Every year, eBay hosts an event at its headquarters that’s all about innovation. More importantly, it’s about celebrating and fostering the smart people that work here. This is the sixth year we’ve held the innovation demo expo, which encourages employees to come up with new ideas for tools and applications that will make the eBay experience as best as it can be.
Last year, one of the more memorable technologies that came out of this event was eBay’s mobile app, which in large part helped the company earn the recognition as the 2009 mobile retailer of the year.
There were over 80 teams presenting this year, most of which came from employees who came up with ideas in their spare time and worked in small teams with colleagues to create demos. Among projects on how to better list items to using Twitter trends to display products, there were a few green standouts as well.
Green ideas ranged from how we can be more energy efficient with employee’s computers to badging certain vehicles on eBay motors based on their environmental impact to a new type of shipping package that can be reused up to 20 times. From the seemingly obvious to cutting edge, all of these 80 ideas were voted on by employees in San Jose as well as by select judges for what will adopted by the company.
Regardless of what project (or projects) ultimately gets picked to be implemented, walking through the pop-up tents in the parking lot and hearing everyone’s excited chatter about the various projects, it was a great reminder about what’s possible here at eBay. The future is looking bright. Stay tuned!