Shift Happenz

Iphone promotion on Epinions

2007-06-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

Epinions wants your Iphone review! The first 10 very helpful (community rated) reviews submitted between now and July 6th can earn $100.

Details can be found here

Technorati Tags:iphone,promotions

Toyota is helping

2007-06-08T22:28:00.001-07:00

"There are some interesting statistics from Toyota. All hybrids sold (66 percent of which have been Toyotas in the U.S.) have been estimated to have saved 215 million gallons of gas since 1999. And since 1997, hybrids have saved the world 315 million tons of CO2. These calculations come from a study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and if they're accurate, that seems pretty impressive. Let's keep on ~~trucking~~ hybrid-ing."

Autobloggreen

Ebay Community wins a webby

2007-06-08T22:20:00.000-07:00

On behalf of 233 million registered eBay users, CEO and President Meg Whitman will accept the award in recognition of eBay's contributions as a cultural phenomenon and commitment to innovation, growth and social consciousness. Since it's foundation in 1995, eBay has expanded to include some of the strongest brands in the world, including PayPal, Skype and Shopping.com, contributed over $8 million to non-profit organizations, and revolutionized the Internet.

Meg will need to give an acceptence speech, but it can only be 5 words. If you would like to help her go check out The Chatter

****UPDATED****

I was a little behind in the times, the webbys were handed out already.

Meg's speech "Bidding starts at 99 cents"

Proud new owner of a PRII

2007-04-03T23:51:00.000-07:00

We bought a 2007 Prius last week, right before the tax break was reduced. So far we are averaging close to 47 MPG. SWEEEET

Technorati Tags:Prius

SD West 2007 - A project manager learns more about Agile

2007-04-03T23:36:00.000-07:00

Better late than never. I attended 1 day of the SD West conference a couple of weeks ago. I went to two workshops in the People, Process & Methods Track. I've committed to increasing my knowledge in Agile/Iterative/Short Cycle development techniques and tools. According to Scott Ambler the industry is moving away from "traditional" processes towards more "agile " processes.

Here are the workshops I attended and what I thought of them,

Agile Model Driven Development (AMDD): Gain Without the Pain Scott Ambler
- I liked Scott's presentation skills and group tasks. I liked what he had to say. Some thoughts that I took to heart: "Just barely enough documentation" & "Use white boards more often"

Agile Estimating and Planning Mike Cohn
Mike was also a good speaker and the workshop tasks made me think about the planning process we just went through on some of our projects. I look forward to using his planning poker cards on some of our projects.

Overall I liked the workshops and will seek out more training in these areas.

Technorati Tags:SD West

The Shopping.com Blog

2007-03-28T00:24:00.000-07:00

We launched a blog last week called What's In Store.

"We’re here to share expert online shopping tips, discuss the latest trends, and most importantly, to create a new forum for online shoppers to share practical and useful information with each other. We hope to offer something for everyone, from active online shoppers to holiday-only gift buyers."

It's main focus is shopping but maybe we'll get a few mentions of some of things we're doing on Shopping.com and Epinions.com

SF Giants going solar - COOL

2007-03-27T23:52:00.000-07:00

Googleis doing it and so are the San Francisco Giants.

I think this is great news and I look forward to hearing more news like this in the near future. I think it's very important that all these large buildings/structures start exploring ways to reduce their consumption.

What's even more impressive is that the panels were installed within days of the announcement. Usually these things take months/years to happen.

I wonder if the panels had anything to do with the new HD scoreboard?

Does anyone else have any corporate solar news??

Technorati Tags: Solar, SF Giants

Time for blogging

2007-03-27T23:35:00.000-07:00

I'm going to make a pledge right here, right now, to put some more time into blogging.

There you have it. More posts to come.....

Please fix my calendar!!!

2007-03-15T09:52:00.000-07:00

The time change has been wonderful outside of work, the sun is out later and my daughter sleeps in. At work, it's a mess. Everything is 1 hour off and not everyone is on the same timezone/hour. It's resulted in meetings being schedule with the time (that the organizer wants the meeting to occur) being put in the subject line.

