We’ve been doing a lot of thinking and talking about marketing Arc90′s products and services these days. This has put into focus how we’ve been using our Blog, Lab, Twitter, our web presence (coming soon, a total relaunch!), as well as more ambitious things like hiring a Biz Dev person and dipping our toes into public relations. As a part of this process, there’s been some soul-searching about where we want this business to go and plenty of introspection about what’s gotten us here: things that have worked and things that haven’t.

To date, our consulting business has grown almost entirely by way of word of mouth. This is a logical and expected outcome for a company that’s done no overt marketing, but it is interesting to see that people who have worked with us in the past tend to work with us again and again. Among that group of people, one consistent theme does emerge: someone works with us, leaves their company and brings us along with them to their new gig. Call it the scattering model of growth. This seems pretty logical for the services business, if people see you as effective in terms of product strategy, design and implementation, they’ll likely join another company with similar needs and will seek partners that have proven their worth. Often, selection of a strategic consulting partner is a very personal decision, and thinking back to the good work that people have done for you is a much stronger connection than an ad in a magazine or the like. In this sense, Arc90 is much like a meme, as my coworker Avi pointed out. Through experience working with us, people get acquainted with the idea of Arc – design-driven development, being passionate about the Web, etc – and carry that forward with them.

So that’s the consulting business, where it’s not uncommon for growth to occur based on pleasing some people at a client where some subset of this group will eventually leave and take your firm with them to their new company. But does this scattering model work for growing a product? I’m convinced that this is a huge potential strength for our idea management and innovation application, Kindling, one that will pay dividends for years to come. Employees working at companies using Kindling is a constantly growing list. Some percentage of those employees, we like to think a pretty high one, will really connect with the product and see the value it creates. Some subset of those people will change jobs in the next year or two, and some subset of those people will pull Kindling along with them into their new company. That group may very well turn out to be our best salespeople.

In thinking about the scattering effect on Arc’s business, I was reminded of an article from a recent issue of Wired, where the economic value-creation of turnover was discussed. Paul Boutin wrote:

“Job-hopping, rather than climbing the career ladder within a corporation, facilitates flows of information and know-how between individuals, firms, and industries. When combined with venture capital, it supports unanticipated recombinations of technologies and skill.” In other words, we have Twitter today because a bunch of engineers who were trained at other companies quit their jobs and brought their expertise to Evan Williams’ side project. It’s like biology: In an ecosystem where microbes are promiscuously swapping genes and traits, evolution speeds up.

That’s exactly the right metaphor – individuals leaving their companies and bringing with them the best parts of their previous role, while leaving behind the frictional parts, is much like the selection process of evolution.

Recently a few people have left Arc after a long time of nearly no turnover. While I’m not happy about it – the people that left are very talented and took a bunch of knowledge out the door with them – I’m an optimist, so I’ll view it as a sign that the job market is loosening-up. An improving job market means more scattering, and more scattering is good for us all.

Note: thanks to flickr user Pensiero for the image.

We’re hard workers over here at Arc and lately, some have been working even harder. For the past 6 months, several Arc-ers have been donating some of their downtime between projects to the effort of completely redesigning the Change for Kids website. 

Change for Kids is a non-profit organization that aims to empower underprivileged children by providing them with a broad range of innovative literacy, arts and music programs. Want to be inspired? Watch this video.

Jess Eddy led the team (which included familiar faces such as our very own Amy, Ben, Alex and Tyler) and we couldn’t be prouder of the job they did for this great organization. The site is completely modernized, has been integrated into a CMS for easy management and can now move towards their goal of increasing online donations.

Jess will be posting in the next few days about the non-profit-friendly tools she used, but in the meantime, check out the site for more information about donating or volunteering.

Title: Lead Developer

Joined Arc90 in: January 2008

My most prized possession: Stanley, my female cat.

In the fall of 2007, Dave Hauenstein was hired as a PHP developer by IDT, a telecommunications company in Newark, NJ. But within a day of accepting, he was still searching the job market.

“I was trying to find the next great place to work,” the 26-year-old recalled. “I realized that I was settling because it was in Newark, NJ.”

After finding Arc90’s job posting for a PHP developer on Authentic Jobs, Dave decided to send in his resume. The Westfield, NJ resident interviewed with the company the day before Thanksgiving and was hired on the spot.

