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This post was written by Aquent's Alex Weaver. This is a picture of him.

Athletes from the local T-ball team to the NBA rely on Nike to outfit them with stylish uniforms. To make that process easier and more reliable, Nike needed a next generation online sports clothing application. Creating this app however called for a specialized, temporary addition to their crew, someone who would combine left-brained design thinking with right-brained development skills.

Nike's online system for building and ordering uniforms utilized an older version of Flash. Its ActionScript programming was not organized into a central function list nor was it scalable, and the interface needed usability updates. These three issues increased the likelihood of one worst-case scenario: a uniform design would be lost if the connection were broken at any point during the building process.

Inspired by positive placements in the past, Nike contact Tum Hallrud turned to Aquent's Brian Guidry and Suzy Thompson to find the person Nike needed. Within days Aquent talent Mike Slone was placed on assignment and began working with the Nike team both on- and off-site to develop requirements and explore solution options.

Mike started by creating a set of core functions and components which improved scalability because they could be reused in new uniform design projects, thus cutting future development time nearly in half. From there, he retooled the user interface making it more intuitive and letting the user preview the uniform on the fly. He also shortened download times and reduced frustration by ensuring that the uniform was saved to a database as it was being assembled.

Mike saved Nike tens of thousands in development costs and, by streamlining the uniform creation process, improved the user experience and boosted sales. The folks at Nike were so impressed by his superpowers, they retained his services for two years beyond the initial contract.

Now, what do you think of that?

Great digital marketing managers have several things in common: they are passionate users of technology; they exhibit a fanatical attention to detail; they know how to connect the dots in very complex, dynamic systems; and they are skilled at translating business needs into technological reality.

At least that's what I gleaned from conversations with two Aquent talent: Terry Kong, a digital marketing manager represented by Aquent's New York office; and Becky Huber, a marketing manager with strong online experience represented by our Richmond office.

Terry currently oversees direct digital marketing (email campaigns, newsletters, etc.) and intranet management for a major financial company's corporate and institutional business. Becky has worked through Aquent at a well-known credit card company where, among other things, she was involved in their first online marketing campaign. Here's some of what they told me when I asked, "What separates the great from the good, digital marketing-wise?"

1. Passion for Technology

"Subject matter expertise is good," Terry told me, "but you really need to know the technology. Actually, it goes beyond knowledge and understanding. You have to be into technology."

"I'm looking for internet junkies and email junkies," adds Becky. "People who are not just interested in or familiar with technology, but actively engaged with it." Terry, who builds websites and explores the world of gadgets in his spare time, explains it this way, "I want the folks on my team to understand the limitations and the power of technology because they've actually used it." On that score Becky points out, "There is a lot you can learn and pick up in the execution space, but you have to start with genuine enthusiasm for the tools."

2. Attention to Detail

"Effective online marketing, whether we're talking about banner ads or SEM, requires that you compress everything you want to say into 6 to 10 words. You have to drill down to the core, the heart of what you do," says Becky, "then you have to get your hands on all the research you can and find out what it is about what you do that really engages the audience. And THEN, you have to test continually."

The ability to test continually was something that Terry really liked about e-retailing specifically. "In contrast to B-2-B online marketing," Terry points out, "with retail stuff you can see results day to day and you can tweak on the fly to get closer and closer to the pot of gold."

Aquent and the AIGA, in cooperation with Communication Arts magazine, recently published a survey of design salaries for the US. Aside from showing how much people make in different design roles, it also comes with a handy salary calculator.

Analysis to follow, but what do you notice about it?

"When you're a project manager, everyone's your client," says Sheila D'Aniello, a web project manager represented by Aquent's Chicago Office.

After initially launching her career in the world of broadcast journalism some years back, Sheila increasingly found herself taking on project management roles across a range of industries. She eventually entered the web/interactive realm in 2000, when Monster/TMP hired her to manage a variety of projects, from producing CD-ROMs to the development of high profile, customized corporate and university job-sites.

Along the way she learned an important lesson: the project manager is "client facing" wherever she turns.

"Aside from internal and external clients, account directors and account services people, my team is my client - in many ways, the most important one. The team is looking to me to manage communication with all the other clients and they have to trust me. They have to know I'm on their side. And, when something happens, they should feel like, "Sheila's going to take care of this."

Really just make it happen.

Web project managers are "managers," but they are also mediators and facilitators, and that poses interesting challenges. "You're managing people," Sheila explains, "but you really only manage their time and their resources - that is, on top of managing the project budget, the time-line, the scope of the work, and all that.

"You manage them, but you don't give people their reviews or have hire-fire power. This means you can't get caught up in personnel issues. Your attitude with your team needs to always be: 'How can I help you?' and 'I'll make it happen.'"

Greg Kuchmek, who is represented by Aquent's DC office, has been working on the web since 1994. That's when he was hired to help produce a webzine, Stim, started by Prodigy. [Editor's Note: For an interesting flashback to 1996, read Ty Burr's review of Stim, which he gives a B+, and Slate, which he gives a C+]. When that gig ended in 1997 he discovered that, "3 years web experience was amazing. I was 'senior' automatically."

