Bill Watt’s Blog

Well… it is Friday and this week has flown and I still haven’t sent out my “new job!” email. So- here’s the info.

On 2/21 I got an offer from Current TV to join as Director, Online Product Management. I accepted that night and started on Monday 2/25. My job is best described by looking at the job description and I’ve copied it to the bottom of this post for when I convince them to stop interviewing other people and remove it from the site.

My first week has been really fun and I’m trying to jump right in. It is amazing how I’d forgotten what it is like to be the “new guy” in an organization. Even when I joined eBay I started with 16 friends (and 1 Hikade) and a firm grasp on the technology. Now it is all questions, new technologies, and many names to memorize.

People have been really nice and amazingly helpful. Since this is not a work blog I’m looking forward to many more posts of a non-work stories that happened at work to show you the personalities who get the joy of working with me. (You’ll need to read their blogs to see how they feel about it. )

Department: Online

Position: Director of Product Management

Location: San Francisco

Description

The Director of Product Management will be responsible for deeply understanding market direction and requirements and driving those requirements into the core technology architecture and product/services for the company. This person will play a critical role in driving our product roadmap. Core functions will include conceiving new online features and optimizing existing ones, developing project specifications, managing projects through the development lifecycle, and working with a wide cross section of stakeholders across the organization.  The Director will take ownership of new and existing products, identify requirements, define the product vision, create design specifications and lead the implementation of the product roadmap.  

Responsibilities

• Lead the full product lifecycle, including concept, specification, design, launch and maintenance phases
• Work closely with technology leadership to manage all stages of the product development process
• Work with multiple cross-functional teams to elicit, understand, rationalize and prioritize requests for new functionality
• Design functional specifications and make tradeoff decisions between functionality and resources/timeframes

Skills

• Strong blend of business acumen, technical knowledge, and strategic perspective. Able to balance business and product interests of the company
• Familiarity with highly interactive, web-based business and social networking products
• Ability to drive cross-functional collaboration and build consensus without clear authority
• Driven, high energy level, and strong commitment to driving results
• Strong interpersonal and facilitation skills. Diplomacy, tact and relationship building skills, especially the ability to develop strong, effective working relationships in situations where team members have conflicting goals and objectives
• Strong product/project management skills. Proven experience managing complex projects to successful completion
• 8+ years relevant experience with 3+ years as a product manager in a web-based environment

I was reading this post from Seth Godin:

Ordinary is cheaper than you

The folks who answer the phone at information and the airlines aren’t folks any more. They’re computers.

And the person taking your order at the drive-through isn’t in the same state as you. They might not even be in the same country.

It’s now clear to employers everywhere that they can hire ordinary, perfectly-acceptable staff for a fraction of what they have to pay you to do the job.

In other words, if all the best you can do is ‘good enough’, then why on earth should I pay you the benefits and wages that it costs to get you to do that work

And I can offer one reason why. Henry Ford paid his people more than the lowest rate for a couple reasons not the least of which was so that they could afford the products he sold. We keep going for the lowest price in goods and service and we’re surprised that we’re unhappy with the quality. Ok, that’s like an immediate return on investment. But if we keep pushing these things lower and lower eventually we won’t be able to afford the low prices on low salaries.

Now, I understand the point of Seth’s post… be better than ordinary. I do think there are many ordinary folks out there who are getting caught in the lowest price at any cost war and it is taking us all down.

For all their traffic and the web 2.0-ness they bring to News Corp it seems to me that they’re always treated like second class citizens by their parent company. At least that’s how it looks in the news. See this article. Many of the articles I read these days have News Corp working on pushing out MySpace as part of this deal or that.

Now, maybe I’ve got this all wrong. Maybe News Corp is one company that has figured out it needs to set it’s technology pieces free of the rest if they’re going to grow and bring back higher returns than they can do while tied to the rest of the organization.

That’d be nice. I’m going to go with that as my assumption.

They posted the pics here.

I spent yesterday skiing Bear Valley with a group of folks from eBay including most of the FAIM and ROW development and QA.

The bad. Getting up at 4 to be at eBay by 4:45 and on the bus at 5AM for the 3.5 hour drive.

The good. It was an amazing weather day and was maybe even a little too warm out. It was awesome to see the old team and get to hang out for the day on the ski slope.

