I’ve picked my Director of Digital Things. His name is Ryan Nelson, and his portfolio can be found [here](http://www.ryanmnelson.com/). He’ll be starting in April.
Longtime friend-of-the-site Nima Yousefi (he coded Scrippets) will be coming on board to handle a few special projects in the meantime.
With ridiculously good candidates to choose from, it’s not just protocol to say it was a tough decision. I learned quite a bit, both from video-chat interviews with applicants and calling references. I would have been happy with any of my final few choices; hiring just one was difficult. It forced me to focus on what I saw this person doing two, six and twenty-four months down the road.
I largely followed my [original plan](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2010/hiring-a-new-person) for the hiring process, starting with reviewing portfolios and emailing follow-up questions. I assigned a special project to my top few contenders, both to see what they could do and how they would discuss it afterwards.
You can [read the assigment](http://johnaugust.com/Assets/digital_challenge.pdf) if you like. I’ve left it to the candidates whether they want to share what they did with the world.
If you feel like doing your own riff on the project, by all means go for it. If you’re using my text, I’d like attribution, but otherwise it’s free and clear.