Flash forward to the present and Greg now has 14 years web experience. If you want to hire someone like Greg (assuming you can find someone like him), what do you have to offer him? He has a broad range of in-demand skills: in addition to ground-up experience with the full suite of web technologies, Greg is also an able photographer, animator, illustrator, and writer. When he goes on a job interview, the pressure is on the interviewer.

What is Greg looking for and how can you convince him to work for you? Listen to his words:

1. Trust

I'm looking for an employer that respects that I have my skills and trusts me to use them. They hire me because I can do something and they can't. It's great when they let me do it.

It's not always like that. I've done jobs where the client was really looking over my shoulder and micro-managing. I understand that everyone's got their personal style, but when that's happening, I don't feel free to be creative and really do what I'm capable of.

2. Flexibility

I don't wear a tie to interviews anymore. I don't need to dress up at this point. I've also got a full studio at home, so I'm even kind of shocked that I have to leave the house! I guess I've been spoiled by working in places like Boston or New York where it's more flexible.

More than flexibility about where work happens, though, I appreciate it when there is flexibility around how things get done. There have been countless little jobs where they needed a photograph and I've told them, "Look, I can spend the day combing through stock or I can go take one." It's great when people are more open to the "I can do this right now" approach, than they are attached to the "this is the way we have to do it" approach.

Laurie Baldwin, who is represented by Aquent's Richmond Office, has spent the last five years running a successful search engine marketing company with clients like Wrigley's, Lumber Liquidators, and the Christian Children's Fund. A self-proclaimed Web marketing "addict" -- she named her dog "DotCom," her license plate reads, "GOOGL ME," and even tried to name her family's gecko "Google," until her children rebelled -- she has been doing work in and around the Internet since 1995.

Everyone knows that SEO and SEM are important components of contemporary marketing, but there is so much advice out there about how to do it right, that it can get pretty overwhelming. In the interest of cutting through the noise, we asked Laurie to tell us the five things that people most frequently forget about SEO and SEM. Here's what she said.

1. Content Is Still King

When trying to optimize their sites, companies too often spend a lot of time focusing on technical things like metatags. They forget that if you have an authoritative site that talks about relevant stuff, you will be ranked.

The technical elements that matter to the search engines are always changing - the importance of content remains constant. Your site should talk about who you are, what you do, and who you take care of. Forget the "leading edge, highly competitive, committed to innovation"-type copy. People are looking for specific things so you should say specific things.

2. Think Like Your Customers

We had a client who sold fake eyebrows for cancer patients going through chemo. These folks weren't looking for "cancer solutions" or something like that, they were looking for FAKE EYEBROWS. You've got to show up where people are looking and that means you have to know where they are looking and what they are looking for. Ask them.

And while you're at it, ask them, if they did happen to find you, did they find what they wanted? If they didn't, make sure that the search terms you are optimizing for and the actual content of your site match.

3. Traditional Media Still Matter

Let your different marketing pieces talk to each other. Use your keywords and the key marketing ideas from your website in your radio, tv, and newspaper advertising. People will often Google the words, characters, etc. that appear in your ads. In fact, they will generally Google before they go to your site or your store, so make sure you are taking this into account when you are buying search terms.

Talent Spotlight

You launch a new product and it doesn't perform as you hoped. What do you do? Well, you could turn to someone like Irma Salinas for answers.

Irma is represented by Aquent's Connecticut office and is currently working on the "Marketing Insights" Team at a large non-alcoholic beverages company (as it turns out, she actually started her career at an international spirits company importing beer from Latin America). She got involved in doing product reviews when working for a research company where she was very involved in reviewing and reporting on the performance of non-carbonated beverages (water, teas, juices, etc.). "I started working in this area when it was really getting competitive. It was a very exciting time. The market for beverages was changing and I learned a lot."

Irma was frequently involved in reviewing the performance of new products. I asked her both why new products don't perform well, but also how companies go about setting sales goals for new products in the first place. "Of course, there is a very extensive process that large companies go through to develop and launch new products," Irma assures me, "and since they have tested it with consumers, etc., you soon discover that the reasons for poor performance are not usually to be found in the product itself."

"If you're not thinking segmentation, then you're not thinking," Ted Levitt of the Harvard Business School supposedly quipped. While every marketer would readily agree with him, getting segmentation right can be as challenging as it is necessary - and getting it wrong can be downright disastrous: Working with segmentation schema that are irrelevant to your business is a waste of time and money; working with too few or too broadly defined segments means missed opportunities; and working with too many or too narrowly defined segments means stretching your marketing resources to their breaking point.

Since there are so many options and variables involved in segmenting your audience, it is best to rely on analysts, either external or internal, who understand your business and who understand how to match your needs with the myriad segmenting approaches. To sketch out a useable framework for getting the most valuable results from your segmentation provider, I consulted Ben Ben-Baruch, a Senior Business Intelligence Consultant represented by Aquent who got his first contract assignment with General Motors in 1997 and has been there ever since.

"Whatever segmentation provider you use and whatever methodologies and data they employ," Ben says, "the key is ensuring that you can use the segmentation to meet your business goals. Finding a provider that thinks in terms of your business, presents the data with an emphasis on its proper use, and makes it easy to keep the data fresh, is critical not only to the success of your segmentation process, but to the success of your marketing efforts in general."