It took me forever, but I’ve finally started sending out a weekly email with a roundup of my own posts as well as interesting things that caught my eye during the week. I have no intention of charging for it, substack-style. I’ll probably experiment with the format, including sharing more cases tied to Product Case Camp. Here’s what was in the first two issues (excluding the roundup of my own posts, which, since you’re here, you know how to peruse). If you’re interested in signing up, the form is at the bottom of this post!
Issue #2
Interesting Podcasts
There are almost too many this week. Some call-outs:
- Melissa Perri interviewed Brian Bhuta on Product Thinking. I’m a big fan of Brians, and the two of them go deep into the soft skills and relationship building you need to succeed as a product executive.
- The MTP podcast, The Product Experience, has a wonderful interview with Jackie Bavaro. They talk about the PM career path and there is lots of actionable wisdom.
- Lex Fridman interviewed economist Tyler Cowen on his podcast, and while this isn’t about product or startups, the conversation is fascinating
Interesting Tweets
- Bradford Cross thread on ML (machine learning)
- Jared Spool quoted Melissa Perri on product strategy needed to be uncovered rather than dictated. My comment is that insights usually come from below, but it takes someone experienced to put it together
- interesting video clip of Steve Jobs on how product (and customer orientation) can get drummed out of a successful company tweet
- Jeff Gothelf has been asking and answering a string of questions about OKRs. Example: question number 3
Interesting Articles
- A duo: Kyle Poyar at Open View on “Is It Time to Ditch the Old SaaS Metrics?” and the Battery 2021 software report
- The Multidisciplinary Approach to Thinking, from Farnan Street
- This Nature article: “Adding is favoured over subtracting in problem solving“
Fun
- I just know she is a PM
- “even if you’re fully vaccinated the CDC still recommends finishing your current project before starting 12 new one” – argh, I feel seen in this tweet
Issue #1 (4/6/21)
Interesting Podcasts
- CultureLab interviewed me and in a far-ranging conversation covering research, innovation, disfunctions of HR, tango, why I was scared to write science fiction, and more.
- The Invest Like the Best interview of VC Kanyi Maqubela is a really thoughtful (far above the norm) take on early stage companies and investing. Kanyi points out that really good founders are capable of working at multiple altitudes (strategic or tactical), and switching gears between them very fast. I would say good product leaders are the same.
Interesting Tweets
- Shreyas Doshi has been on a tear of good Twitter threads. This one, with wonderful illustrations, is really fun: on discovering problems customers really care about — I think the thread uncovers a few things: 1) that PMs often forget that customers have prioritized problems that need to be ranked against each other, just like our product ideas need to be ranked against each other; and 2) the state of how research and experiments are done out there is still unsophisticated and needs to improve
- John Cutler on classic mistakes in product not narrowing customer segments — Amen John
Interesting Articles
- The Trust-Communication Trade-off, by Emily Levada (hat tip Teresa Torres)