WishRadar is bending my mind

So WishRadar is up and running now, in case I haven't told you about it in person. It's a free service that lets you track the price and availability of items on your wishlists (CDs, books, DVDs, etc.) in one place. You set your target price and we watch your targets on Amazon and Half.com for the cheapest available purchase. When we see a target at the price you want it, we alert you (via email, RSS and/or SMS). What with all of the "tracking" and "targeting" and "acquiring" we're doing for you, the concept of Radar seemed apt. God, I'm an awesome marketer.

It's fundamentally weird to work for a bigger company during the day and to have a side gig with friends going on for the evenings and weekends. The roles and responsibilities for WishRadar are far more varied and interesting- I do everything from writing copy, to setting up Google Analytics, to yes, even monkeying around with small snippets of code. Contrast that to my day job, where I have a more managerial and strategic focus, I am supported by experts in analytics to do much of the heavy lifting for me, and I would probably be beaten to death with keyboards in the parking lot by a roving band of JAVA developers if I ever tried to change code myself.

I like the mind-shift that the side gig forces me to confront. For one, it forces me to use bits of my brain that might otherwise atrophy. Digging in dirt and details is an important safeguard against locking oneself in an ivory tower, and my utility as an effective manager evaporates when I cease to understand the blood and guts of how things work. Also, I get a fantastic dose of perspective on how generally lost I am without good, smart people around me. I don't want to come off sounding like I can't tie my own shoes (I have my good days), but sometimes recognizing how bad I am at something renews my appreciation for how gifted my colleagues are at it.

So Anyway.

If you haven't checked out the site, please do sign up and give it a whirl. I'd be grateful for your feedback.

Comments

[Joan Mershon]

I know this is an old post...but I wanted to thank you for it. Not only did it have the information I was looking for at the time, but something you said ended up being the inspiration for a recent post on my blog: http://tinyurl.com/d7fw7x