Alan Lewis

Alan Lewis Has Joined Auctiva

I am happy to report that I have recently joined Auctiva as their Platform Manager. Auctiva has been in the business of providing software and services for eBay sellers for a decade, and I'll be leading their new effort to build a platform that powers new services for sellers off-eBay.

Why join Auctiva? Here are just a few of the many reasons:

• I have known many of the people who work here for many years, and I really respect what they have accomplished in building the company to where it is.
• Auctiva has a vision for online commerce that I can get behind. If I ever get back on the blogging horse in a serious way I will have much more to say about this vision, but in brief, Auctiva is building a powerful platform that will enable many new, uniques way to connect buyers and sellers.
• The people who work here are humble, and are willing to admit mistakes and reverse course quickly. Auctiva was recently forced by eBay policy changes to start charging for some services that were previously free. The original pricing that we came up with was a mistake -- too complicated, and too costly for many sellers. So we changed it, and every indication from our users is that this time we have got it right. Of course you hope to get things right the first time as often as you can, but any company will make mistakes, and what one of the things that makes a company great is how it acts to recognize and fix those mistakes.
• Auctiva has a very flat organizational structure. At Auctiva I am reporting directly to CEO Jeff Schlicht (and most other people in the company are also no more than 2 or 3 levels removed). This contrasts with a previous employer where the CEO was (no exaggeration) my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss's boss.

Although my new role is focused on Auctiva's off-eBay projects, I will be working on some eBay projects as well. I will be attending eBay's developer conference this week (which is literally being held down the street from Auctiva's new San Jose office) and I look forward to catching up with my eBay developer community colleagues who I have met over the years. I'll be sporting my new bright blue Auctiva shirt, so give me a holler if  you see me.

Alan Lewis Has Left eBay and Joined Ning

I'm breaking my unintended blog radio silence to announce that I have joined Ning as the platform product manager. Ning is a really cool company that lets you create a social network for anything. I am working with some great people at Ning. When I came in to interview I didn't know much about the company other than what I had read on Techcrunch, but everyone I met with really impressed me. I am not announcing what I am working on at Ning yet (keep track of the Ning blog if you are interested in that).

Of course joining Ning means leaving eBay. So why leave? My decision to leave was personal (in other words, it is none of your business), and had nothing to do with anything else that is going on at eBay right now. eBay has had some hard choices to make, and while I haven't always agreed with every decision they have made, the people who work there are basically good, and they are trying to do the right thing. Really.

I am most bummed out to leave my baby (eBay Desktop) behind. I transitioned the product to a great team within eBay, but until they update the eBay Desktop blog to announce themselves (hint, hint) I don't want to give away any more details. It was awesome to create a product, work with a fantastic team, and then see it grow to hundreds of thousands of users. eBay Desktop was a very successful small project within a big huge company, and it didn't always get the credit it deserved, but it was overall a rewarding experience. I made it known before leaving that I strongly believe that the future for auctions growth at eBay is in eBay Desktop, and I hope that message got through.

-Alan

I'm Supporting Barack Obama

Wow.

And of course, this is my personal opinion, not that of my employer.

Its Spring! Time to Work Outside

It has been raining for what seems like months, and finally this week there was some nice weather. I took my laptop outside some of the time, and found that I was getting at least twice as much done. A nice environment leads to better work. I took this picture with my new cell phone (more on that later) -- I think I'm making this my new office:

I No Longer Have the Crappiest Car at eBay

My not-so-trusty 91' Ford Taurus, also known as the Crappiest Car at eBay South Campus, bit the dust on Friday after our North American Business Unit (NABU) all-hands meeting. Here is what it sort of looked like back when it was new (mine has really ugly peeling paint that is common to the model year on the hood and roof):

After the meeting I was filling up at a gas station, and after I started my car it made a god-awful grinding noise that continued even after I tried to turn the engine off. I managed to drive the car the few blocks to my mother-in-law's house, spewing smoke out of the engine as I drove down the street. Once I got there I managed to turn it off, and it wouldn't start again.

