Bill Watt’s Blog

I don’t talk about work often in the blog… it isn’t a work blog (which is obvious if you look at all the posts about MTV shows) but there are a couple fun things coming out of Current these days and here is the first:

Hack the Debate:

We’ve got an interesting project going on this Friday where you can disuss the debates on twitter by adding #current to your tweet and your comment may end up on the Current broadcast. For more information and details on how to participate, check out http://current.com/debate

Yes, I’m about a week behind in writing. It has been a busy week.

As is my tradition, my gift to myself was a dinner with a bunch of friends. It is always comforting to know I have more friends than the room available and yet sad that I can’t invite everyone I wanted to invite. So, on Saturday we gathered at Twist and had a great time catching up with old friends, introducing some new friends to the group, and generally ate too much. It was fun mingling FairMarket, eBay,  and Current friends.

It was also nice to see the benefits of a Web 2.0 / global social networking world where the birthday wishes came in from all corners of the Earth.  One more way technology is making the world a bit smaller and way more fun.

Anyway- thanks to everyone who could make it, sorry to everyone who I couldn’t invite, thanks to everyone who wished we me a happy birthday, and thanks to the folks who shared their favorite things with me, and a special thanks to Amanda who baked my favorite cookies.

Well- another year in my life has passed and it has been a good one. Here are a few of the highlights and you can read the older posts should you care about additional details:

• Alice and I have been having fun in CA
• I continued to attend the Wednesday night dinners with Jason, Jason, and JSK for most of the year. These were often 2 or more dinners a week so it is worth noting given the enjoyment I got and the amount of time consumed.
• I took a 6 week sabbatical from eBay including a trip that spanned places in England, France and Luxembourg (and visiting with friends in each) as well as some time in Santa Barbara and with the family in Ohio
• In one step I ended my time at eBay after 4.3 yrs and finished my official association with FairMarket after 9+ years. Many people thought this day would never come.
• I took almost 2 months off (was planning for longer) before accepting the next stage of my (work) life at Current.com

Ah, it was a good year.

Ok… I think the job might kill me but in a good way.

When I worked for FairMarket and for eBay I was pretty removed from users. I got to do tech support (and I loved it) and I worked directly for the customers who paid us (big companies) but there was a real separation from the end user. That’s ok… our business was different and we built cool tools that the people paying us wanted to let them better work with their end users. It was just a layer removed is all.

At Current I’m not exactly close to the users… but it won’t be long. I’m talking to the community team, using the site, and working my way to the point where we’ll have a product management voice out there too. The delay is that I’m still trying to get a handle on the day to day PM duties, working on better PRD’s, getting in front of deals, and generally trying to make all the internal stakeholders happy. But I can see the day when we have that stuff firing on all cylinders and I can get out there an work with the community directly.

Anyway- what prompted this? A community member posted the item, “what happened to current.com” and generated a good amount of discussion. My assumption is that by the time I wake up tomorrow the thread will be much longer.

I want to post a thread right now asking people for feedback but until I can be prepared (time wise) to actually address the expected flurry I’d better hold off. It won’t be long… and it will be good.

But in case anyone is reading this and thinks to them self, “this guy seems fun on his blog… it might be great to work for him!” now is your chance:

Check out this job post for an SEO job at Current that would be on my product management team. Let me know if you have any questions.

I can’t believe that May is done. It has been a bit of a whirlwind with birthdays (my brother and nephew to name two), people having kids or finding out they will have one (Mai & Peter, Amelia and Ben, Jen and Chad, and more that aren’t announced yet), goodbye dinners (J Scott and Carol, several for Lily, Jonny from Current, Eric Nordby from Current, and many others), work projects, and Alice wrapping up work.

There are a few things I wanted to blog but haven’t had the time for unique posts:

• Work has been good. I can’t believe I’ve been there 3 months already! I’m learning tons, like the folks on the team and the commute isn’t bad at all. I even get to commute with a few folks so it feels like the time is more useful than it would have been. The hardest part is the hours in the office vs hours online when I get home and trying to be a part of the social scene while living so far away. At least I have people willing to get lunch and coffee with me so it is starting well.
• My AppleTV is getting more use these days now that I can rent movies and watch other content on our new HDMI-enabled TV
• I’m really enjoying the Dr Who series on SciFi while Torchwood is still taking some time to grow on me.
• I have an incredible appreciation for my friends. I was stressing last week about a work project and several of my friends stepped up and helped me out. Thanks especially to Kathleen and if anyone is looking for SEM help I highly encourage you to check out iProspect.
• While I have made the most of my meals while Alice is gone (can you say Korean BBQ 3x times week) I’m more than a little jealous that she’s eating at the Border Cafe tonight with Heather and Karen and tomorrow with Eric. No fair! (For those of you that don’t know, the Border Cafe has the best chicken fajitas ever and a good selection of margaritas.)
• I wish I bought a hybrid last year. The difference was only like $3k and even if it doesn’t make a huge difference it would have been something. I know… I know. A hybrid SUV is still stupid for me considering I usually drive myself. I’m going to get the bike tires pumped up tomorrow and see about riding my bike to the train station instead of driving.
• I picked up the book “The Post American World” and am really liking it. I’m not a person that thinks it is a forgone conclusion that America will lose it’s place at the head of the table but I do think that the rest of the world increasing in standard of living is a good thing. Heck, we’re always talking about exporting democracy… now that the rest of the world is catching on (in various shapes and sizes) how does it feel?

OK- that’s enough. Time to watch BSG and then get some sleep. Coffee with Alex @ 9AM is going to come very soon!

I’m pretty excited that I got to visit the Twitter offices last week and Google last night. Last week I met DPP for coffee and he’s spending time in the Twitter offices. Last night I tagged along with Dan from Current to the Google Campfire One and got to see how the other half live. You can see the video on the Scoble blog and I should be visible in this video he took.

I need to go to more of these things. The Valley makes this stuff easier and I need to get out there and see what people are doing.

So, I finally got around to sending out the “I have a new job!” email. Alice has been after me to let folks know but it has been crazy getting up to speed and any free time I’ve had has gone to the commute, dinner with friends, catching up with Alice, or just plain catching up on sleep.

Thinking I’m all funny I went ahead and included a link to this blog only to realize I haven’t added any posts (except for my tv musings) recently.  Good plan! So… in the next day or so I’m going to add a few posts I’ve been sitting on in anticipation of having a few free minutes.

Well- it is my 3rd week at Current and today I got my business cards and noticed that they removed the job description. I guess they’re going to let me stay.

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