Product Management – The Wired Jester

Telling the story of a product career

I was on the Mind The Product podcast with Randy Silver recently, and got to talk about a few favourite ideas: how to think about the shape of your product career, and what makes a good product “biography.” Designers have portfolios, engineers have GitHub contributions – what does a PM point to when he or she wantsContinue reading “Telling the story of a product career”

On Noticing

I’ve been working – or at the very least, sitting at various desks, typing – for about 18 years. Before I had a career, I thought what I would do was write literature, or at the very least, serviceable novels. Then I spent a few years as a technology journalist, and another few as anContinue reading “On Noticing”

On Stone Circles and Building Things

1. Itis fairly common in England to see small plaques set into the front of older houses with chiselled numbers saying when they were built. 1906, 1871, 1832. In Cartmel, a little village at the southern tip of the Lake District, home of a couple of very good restaurants, there’s a little whitewashed stone cottage,Continue reading “On Stone Circles and Building Things”

Hanging Around

On the occasion of the Rolling Stones’ 30 year anniversary, a journalist asked laconic drummer Charlie Watts, “what had it been like to spend three decades working with the band?” “Five years of hard work,” he replied. “And 25 years of hangin’ around.” Now Charlie Watts put the slink into Sympathy for the Devil andContinue reading “Hanging Around”

Maybe it just fades away

“It’s not going to last forever, but the best thing you can do is pack [your time] full of so much weirdness and ideas that when you look at the wall of memories… we’re not feeling sadness for what once was, we’re just overwhelmed at everything we got to accomplish.” Great talk by Cabel SasserContinue reading “Maybe it just fades away”

Search is a local maximum

The local maximum is one of the most interesting and frightening[1] ideas in UX and product management: “The local maximum is a point in which you’ve hit the limit of the current design… Even if you make 100 tweaks you can only get so much improvement; [the design] is as effective as it’s ever goingContinue reading “Search is a local maximum”

Print is dying, but it’s not black and white

Tomorrow, the ABC figures for UK magazines will be released, and for many titles, these will show big drops in circulation. You’ll see a lot of tweets, posts and commentary about how the dead tree media is dying, and how traditional publishers are failing to deal with the hand digital is dealing them. There isContinue reading “Print is dying, but it’s not black and white”