If you know me, and you know who you are, you also know that I love furniture and great interior design. Keith Kaminski’s design for a coffee table that converts into an ottoman with storage to conceal remotes, magazines and stuff like that empty wine glass for when company pops by unexpectedly, is a great concept.

Kaminski’s work is in Apartment Therapy’s Design Showcase 2009. I’m voting three stars because it’s one of those products you never knew you needed but now you don’t want to live without.

Click the link and let’s ratchet him up to the winner’s circle!

The always enjoyable Virginia Heffernan wrote a column this week on how hashtags are changing the conversations on Twitter.

Hashtags are those little keywords prepended with a pound sign – like in this blog post’s title.

They are the subjective, descriptive little tags added by the tweeter as a way to signify what the tweet is about. Think of them like when you tag a photo on Facebook with a person’s name. You’re adding an additional level of searchability to your postings or tweets.

I commonly see handwritten signs at events where the organizers declare the hashtags for their event. This lets everyone attending cluster their comments around what’s happening, and gives the organizers an easy way to monitor the conversations about them.

I’ve even begun writing my name tag as @geofftucker at these events so people can follow me. It still seems to be a subtle, in-the-know thing but people are catching on.

Make a habit of hashtags in all your posts. And hunt down who or what you need using them.

Why?

• Twitter has a smaller audience than job boards
• Twitter is usually a more technically sophisticated group
• Twitter is social media
• Twitter’s free

TwitterJobSearch.com – Twitter Job Search Engine.

Now what?

Enter prepared with specific – not general – examples of how you solved a problem, made the company money, improved a situation. Be a hero, Now is not the time to shy away from sharing your moments of glory.

If your interviewer is unprepared, jump for joy. You can take control of the interview. Ask questions about the job, the company – all based on the extensive research you’ve done in preparation. You’ve saved them looking a fool while also setting yourself up to deliver only your best answers.

Practice your answers before going in. If it’s a company you really want to work for, practice them even more. The stakes are higher now, play your cards well.

Once they are wowed, remind them that you are interested in the job, and how you are highly qualified for it. This finishes up your time together on an upbeat note. People remember more of what happened at the end of an event than at its beginning. First impressions set the tone for how all that follows will move forward, but if you wrap it up in a pleasant package of positive punch at the hour’s end, this coda to a great discussion beefs their accord in bias toward you.

If you spoke poorly along the way, learn from it and move on. What’s said cannot be unspoken.

Asked about weaknesses? Talk about one that isn’t centered on the core competencies of the job.

“I must steal an Oreo each time I walk the dog out the kitchen door. But I rinse with water after, and floss.” See, flaw admitted with admirable error recovery. That you skip 4 when you count to 5 is another matter you’ve overcome with hidden tricks. Keep them hidden.

Last, always warm up your writing hand poised around a good pen over good paper. Practice a few times to remind your hand how to write – not tap tap tap – and simply say “Thank you for your time. I look forward to speaking with you again soon. Regards, Robert Tettington”

If you cannot manage a legible scrawl, type and print a note on good paper trimmed down to slip inside the notecard. Flourish a believable signature below the print for that human touch. This won’t get caught in spam and will make you memorable to the interviewer.

For good karma, even if you don’t get the job, send a nice note thanking them for their time and effort. Again, you become memorable and added a nice touch to their day. These recruiters do gossip among themselves so make sure they only share positive stories about you.

Career Couch – Lining Up Interviews Is Just the Beginning – Interview – NYTimes.com.

The entry has one thing right: submitting resumes to “Careers@Company.com” is the same as tossing them into a blackhole. There are too many others going that route, so you have to find alternative paths to get noticed.

Read on, fellow seekers.

In a terrific half-hour consultation, he gave me three great approaches to use in presenting myself:

Lewis is very friendly, easy to talk to, objective without being abrasive. When you’re job searching, it’s easy to feel down about yourself, to feel like you’ve done something wrong that landed you in this predicament. We forget there are over 12 million OTHER people unemployed right now because we sit in front of a computer all day – alone – looking for a job. Nevermind we sometimes forget to network with people in person as much as we should.

I highly recommend contacting Lewis for a consultation and to sign up for his services. His suggestions helped me re-align my focus and delivery so that I feel in control of my interviews once again. We need more services like his to be mandatory with unemployment benefits, in my opinion.