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.

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.

Yeah, I’ve had a little bot to drink tonight so this may sound like an, “I love you man!” moment but bear with me. This has been an interesting week. I’ve been enjoying work even though I’m completely behind and crazed, Alice is going to Boston for the week (including our anniversary), Jason and Carol moved to ATL on me, my little brother turned 37, and we just had a dinner sort of celebration for Lily who is winding down her years at eBay.

I’m not a big fan of change and yet none of this has flustered me. I’m really enjoying my life these days. My family is all doing well, my friends are having fun, starting families (go Chad & Jen, Amelia & Ben, and others who are not yet named ), I’m making good friends at the new job, and Alice is starting a new adventure.

My favorite thing is catching up with people over a meal and wine. I don’t know… I’m just enjoying life and thought I would share.

OK… I know anyone new looking at my blog is going to automatically write off what I have to say after this but I was reading Scot Wingo’s blog in my feed reader and saw this comment.

It was an honor to have eBay’s new blogger, Richard Brewer-hay, cover Stephanie’s talk in the first days of the new eBay Ink blog - Richard welcome to the conversation (FYI this blogging stuff works from NC as well as San Jose! and ChannelAdvisor is one word.)

A man after my own heart. We spend so much time building brands and people who are supposed to know the space (well, this guy does have a job at eBay now and eBay owns a piece of CA) don’t bother getting the small things right.

Why am I so focused on this? After eBay acquired FairMarket I worked for eBay from 9/4/2003 to 12/31/2007 and still I had people ask me, “We bought FreeMarkets?” Sigh. “No. eBay bought FairMarket and we’ve been here making money for you for 4 years.”

Anyway… maybe this is a sign that the blogger dude is really uncensored and free to say what he wants! Yeah… we’ll see but I doubt it. eBay does not have a culture of questioning anything from the top down. Actually… from the middle down is pretty sacred too. The joy of being a resource!

PS- why isn’t this blog on an eBay domain? Stupid miss in terms of SEO value.

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.

Congrats to StyleFeeder on their round of funding… but I have to ask, “Do they know Shergul works there?” cause I would have assumed having him on the team would be worth $2M all by itself.