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.