You’ve heard of Wife Swap — the ABC TV show in which families experience life after two moms switch places for two weeks.
As you can imagine, chaos typically ensues before real life-lessons are shared.
Well, Moz CEO Rand Fishkin and Wil Reynolds — founder and CEO of Philadelphia-based SEER Interactive — will conduct a similar experiment this October.
From October 7 to 11, Fishkin and Reynolds will change jobs for a week. (No wives are being swapped, though their spouses are coming along for the journey, living in each other’s homes in Seattle and Philly).
“This swap is a chance for each of us to be exposed to something very new and unique, and letting our respective teams and companies benefit (or suffer!) from a fresh perspective,” writes Fishkin in a blog post.
Sounds like a gimmick, no?
Perhaps. But Fishkin and Reynolds have agreed to share almost everything from their respective companies. They will swap calendars, emails and blogs, and even handle customer pitches.
“If there’s anything incredibly pressing that needs the other’s input, we’ll make sure to drop the other a line,” notes Fishkin. “Email replies will also include a note about the swap and that it’s being answered by a temporary CEO, so as not to panic our mail receivers.”
Speaking of panic, I wonder what Moz’s venture backers think of this plan. Ignition’s Michelle Goldberg, for one, is supportive.
“This is so like Rand to push into new territory to gain new perspective and stretch himself as a leader. It should be fun,” she says.
So, could Reynolds wake up one morning and decide that it is best to sell Moz?
Well, it won’t likely go that far as Fishkin notes in his post.
“I won’t be firing anyone from the SEER team, nor will Wil be doing that at Moz. Neither of us will make big-picture-impacting or company-future-affecting decisions during this period (for lots of reasons, including legal ones),” he writes. “We will, however, have the ability to give our $0.02 to our respective team members, and hopefully have some positive influence on tactical decisions.”
Editor’s note: Moz is an annual sponsor of GeekWire.