As luck would have it, I found out over the weekend that my parents are getting a new car, and they offered to give me their old Taurus (a 98'). So, as of next week, I'll be driving to work in a newer, different old Taurus that looks something like this:

I was thinking of taking up Bill Cobb's suggestion to all NABU employees that they buy a car on the site. However, it was hard to pass up something free.

Microsoft PDC Day 1

I'm at the Microsoft PDC Conference in LA today. This is my first trip as an evangelist, and I made the rookie mistake of booking the trip through the company travel portal instead of booking it myself, so I ended up stuck with a flight from San Jose to Orange County instead of to LAX which is much closer. The drive wasn't that bad, but having to drive extra in LA is never fun. LA used to look wildly different and weird to me, but now most of it looks the same as parts of the Bay Area to me.

I'm working in the eBay Developers Program booth today, Wednesday, and Thursday, so if you are at the conference stop by and say hi. I got to meet Sergey Dmitriev, CEO of JetBrains, who make my favorite piece of software -- the IntelliJ IDEA Java IDE.

My New Job at eBay: Technical Evangelist

Today I signed the papers to transfer to a new job at eBay. I'll be working as a technical evangelist in the Developers Program, along with people like Adam Trachtenberg (my new manager) and Greg Isaacs (director of the program). I've been a technical writer for the last five years, and I want some new challenges. My first challenge will be to explain to my family what exactly is a technical evangelist. I'll be spreading the word about the Developers Program, and all of the cool APIs, tools, and programs that we offer developers. I also hope to evangelize blogging within eBay. I realized today when I signed that I'm now in the marketing department. I guess I'd better learn to talk really loud, and I should hone my Excel skillz. I'll be working in a different building: "Toys", the only one that has Diet Mountain Dew in the soda machines.

My first day in the new position is in two weeks, and I get to jump right in by attending the eBay Developers Conference. I'll be giving two presentations there: "Introduction to eBay Web Services" and "Migrating to eBay Web Services."

Strange Encounter at Frys Electronics

I was at the Frys on Hamilton in San Jose today, shopping for a new monitor. I hadn't been there in about a year, and every time I go it is worse and worse. The merchandise is in terrible shape, and it feels depressing in there. After a few minutes, I gave up looking and was heading out when I checked my cell phone to see what time it was. I looked up from my phone to see an employee looking at me. "You didn't just take a picture, did you?", he said, nervously. I said that I didn't have a camera phone, and that I hadn't taken a picture. He looked around, more nervous than before, and said, "There are people in here all the time taking pictures, I hope you didn't take a picture." I pulled out my phone and showed him that there was no camera on it. "Good," he said, "because I have private investigators after me trying to take my picture."

Ten, or even five years ago, Frys was the place to go to get deals on electronics and computers. The customer service was horrible, but you put up with it because it was the best bargain in town. Now, you can almost always get better deals online. I've been going there less and less over the last few years, and I keep swearing each time I go that I'll never go again. But if I don't ever go there, where will I meet such interesting people?

Another Review of the Lou Harrison Concert

I found another review of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra concert where my dad's new composition, "Elegy for Lou Harrison", was premiered. The review is by artssf.com, which apparently is "the independent, non-commercial observer-critic of the arts, your best source in the San Francisco Bay Area." The review is very complimentary:

The concert brought out [Lou Harrison's] percussion period, his Chinese phase and his relatively traditional Suite for Violin and String Orchestra. Its novel highlight, to these ears, was Kerry Lewis' new "Elegy for Lou Harrison,"  a marvelous exuberance  echoing many stylistic trends of LH's own music, coming from one of his former pupils.

Lou Harrison Concert Reviewed in Mercury News

The Mercury News has posted a positive review of the Lou Harrison concert where my dad's new composition was premiered. The reviewer enjoyed the concert (as did I), and he had this to say about my dad's work:

"Elegy'' felt powered by breast-beating grief, carried by dark melodies over harp arpeggios and ostinato bass. Later, it unfolded sweetly -- "resplendent'' with Harrison's Asian modalism. Lewis, who was in the audience, has written a piece his teacher would have enjoyed. The orchestra gave it a rich, emotional performance.