An exciting thing happened two years into Billy’s experience at eBay. John Maeda, the world-renowned designer and technologist, was joining the company to Chair a new Design Advisory board.
Shortly there after, Billy was appointed to the board as the representative for eBay Enterprise alongside design leaders from Magento, Marketplaces, PayPal, and the Brand team.
John had a clear mission for the team. First, connect the community of eBay Inc. creatives around the globe through a digital hub and organized events. Second, establish a shared purpose and methodology for design and innovation. And, third, package up the unique POV in a playbook for the purposes of internal socialization and the recruitment of world-class talent.
What transpired over the next few months was truly remarkable. The community grew. Philosophies gelled. And a design playbook was born.
A major milestone in this journey was the first Product & Design Summit that took place on the PayPal campus in San Jose, CA. It was a successful event that brought together creatives from all divisions of the company for a day of inspiring talks and networking.
Being based on the East Coast, Billy and his NYC creative team took responsibility for planning and producing the second summit in Red Hook, Brooklyn. It was a spectacular event held at Pioneer Works – the event space and studio founded by artist, Dustin Yellin.
The robust program included presentations from Paola Antonelli, Sebastian Errazuriz, and numerous design leaders from eBay Inc.
To top off the day of inspiring talks, the attendees were treated to a 3-hour performance by Quest Love and an interactive digital experience.
The summit was a tremendous success despite numerous logistical challenges to pull it off. It not only united the creative team further, it proved to the larger design community that eBay was a place to do great work and change the world.
BILLY SEABROOK 