All in all it was a pretty funny day. Rishi had apparently never seen snow so it was my pleasure to impart a little big brother wisdom on him (”Avoid the yellow snow!”) and it was amazing how many folks from the 2 buses were new skiers. The woman from the ski resort said it was 70% first timers and she was amazed because people started and kept going all day.

I spent my time on the slopes trying to keep up with two friends who were much better than me. It was a good challenge and they were willing to give me pointers as they saw areas to improve and encouragement with every stop. I only fell once and my left side is still feeling it today. I have finally realized that the last 10 years of inactivity really are taking a toll.  Maybe this will be the thing that drives me to the gym? We’ll see.

The ride home started around 5:30, included a stop to pick up pizza, and then we were back at campus by 9. I put in a couple calls on the 10 min drive home and was asleep by 10:30.

I had no idea this existed but I was behind someone on the road today that had one of these “Pearl Harbor Survivor” license plates.  A quick Google search and I found the PDF (see it here) that enables you to apply for license plates for the following reasons:

• Pearl Harbor survivor (these are the eligibility requirements: The applicant was on station at Pearl Harbor, the Island of Oahu, or offshore within a distance of three miles, on December 7, 1941, during the hours of 7:55 a.m. to 9:45 a.m., Hawaii time, as certified by a California chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association.)
• Amateur Radio License
• Purple Heart Recipient
• Antique Motorcycle
• Horseless Carriage
• Press Photographer
• Congressional Medal of Honor
• Honorary Consul
• Historical Vehicle

Interesting list to be on the same form.

Check out this interview with Robert Chatwani talking about the new marketplace he’s working to launch (working with many folks including the ROW and FAIM teams):

He’s an eBay employee with a passion for people and the planet. And when he took his dream of enhancing the global market for people and planet-positive products to eBay executives they quickly recognized it’s potential. Now he’s engineered a unique collaboration between World of Good, Inc. and eBay that seems destined to bring a virtual marketplace and community for people and planet-positive products to the masses.

So read on to check out what this innovative entrepreneur has to say about changing the way the world of eBay looks at commerce.

- More -

So, once again Apple releases an upgraded product that makes me sigh. Natali Del Conti has two posts about the recent iPhone upgrade and Apple releases in general.

This time it is an upgrade iPod Touch with 32GB of storage (much better than my 16GB unit that I love so much). They have this thing with iPods (and now iPhones too) where right when you get comfortable with a product and feel like all is well with the world they choose to double the capacity. Don’t get me wrong… I wish I had the 32GB model but it isn’t worth upgrading because my 16GB is fine. I carry my older iPod video around with all my content and then pick and choose which video I really want on the touch. Given I’m not generally far from home this works out really well. When I get a new job I’ll pick up a laptop anyway and have all my content plus wifi and access to my slingbox so it will never be that big a deal.

It is just that we’re beginning to be trained that if you wait 6 months (a lifetime to an early adopter) then you know for the same price Apple will double your fun. It isn’t even like they’re making it a radical upgrade… the units don’t necessarily get faster or cooler but they do “more of the same” which translates into better.

Again, first world problems.

Alice sent me an email about some friends and coworkers who are participating in the 3 Day Breast Cancer Walk in San Francisco. They’ve been kind enough to include Alice’s mom as one of the people they’ve chosen to remember. I’ll put the text of the email below and if you feel like donating you can click this link. There is also an offline donation option if you prefer.

Hi……

I’m taking an amazing journey and I’d like you to support me. Thousands of women and men are going to walk 60 miles over the course of three days to raise money for breast cancer research and community outreach through Susan G. Komen for the Cure and the National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund.

Our team A2D2 is walking in memory/support of Erin Bray,  Carla Pipes-Wolf, and Sarah Andreassen. Together, our team is planning on raising at least $25,000 to help end breast cancer forever. Personally, I am going to raise $3,500 of that, so I need your help.  You may donate either in my name or the team’s name.

Because every woman is at risk for breast cancer - a disease that strikes at random and for which the causes and cures are still unknown - I know that every moment counts. Without a cure, an estimated 25 million women around the world will be diagnosed with breast cancer - and 10 million could die - over the next 25 years.

Please take a moment to go online to http://www.the3day.org/, and select Donate Now to search for my personal fundraising webpage. If you donate online, you can spread your donation out over four monthly payments.

Thank you for your support and concern and thank you for your support for my continuing journey.

Love,
Annette 

P.S. Don’t wait. Please donate today.