“I’m really glad I decided to check the job boards one last time because Arc90 was exactly what I wanted,” Dave said. “Arc90 has a way of hiring great people. I am surrounded by smart and motivated people who love their jobs and what they are doing.”

Dave had the opportunity to meet his future co-workers at the company’s holiday party, before he even started the job.

“It was definitely a taste of what was going to come for the next couple of years,” he noted. “I felt instantly comfortable with everybody.”

Dave cites his expanded knowledge about architectural style as one of the biggest thing he’s learned since joining the Arc team.

“The most important thing that I learned at Arc90 is the ins and outs of REST,” he said. “I’m using HTTP the way it’s meant to be used and it has definitely changed the way I write web applications forever.”

Some of those web apps have been built for the public. Dave is half of the team behind TBUZZ, a Twitter bookmarklet recently released by Arc90. Rich Ziade, Arc90’s founder, came up with the concept and enlisted Dave’s expertise for building it.

“It was great to see TBUZZ get popular so quickly,” Dave said. “Wired Magazine tweeted about it soon after it was launched and the lead developer from Twitter also tweeted about it. It’s great to have something out there that tons of people used that you created.”

The Iselin, NJ native also built Get a Room, an application used within Arc90 for reserving conference rooms, with Jess Eddy.

“We were using an actual book to book rooms and everybody was getting confused because nobody would use it,” Dave said. “I wrote an API for room booking with an Ajax interface using jQuery. We all use it and it’s a lot easier than using the book.”

Dave wasn’t always a programmer; his coding skills grew out of a necessity. In 2003, his rock band, Site 3, needed a website. Dave didn’t have any experience with design or web development but wanted to take on the task.

“My friend took a HTML class in high school and she helped me get started,” he recalled. “I kept wanting to make the site better so I kept developing it. Animated gifs and frames were huge back then.”

Dave’s side project eventually turned into a business opportunity. While he was studying Economics at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Dave founded Killer Creations Design Group with a friend.

“Other bands needed me to work on their websites so I kept doing it,” Dave remembered. “We started a company for band sites and expanded the business to include real estate companies and interior designers.”

During his sophomore year of college, Dave also worked for the Rutgers’ housing website. At this time, he had a formal introduction to PHP.

“That was my first real job doing web design and working with PHP,” he recalled. “I took a few C++ classes in college so PHP was really easy to pick up.”

Dave admits that if he weren’t programming, he would still be playing with his band, Post Break Tragedy. After releasing their first CD in 2004, All of This is Over Soon, the band toured the United States in an assortment of vehicles.

“We drove from New Jersey to California in my grandpa’s plumbing van,” Dave recalled. “We eventually bought a school bus. It wouldn’t go over 65 miles per hour and going downhill, you might hit 70 miles per hour.”

Dave’s love for music, along with his admiration for a certain award-winning guitarist, has turned into a running joke within the company.

“Somebody found out that I like John Mayer and I haven’t lived it down since,” he explained. “I’ll come into work and there will be an ad ripped out from a magazine with John Mayer on it, sitting at my desk.”

Title: Partner

Joined Arc90 in: May 2006

Most people don’t know that: I’m colorblind.

If some of Chris LoSacco’s co-workers are still trying to figure out why he only keeps a stack of Starbucks napkins on his desk, he has a valid explanation.

“I like things to be minimal,” he said. “In college, my desk was very organized; I only had a Post-it dispenser. My roommate would throw a single Post-it into the garbage just to get to me.”

Keeping things simple is a running theme in Chris’ work life, stemming back to his first encounter with Arc90. He first heard of Arc90 during his senior year at New York University. The Downingtown, PA native decided to attend the school’s job fair, but he did his research first.

“I got the list of the companies that were going to be at the job fair,” he recalled. “I went through the list to figure out who I wanted to talk to. Out of 100 companies, there were two that were remotely worth talking to.”

After searching the Web for Arc90 and its founder, Chris discovered Information Objects, Rich Ziade’s paper about interaction design and how software should model the real world. Chris realized that Arc90 was a company worth talking to.

“The things that I was interested in and what Arc90 is all about were exactly the same,” he said.

At the job fair, Chris had the opportunity to talk with Rich and discussed Alan Cooper’s Inmates Are Running the Asylum, a book that both respected. He left a lasting impression with the people he met.