Anyone else having this problem? Oh and before you comment on the MS patches, I've run them and so have other people. Nothing works, I guess it will stay like this for another month. :-(

Up for the challenge?

2007-01-31T21:25:00.000-08:00

Epinions has announced the sweepstakes rules and prizes for February. Write a Very Helpful review in 500 words or less and win up to $500.
Here is what you can win.

* The first place winner will receive $500 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi dolls.
* The second place winner will receive $300 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi dolls.
* The third place winner will receive $200 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi dolls.
* Five additional winners will receive $100 in eRoyalties, plus a set of Epi Dolls.

eRoyalties is the equivalent of cash. Not a bad deal, right?

The community is pretty excited about it. Have a look at what they're saying.

Technorati Tags:Epinions,sweepstakes,reviews,community

Rythms

2007-01-17T22:28:00.000-08:00

I've used the word "rythm(s)" quite a few times las week at work. I've been spending a lot of time working on processes with my teams. We're being assisted by Alistair Cockburn and it's been a learning experience. Alistair is great to work with. I've decided to read his book Agile Software Development. I hope to be the first to review it on Epinions soon. :-)

I'm really enjoying this stuff, process development. It's especially exciting when the teams are deciding how to do it. This bottoms up approach to product development is where the industry is at. I'm fond of the Agile Methodologies without actually using any of them. I haven't used the traditional waterfall method in quite some time, at least 2 years. I'm truly grateful for the management at AOL to have let me pilot some short cycle development processes. At SDC we're not using SCRUM or XP or any other "agile" development methodology specifically. We've customized our process to fit the projects.

More to come on this topic and working with Alistair

Technorati Tags:Agile Software Development, Process Development,Alistair Cockburn

Playing around

2007-01-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

I'm playing around with the blog template. Thoughts on this one?

I'm going to change the header image soon.

New Year's resolution - Not gaining the SDC 15

2007-01-02T10:53:00.000-08:00

SDC (shopping.com) offers it employees snacks, cereal, drinks, and an excellent expresso machine like a lot of companies in Silicon Valley. I've gained a few pounds since I have been here, not bike commuting or playing soccer might be helping too. One of my resolutions was to resist the snacking that would lead to gaining what's commonly called the "Google 15". So far I'm doing ok, I just need to remember that water is my friend.

pictures/video to come of the kitchen

Technorati Tags:The Google 15,Losing Weight

Gantt Chart Graphic in a Web page

2007-01-02T10:28:00.000-08:00

I haven't used MS Project all that much while at Shopping.com. Most projects are so short in duration that the schedule can be done on wiki (this is my opinion of course). There are some projects that do warrant the need for a heavier management tool than a wiki. Since wiki's are used for a lot of the project information a HTML form of the project file is needed. Having an image of the Gantt Chart is nice to have too. I'm posting these instructions for my fellow PJMs as well as for myself. :-)

How to display a Gantt Chart Graphic in a Web page:
1. View the Gantt Chart and on the Standard Toolbar, click Copy Picture button to open the Copy Picture Dialog box.
2. Select To GIF Image File option. The image field will be given the same name as the project file with a .GIF extension. (Graphic Interchange Format is a compressed graphics file format)
3. In the Timescale section, select the dates range or select As Shown on Screen to capture the timescale that is currently displayed on the screen.
4. Click OK.
5. On Menu, File, Save as HTML and select the filename and location and click Save.
6. In the Export Mapping Dialog box, select the map file that you want to modify and click on Edit.
7. In the HTML options section, check the option Include Image File in HTML Page and Project will display the information for the Gantt Chart GIF image.

8. Click OK and from the Export Mapping Dialog box, click Save.

9. Open the saved document in the browser to view it.

Technorati Tags:Gantt+Chart

Working at a smaller company

2006-12-27T16:01:00.000-08:00

I've never worked for a company the size of shopping.com, around 400 people globally. If you look at my linkedin profile you'll see that I've always worked for a 1000+ person company. While Shopping.com is part of Ebay, it still has retained it's structure and its own office as an subsidiary. Here are some of the things I've enjoyed in the first few months on the job, that I didn't seem to have with my previous employers.

