We celebrated our 15th anniversary as a company last week and it really got me thinking about what an individual human being means to the success of any venture.

There is a long-standing ritual at eBay events in which all the attendees stand-up and remain standing until a number is announced that exceeds their eBay Feedback Score on eBay.com. It’s an exercise we’ve continued at the four eBay: On Location Events this year and, with a Feedback score of 86, admittedly I’m typically one of the first to sit down. We got to 391 last week before CEO, John Donahoe, had to take a seat on the stage…

Invariably the exercise takes about 20-30 minutes to complete because there is always a handful of sellers present (as there was last week) that have Feedback scores exceeding 100,000. Never ceases to amaze me.

“I Am Not A Number!”
There is a similar phenomenon happening over on Twitter where individuals are really trying to boost their number of followers, and talk about that number with pride; a conversation at a social event here in Silicon Valley inevitably gets to the “how many followers do you have on Twitter?” discussion sooner rather than later.

It’s something I’ve never really been too preoccupied with. Granted, given that I represent the leading global online marketplace, I have a relatively low follower count with @ebayinkblog but, as I’m about to cross the 5,000 follower mark, it got me thinking about stats and numbers and followers and Feedback score, etc.

I’ve noticed that when we start talking in stats and numbers, we have a tendency to briefly forget about the individual people that make up each follower or FB score or whatever it is people are tracking today. I confess that I’ve said the following things to myself on more than one occasion:

“I wonder if I’ll hit 10,000 followers on Twitter by the end of the year.”

“I’m only 14 away from hitting a 100 Feedback on eBay.”

This really hit home for me last week when we were doing the Feedback score ritual at eBayOL San Jose. Every single point that makes up Jack Sheng’s 2,000,000+ Feedback score is a human being making a single transaction with a specific business/seller. A connection has been made. When you think about it in those terms, no matter how insignificant the unique transaction may be, that’s hundreds of thousands of people’s lives that Jack Sheng has changed in some way by a single transaction on eBay.com. It is the true definition of the word “awesome.” And, when thought about in those terms, as a seller it doesn’t matter whether you’re Feedback score is 10 or 10,000 – that’s a number of people that you’ve made a difference in their life.

The same can be said for Twitter. Each follower is an individual; a human being (for the most part – I’m not counting Twitter users such as @commonsquirrel). One retweet, one response and that’s the equivalent of a transaction on eBay; a connection between one human and another that may have otherwise never met.

Know Where You Came From to Know Where You’re Going
I have been with eBay for almost 3 years now and in that time I’ve welcomed a lot of new colleagues and friends and I’ve had to say goodbye to some too. Every cube at eBay HQ has a name plate of the employee that sits there and, when they leave, (for those that know that I collect them), they give me their name plate as they move on to the next phase in their career/life. It’s not a morbid tradition that I’ve perpetuated over time, on the contrary, it is a reminder that without those people eBay wouldn’t be where it is today. Each name plate represents a human being that made a difference at our company.

Whenever I’m down or frustrated or daydreaming about being at the pub enjoying a nice cold beer rather than sitting in my cube here at work, I take a look at those name plates and I look at the folks that sit around me now; I look at the connections I’ve made on Twitter and I think about the number of transactions (read “connections”) that happen on eBay every day and I’m inspired to snap out of it and get back to working.

This blog post may only be read by a few hundred folks and, in the grand scheme of things, that may seem pretty insignificant. However, when I break it down out of stats and pageviews, I realize that each individual took time out of their day to read this sentence and that is a) pretty humbling and b) inspiring for me to write something worthwhile.

Take a look at your Feedback score, remember the individual transactions that are represented, and be inspired to continue to make a difference in individual’s lives – rather than simply hitting the next milestone or stat (as you already know, if you focus on the former, the latter will sort itself out).

And, with that in mind, I’m going to get back to it.

Cheers!
RBH