“Chris was a full-blown technologist who was interested in design and usability,” Rich recalled. “He didn’t give his resume to everybody. He knew what he wanted to do and where he wanted to work. That’s great advice for anybody looking for a job.”

Chris was hired as an Interactive Designer in the spring of 2006. He wasn’t confined to the role and used the flexibility within the company to contribute to various projects.

“I wasn’t tasked to write code but I did,” he said. “Everybody was doing everything and there was the opportunity to pitch in wherever you could help.”

Chris and Rama Poola, another graduate of NYU’s Computer Science program, started at Arc90 around the same time. The company had just relocated to its Third Avenue office and the new hires used the extra space to their advantage.

“There was the junk room with a white board,” Chris recalled. “Rama and I would have an idea about something and we would IM each other ‘Junk room?’ and start sharing. A lot of good stuff came out of the impromptu sessions.”

Technology had been part of Chris’ life since childhood. He was raised around computers- his dad works for a company that builds software for nursing homes-and started tinkering with the Web at an early age.

“I was growing up just as the Internet was taking off,” the 25-year-old said. “I remember dial-up connections and when Web pages were just text. I was making my own sites at 14 just to play with the technology.”

But the Internet wasn’t Chris’ only passion. He attended NYU to focus on acting and majored in Drama. Once there, he realized he couldn’t see himself leaving New York; during his junior year, Chris added Computer Science as a double major to secure his future in the city.

“I knew I wanted to stay in New York and I wanted to be able to pay for that,” he said. “There was a strong possibility that I would become an actor and work hard but you can’t pick and choose your work. I didn’t want the ‘I’ll take anything’ lifestyle.”

After graduation, Chris acted in student films; he intended to keep movie shoots in his schedule until he realized that technology held an important role in his life.

“I was figuring I could do it on nights and weekends,” he said. “When I became more involved at Arc90, it naturally became that this was more of my life.”

Chris is the mastermind behind SVN Notifier, an Apple Dashboard widget for collaborative version control. He envisioned the tool for the Arc90 lab after finding flaws with other Subversion software.

“It’s useful because it stays out of your way until it has something meaningful to say,” Chris commented. “I wanted to be notified when other people working on the same stuff as me made a change to something. SVN Notifier seemed like an easy, unobtrusive way to do that.”

In the fall of 2007, when he was 24-years-old, Chris was promoted to the partner position at Arc90. The title came with more responsibilities, but some things stayed the same.

“Everybody asked if I was going to get a new business card,” he noted. “I still don’t have one!”

The new role also changed his perspective about work and interactions at Arc90.

“There is a different approach of looking at it,” Chris said. “It becomes a longer view, such as how does this fit into the picture of where we’re going in a year or four years. I started to think about the things I was doing and the things I was enabling the people around me to do-how they were beneficial to the company and not just to me.”

During his time at Arc90, particularly since becoming a partner, Chris has learned that discussion is an important problem-solving tool.

“Disagreement and being critical of ideas is a good thing,” Chris said. “There are very few people who will try to force things down people’s throats ‘just because.’ There is a mutual respect that just because you don’t agree on something there can be a healthy process to come up with the best idea.”

We’re big fans of Twitter here at Arc90. We use it to share choice quotes or just talk about whatever. Hell, there are even people out there wiring Twitter up to their ovens.

Of course, one of the most popular uses of Twitter is to share a link to a Web page. To that end, we wanted a tool that provided a dead simple way to share a link out via Twitter while surfing the Web.

So we got to thinking: “Wouldn’t it be cool to tweet a page in just a few clicks? Also, wouldn’t it be cool to see what others are saying about the page on Twitter?” After the success of Readability, we figured we’d dust off our mad bookmarklet skillz (Firefox extensions are nice, but we wanted everybody to join the fun) and take a crack at coming up with something cool.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, and you’ve got TBUZZ:

We’ve been using TBUZZ within Arc90 for a few days now and it’s a lot of fun. We’ve found it’s the easiest way to tweet about a link you’ve come across. It’s also a really cool way to chat with others about the page you’re staring at – through Twitter. It’s sort of like dropping a comment thread onto every Web page in existence.

You can install TBUZZ in just a few seconds by visiting:

http://tbuzz.arc90.com

If you’ve got any feedback, thoughts (or glowing reviews) of TBUZZ, be sure to include them in the comments below.