I’d like to formally welcome Shannon O’Donnell to the Oh Hey World team in a full time capacity as our Director of Community and Giving (she started as one of our advisors). She’ll be managing our community and giving efforts – both of which you’ll hear more about in the months to come – as we push our yet-to-be released product to a broader public audience (to get in ahead of the crowd, sign up for our BETA list). I’ll leave it to her to explain more details in another blog post.
Formally an actress and web-nerd, she left in 2008 to travel solo, volunteer, and hunt down delicious vegetarian eats all over the world. Shannon and I met in Chiang Mai early last year while she was traversing Southeast Asia with her 11-year-old niece for 7 months (& home schooling Anna along the way) and I was trying to figure out the next step in my life. From the moment I met her, I knew she was a “good egg” (a saying I picked up from her friend Jodi while in Chiang Mai). Her passion for giving back to others is obvious — the fact that she is a published author of the Volunteer Traveler’s Handbook and created GrassrootsVolunteering.org on her own time is proof. I just read a post yesterday by Venture Capitalist Chris Dixon titled “What the smartest people do on the weekend is what everyone else will do during the week in ten years” — and I’m excited that smart people like Shannon are spending their weekends making this world a better place rather than figuring out further ways to waste time in the time suck economy.
Everything I do in life has to be about more than money, and starting a business is no different – we’re instilling social good into Oh Hey World from the beginning. The people who share my core values are the ones I focus on surrounding myself with in both life and business (and I’m grateful Shannon is now in both of those categories for me).
We’re beyond excited to have Shannon’s extensive travel experience to tap into and to have such an experienced traveler helping us ensure we are building the exact right product for travelers!
Drew Meyers
Drew Meyers is the co-founder of Horizon & Oh Hey World. He worked for Zillow from September of 2005 to January of 2010 on the marketing team managing Zillow’s API program and various online partnerships. Founder of Geek Estate Blog, a multi-author blog focused on real estate technology for real estate professionals, and myKRO.org, a blog devoted to exploring the world of microfinance. As passionate as you get about travel.
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