Introducing John Donahoe

Last week, I introduced John Donahoe, the President of Ebay at the Shop.org Annual Summit. Several interesting items:

It was the largest crowd I've ever spoken in front of (1,500+). It didn't feel all that different from speaking to 100 - the lights were bright enough you couldn't see clearly out beyond a few tables. It looked like a special effect where the back rows had been cloned many, many times :)

He was very relaxed backstage - he's been a CEO for a long time, and was clearly comfortable in this format (speech/interview). He was looking for information on the mood/flavor of the conference that would allow him to connect from stage.
He was very relaxed onstage for that matter, pulling out a Flip phone to record a video blog for Ebay employees.
He also didn't have an issue making statements that were going to pull press attention "auctions are not a religion", "we're doing $380MM in mobile sales" and some commentary about Amazon and Wal-Mart.
He was very focused on "servant based leadership" and I heard "blessed" used to describe Ebay several times.
Ebayink has a good writeup - as does Scot from Chanel Advisor - who got reimbursed $10 for breakfast.

A networking tale

I received good news yesterday. About four months ago, a friend of mine, Ken, asked me if I could introduce his former intern to some folks at a publication here in town. "Intern Y" had done great work for him, and had always been interested in the media industry. I respect Ken's opinion, so I made the introductions and we went to lunch.

It went well, and the folks at the publication were able to provide some good advice for continuing the job search. She was recently out of college, and it boiled down to a)networking, b)targeting her job search focus and c)considering some of the realities of the publishing industry.

Some time passed. A project manager left. The hiring manager needed to bring someone in. Former Intern-Y was not a traditional fit - she was highly organized, but had a fine arts background. However, she got the first interview because of the power of that connection, made a month or two before.

Then, she hung in there. She made sure to explain her strengths - detail oriented, organized, and provided examples. She also sent along a demo she had done of a website - for her sisters wedding - but it proved she could move between mediums.

And, it paid off yesterday when she got the job offer. :)

Pepperjam and GSI

Congrats to Kris Jones and PepperJam, acquired by GSI.

Tree stumps

I'd highly recommend reading Kevin Ertell's post on the Tree Stump Theory. Especially with all of the different systems in play in an ecommerce environment, it's easy to overlook the assumptions that built the current system.