At the end of this month Jeffrey Kalmikoff is taking the design helm at Digg as our new director of design and user experience. Jeffrey will be leading all aspects of user experience and interface design at Digg. He’s a stellar designer and leader, who until recently was chief creative officer at Threadless and SkinnyCorp. I’m thrilled to be placing Digg in such good hands as I pursue a new project. I’ll continue to remain very involved with Digg as a frequent advisor and design consultant (and of course as a user!).

In October, I will be joining my friends Cal Henderson and Stewart Butterfield (and several other ex-Flickr folks) building a game under the company name Tiny Speck. Sign up over at TinySpeck.com to learn more. I’m excited to be digging (heh heh) into a fresh project with new and exciting challenges but it’s bittersweet to be stepping away from Digg.

Over the course of the past four and a half years that I’ve been working Digg, it has undergone many changes and we’re extremely grateful to all of you who’ve helped shape the site through your participation, feedback, and passion. I take with me so many great memories and experiences from my time here. We have some great ideas currently under development and I know Jeffrey and his team will infuse them with much awesome.

Jeffrey has very strong experience designing a thriving community-driven website. You are the ones who make Digg tick and I am very confident that Jeffrey will be able to support you with Digg’s design. He’ll be looking for your feedback to design the future of Digg and I’m sure you won’t be shy in offering it to him!

My hat goes off to you, Digg readers, participants, and fans! Please join me in welcoming Jeffrey to the Digg family and thank you for everything. Daniel (Digg, Twitter)

In true Digg Dialogg fashion, we’re mixing things up once again with our next guest, Oscar-winning actor, Matt Damon. Michael Phillips, the film critic of The Chicago Tribune and co-host of “At the Movies”, will be interviewing him at the Toronto International Film Festival where Damon is debuting his upcoming film, The Informant!

Matt Damon is best known for writing and starring in the Oscar-winning film Good Will Hunting. He has also starred in films such as Saving Private Ryan, the Oceans series, the Bourne series, and The Talented Mr. Ripley, among others. And his latest film, The Informant!, will be released on September 18, 2009.

Besides his achievements in cinema, he is active in philanthropy, including H20 Africa Foundation and Water.org. Some of you will remember him being named People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2007.

In case you’ve missed previous Digg Dialoggs, the program gives you the opportunity to submit and Digg questions that we then pose to influential leaders in their field. Check out some of our past interviews here. They include Al Gore, Trent Reznor, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Richard Branson, to name a few.

Submit and vote on your favorite questions for Matt Damon on the Digg Dialogg page from now until Friday, September 11th at Noon PT; we’ll be posting the full interview on Tuesday, September 15th.

Thanks,

Mike