Spring Creek Group is one I’ve heard of in Seattle or certainly a lot of the big locals companies have social media advisers, marketing/PR departments where your skill set would be very valuable.

Just remember to be confident in yourself and your abilities, because I think that’s the number one way to get a job. Good luck with whatever you decide!

What about working at Microsoft? I mean, I know they’re kind of the huge behemoth freaky giant corporation, but I have several rather wonderful friends who work there and in over five years the biggest complaint I’ve heard is that occasionally the (free, mind you, free) cafeteria occasionally runs out of sugar-free red bull.

However, regarding question #1, why don’t you try leveraging your existing relationships at Real if you’re concerned that your resume won’t speak for itself? Surely they know all the ins and outs of what you do there. I don’t know if this is up your alley, but a job in product management might suit your needs for variety, customer interaction, involvement with the team, and so on: http://www.realnetworks.apply2jobs.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=mExternal.showJob&RID=1416&CurrentPage=1

It doesn’t need to be a forever thing, but staying at Real might let you build the resume you want and then move on. Or you could try to go elsewhere now and look for something that’s more client-focused but still uses your technical skills, so you don’t feel like you’re back in the pits of software development, but you also don’t feel like you’re just babysitting customers with no power to actually get anything done. At my work we have a position that isn’t an exact fit, but serves as an illustrative example of what I’m trying to describe: http://www.richrelevance.com/careers#118