark Swardstrom is doing some great work to help the “Team in Training”:http://www.teamintraining.org/hm_tnt charity recruit volunteers using Jobster. The results of this work benefit not only a worthwhile charity but also Jobster, by adding useful features to the core product such as an events feature Mark added. Before he started at Jobster, Mark worked on a side project called “Poster”:http://www.mobmentality.com/, a simple but powerful website editor. Totally different projects, same underlying drive.

I could tell similar stories about each of the other members of the Jobster team, which is why coming to work each day is such fun.