Bill Watt’s Blog

So… It has been a pretty funny week and I plan to write a longer post over the weekend about all the good stuff that happened. I’ll just drop this as a preview.

Was at dinner last night and was learning about a new friend when we finally hit the intersection of “Where did you go to undergrad?” and “Holy crap, you’re that much younger than me?!?” when I realized we had a friend in common from his undergrad and my FairMarket family. She is on my favorite people list (oh yes, there is a list) and I don’t think they know know each other but that we’re sitting in San Jose drinking wine without any sense of previous commonality and all of a sudden we have a point in our unique pasts that crosses is pretty interesting to me.

I’m not going to write much text now but I’ll write up the dinner summary soon.

I should send a shout out to J Scot Steinhorn and Carol Dombrowski who were married yesterday in Atlanta. I hope you guys are having a ball and look forward to when you move back to CA!

We’ll do a little toast for you guys this Wednesday and maybe we’ll have a pink theme or something to match Carol’s colors.

Yesterday and most of this week were excellent examples of suckness but also plenty of good stuff happened and that the suckness was a good reminder that I have nothing but first world problems.

Case in point… yesterday was full of stress over an impending release and a bunch of dropped balls. Still… I was able to work from home, attended several conf calls, and still managed to squeeze in Korean BBQ for lunch where I burned myself on the pot while watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on my shiny new iPhone. Rough life, right?

So, at one point I was looking for a little humor and a sense that I’m not alone in this big world of Product Management pain. What did I do? Why, I googled “day in the life of a product manager” and came across more than a few gems. Check out this post from “The Cranky Product Manager” and you’ll see the kind of mood I was in.

The nice thing was how the day ended. Release issues (the most important ones anyway) are nearly resolved with a light at the end of the tunnel and I was able to go to Gary Dillabough’s going away party at eBay and see many of my favorite old time eBay folks.

Note for Hima and Ramya- I think I’m actually a hugger after all. Never fear- your protected status is still in place.

It was quite comforting in a way I really really needed yesterday to see good folks and wish Gary well. Two notes to Gary…

1. Thanks for telling the FAIM acquisition story. Even thought it hurts on some grand spiritual level for me to think about how close we were to being a Web 1.0 success story with your parting the number of people that even remember FAIM dropped to about what I can count on two hands and the number of execs who know it dropped to 2. I’m sure in 6 months they’ll rebuild the large merchant strategy and not even realize what they’ve missed out on.
2. Keep me in mind in your future projects. I’d happily clean your pool.

This post idea was suggested by a friend…

So, a few years ago I went to a career management seminar sponsored by eBay. This was one of their “make sure all the resources know we care” initiatives. At one point the facilitator asked, “What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?” So I raised my hand and said, “I’m not sure this is actually good advice but I’ve been told that the best way to be is to keep my head down, work hard, and everything will take care of itself.”

The facilitator shook his head and said, “No, that might actually be the worst advice ever. I hope you didn’t listen to that advice.”

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.

I’m assuming we’ve all had the experience where people find out we work at a place, belong to a club, or know something about something and as soon as people find out they start to associate you with the experience they had with the thing. Working for eBay turned out to be the single biggest generator of those experiences I ever had. We’d be at Starbucks and people would see the work badge and want to talk about a problem they had on eBay. Going to a wedding in Pittsburgh, PA I ended up having a round table with users about their experiences on the site. (Starting to see why Alice thinks all I do is work?)

So, it isn’t a big shock when I open up the laptop this morning to find this IM:

[09:56] friend: i had possibly the worst experience i’ve ever had trying to do something online yesterday
[09:56] friend: trying to sell something on ebay
[09:56] friend: i hold you personally responsible
[09:56] friend: i would like those hours of my life back please

Which is a pretty funny version of what I hear all the time. So, as funny as that is on a personal level it is pretty annoying considering eBay has been doing this for so long.

And here’s the real issue… as eBay moves to compete more directly with Amazon (based on all the news I’m reading this is the direction they’re heading… good luck with that) the seller experience is going to matter and the buyer experience can’t stay the way it is either. There have been posts and discussions for the last couple years about this (see this interview with Andre) but I think the world has changed quite a bit since then. We’re Web 2.0 now and customization by vertical or by experience is likely quite a bit easier than it was in 2004.

I shop eBay when I want a deal. I shop Amazon when I want something of higher quality, when I’m looking for a suggestion or thoughtful product comparison, or want the thing immediately. eBay is still for the bargain hunter while Amazon has done a better job of providing me the best retail experience without needing to talk to people.

Also, if you were to believe Ryan Spoon then Amazon became the 2nd coming as soon as they figure out how to get him his razors and toilet paper.

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.

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!