Category: Becoming a PM
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Process isn’t a bad word
The goal of this experiment is whether we can be smarter about building product because we pay more attention to how we do it. Everyone I know out in the Valley is quite process averse. Folks write against it, preach against it, and fight against it as much as possible. We’re not big enough to […]
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Storytelling as a skill
I met with a cool cat today for some coffee. We were introduced by Jason (check out this post), and talked about being a PM, what that means, how to represent oneself well on a resume, and the like. I told him about a role we’re looking for that involves a lot of storytelling, and […]
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Creating a PM community
I jammed with Jason Monberg today who is a really cool cat who came into my world view through Ian. Jason and Ian worked together at MarkLogic. Jason has a consultancy that’s quite cool. They do both product development as well as product strategy, process consulting, and the like. He’s got a cool office space, […]
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PM Dilemma: intuition vs data
I had an absolutely superb meeting today with someone on the team about the tidal wave that has swept product development – data. We talked a lot about how it has become a must have skill set in the Valley, and where we land on that scale (read: way behind). I kept the conversation going […]
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Working on the “team” in product team
We’ve just stated a new weekly lunch event on the product team where we pick a relevant topic and jam on it. We talked about a new strategy at one, and design process at the one today. It’s an attempt to cross pollinate across the team best practices, new ideas, road map pitches, and the […]
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When ending is critical for beginning
I wrote this as a note to someone special earlier this week, and I really like the message. I’ve decided to share it in an edited format here. Folks leave. It’s sad because it feels like somehow the system failed. But we don’t think that about death. When someone dies, we create room for someone […]
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A month’s worth of small steps
We had a really great demo day today. It’s the beginning of celebrating lots of small steps. At the end of the road, I think we’ll all find it was a journey worth taking. And through it, we’ll have lots of stories to tell 🙂 The tradition of celebrating small success isn’t new at TokBox, […]
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Maybe I’m getting good at this…
I have two distinct phases of my career at TokBox split between working in the engineering group, and then transitioning into product once we launched OpenTok. Building the prototype of the OpenTok platform is both the marker of the transition, and the high point of my career in engineering. I call it the high point […]
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Dependent independence
It’s a very weird time in Amelia Rose’s development right now, and it translates very well to where I feel I am as well professionally. Amelia refuses to sit still. The energizer bunny has nothing on her (plus his insides aren’t on the outside either). However neither walking nor crawling have been mastered. As a […]
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Trying to get to “just right”
Hunch co-founder Chris Dixon wrote a blog post about the “Goldilocks Principle“, and how it affected their relationship with customers as Hunch pivoted from a B2C to B2B offering. Hunch was in the position of being “too hot”. I think that OpenTok is still in a position of being… not “too cold”, but I’d revise […]