Getting the Welcome presention from the CFO
Meeting the CEO and CTO on day three
Having the CTO and CEO at an employee feedback session
Almost every part of the organization is represented in the office (we still have a big group in Israel).
The business owners are local and you can walk to their desks.
An overall sense that the company is run out of this office.
The entire office celebrating launches (literally)

Technorati Tags:Shopping.com

Dave Chappelle

2006-12-27T09:36:00.000-08:00

I got to see Dave Chappelle on friday night at The Punchline in San Francisco. It was a very impromptu performance as tickets went on sale on Thrs. morning. He plans to make more appearances in 2007 as his "no compete" clause with Comedy Central recently expired.

He was funny, didn't really have a skit per say. You could say he was trying out material or just having a conversation with about 150 people. The Punchline is a small club, getting to see Dave in this venue was a treat.

Technorati Tags:Dave Chappelle, Comedy, The Punchline

Speakers in 2006

2006-12-21T10:43:00.000-08:00

Shopping.com is no different then AOL Mountain View when it comes to having brownbags, tech talks, what ever you want to call em. Since being here we've had some pretty interesting speakers come talk to us. They include:

Reid Hoffman - CEO of LinkedIn

Chris Anderson - Author The Long Tail

Mark Goldstein - CEO of Loyalty Labs

Doesn't every company in the Valley bring in speakers every once in a while?

Technorati Tags:Speakers,Chris Anderson,
Mark Goldstein,Reid Hoffman

Jury Duty

2006-12-16T15:36:00.000-08:00

I just had Jury Duty this week. I've done my civic duty for the year and was gladly not chosen, not even interviewed, for the case. I was lucky enough to get chosen for a 2003 murder trial. I say lucky because I think everyone should sit on a trail once in their life just for the experience. I wouldn't want a murder trial again though. Jury duty and being a juror is an interesting, yet boring at times, process to be part of. If you like people watching then you will like the getting to know the prospective jurors. You learn about them via the short biography they must provide the court as well as their responses to the questions the prosecution and defense ask.

Technorati Tags:Jury Duty

Epinions

2006-12-15T20:18:00.000-08:00

In 2004 Dealtime bought Epinions.com and created Shopping.com. Epinions is one of my projects and I plan to talk about them a lot here. We're currently giving away a lot of money during our Holiday Write-Off Sweepstakes. Come on by and check it out.

Technorati Tags: Epinions, Sweepstakes

Shift Happenz?

2006-12-15T16:20:00.000-08:00

I first heard the term "Shift Happens" at a Cheetah Learning PMP crash course. I liked the phrase and use it a lot at work. Project managers always have to deal with change and this was nice way to remind myself that change happens (in work and life) and you need to deal with it. I decided to put a "z" at the end instead of an "s" since someone took shifthappens.blogspot.com

Turns out a motivational speaker named James Feldman claimed the domain shifthappens.com so that was out too.

I did create shifthappens over at my old stomping grounds, AOL Journals, but decided I would wanted to use Blogger instead. I know that some of my friends at AOL might not be happy with my choice. Since I am going to be touching on some work related thoughts I figured I should not use the platform of my old job. Ebay's blogging platform isn't much to write home about so I settled with Google's Blogger.

Can't get better than this (first week @ SDC)

2006-12-06T15:42:00.001-08:00

What a first week of work. I happened to start at Shopping.com the week we launched a site redesign of shopping.com and new brand, DoorOne. Doorone is our new Shopping Comparison Site in the UK, France, Germany, and Australia. This took place at the end of Sept. in case anyone was wondering.

There was a lot of celebrating going on this week, it'll be hard to top this when I take over.

Welcome

2006-12-06T15:41:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog. This is my first post in my new blog and first post since leaving AOL. At AOL I worked on the AOL Journals product so blogging was part of the job, sort of. Here's my old blog.

I plan to talk about my thoughts and opinions on matters relating to my new company*, my current profession as a project manager, internet/software industry topics, and anything else I feel like.

* I work for shopping.com, which is an Ebay company. The content you are reading here is my opinion and not the opinion of Ebay or Shopping.com.