Posts in category 'prodmgmt'
Strava Lost The Plot
Strava began rolling out a new beta feature where an LLM provides commentary on training activities, and in doing so provided a perfect example of how tech companies both cannot resist climbing aboard this latest bandwagon while having no idea how to make it useful beyond replacing their own jobs.
If you’re not aware, Strava is a social media platform disguised as a fitness tracking application. For years they’ve carved out a nice little niche for themselves in the space, first by offering some truly unique and value-added features like their heat map and route planner, which uses real user data to find routes where people cycle, run, and so forth, and second, by incorporating a number of social features to allow athletes to interact, whether it’s liking each other’s activities, commenting, organizing group events, and so forth. Notably, quite a few professional athletes use the platform, including legendary riders like Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogačar, which allows fans to follow their activities and so forth.
Strava opts for a freemium model, with a number of key features included in a paid tier, and as I’ve become more serious about cycling, I’ve found those paid features to be worth the price. As part of those packages, they include things like additional analytics, which provide various statistics about activities, a route planner with automated route suggestions based on their heatmap data, and leaderboards which, I have to admit, I kinda enjoy as they gamify community-defined segments for sprints, climbs, and so forth.
All of these features do one of two things: connect athletes to each other, or give athletes access to data, either about themselves or supplied by the community, that they can use to enhance their activities.
Unfortunately, recently it seems Strava has caught a nasty cold that is infecting companies the world over: AI. And in doing so I’m afraid Strava is demonstrating why tech companies ultimately fail to understand basic concepts like trust and empathy.
By the way, just a brief interlude: if you want to disable this mis-feature (for now), in the app you have to pick “Show More” on one of the AI generated callouts, select “Give Feedback”, and from there you can leave the beta. Given how difficult that option is to find, I’m comfortable calling this a dark pattern.
Alright, let’s get back to it, shall we?
Continue reading...- (https://b-ark.ca/SIsgu8)
While lean product development is all about trying small, cheap experiments, it’s applicable to anything you try for the first time. This is my first year starting plants indoors and I didn’t want to invest in expensive kit while I’m still learning. So here we have my grow table on the cheap: a repurposed SAD lamp sitting atop a garbage bag frame over some TV trays.
- (https://b-ark.ca/kkOO6o)
Great piece that really speaks to my own experiences establishing and evolving a product function. Loved the bit about focusing on and celebrating incremental improvement over bemoaning the failure to live up to some platonic idea of product management.
- (https://b-ark.ca/_saOI6)
Re-reading “Product Leadership” by Banfield, Eriksson, and Walkingshaw, and I can’t figure out if I just unknowingly internalized a ton from my first reading years ago, or if I ended up learning all the same lessons, but after ten years in the role, it’s definitely been an object lesson in confirmation bias…
So you don't want to be a manager
Early in my career the idea of moving from an IC role to management sounded crazy. But, one thing led to another and I found myself on the management path despite my best efforts to avoid it, and it turns out it can be pretty awesome!
Let’s face it, management is not seen by many as a sexy profession. Whether you’re reading Dilbert or watching Office Space or enjoying the first act of The Matrix, managers are depicted as universally incompetent, do-nothing overhead that only get in the way of the “real work”. And even if you recognize that this is just a stereotype and that strong management brings real value to the table, anyone paying attention will notice all of the crap they have to deal with, including hiring and firing, handling performance issues, and ultimately being accountable for their team’s effectiveness.
Who would want to be that person?
During the first ten-plus years of my career, certainly not me! Just let me code, maybe lead something with a few other sharp team members. Who would want to do anything else?
But then I was presented with an offer I couldn’t refuse: the opportunity to take the lead in building a new Product Management organization. And, of course, that meant not just managing the product but building a team and managing people.
And I was terrified.
Well, it turns out, for someone like me–and let me be very clear, here, this is not a career path for everyone–it couldn’t have been a better move.
Continue reading...Ending and Beginning
It’s official, I’m no longer an INVIDI employee. Let the sabbatical begin!
This is a copy of the note I posted to LinkedIn announcing my resignation from INVIDI. Since I didn’t syndicate my last blog post there, you’ll forgive a bit of overlap in the subject matter, but I liked what I wrote and wanted to preserve it on my blog. You know, Own Your Data and all that.
Continue reading...Turning the page
After 21 years in my job at INVIDI I realized I needed a change, and in that moment of change, some space to reflect.
The beginning
Twenty-one years.
For many of the folks I know, twenty-one years is a long time in a career, let alone in a single company.
But the strange thing is that, while on the resume it looks like I’ve had just the one job, in reality I had the great fortune to have experienced a remarkably diverse series of roles, and it seemed like every time I started to get a little antsy, a little bored, in need of a change, INVIDI offered me another opportunity, another challenge, another path to walk.
And it has been quite the journey, though one that has come to its natural end.
Continue reading...