Getting Geared Up for eBay Live!

eBay Live! is just over a week away, which means that it was "pre-convention meeting time" here a few days ago. All of the employees heading to Boston got together for a few hours to get a primer on how the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center will look when everything is set up (this also kicked off the first 100 of probably a half-million times we'll hear the nickname "BCEC" over the next two weeks), go over the details of the event, and most importantly, get our staff shirts! We're going with a nice dark blue look this year, which is pretty snazzy. That's Lara Housser, who heads  up eBay Express, to the right signing in to get her goodies, and a shot of the crowd waiting in line on the left. Now I just need to figure out how to add about 3 inches of cushion to my shoes.

We're also hoping you'll get Geared Up as well. If you've been to past eBay Live!s (I have no idea how to make that grammatically correct with the exclamation mark), you've probably seen The Chatterbox. It's basically a booth where you can videotape your great eBay story, or just a message for employees. And this year, our PR team is looking for folks to give their "I Won IT on eBay" by bringing a small piece of their collection to show off while being taped. If you've got an item you're especially proud of, and it's portable, bring it with you!

Finally, our readers from last year will remember that I was highly amused by our employee manual. In our Staff FAQs right at the beginning, amongst questions about lost badges and other details, there it was: "Where is Starbucks?" Yeah, we have a slight coffee culture around here. And this year didn't disappoint. I immediately turned to the FAQs to see if that was still there again, and sure enough, it was staring back at me at #6. Classic.