Fortnite can be a difficult game to wrap your head around — there are so many weapons, modes, costumes, and statistics to keep in mind that it’s easy to see why so many people feel like they’ll never
Welcome to the first interview in our Age of Product Excellence series — a deep exploration of the Product Excellence Methodology, the Product Managers who practice it, and the excellent products that
I n the summer of 1992, my family gathered in central Minnesota for my grandfather’s 70th birthday. We were there to celebrate William J. Svrluga Sr. — father, golfer, husband, engineer, grandfather,
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” the philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, in 1654. According to Screen Time, a recent addition to the iPhone’s operati
Gerald Sussman, an MIT professor and a co-author of “Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs” (SICP) once said that programming today is “more like science. You grab this piece of library an
This article was created in partnership with the National Geographic Society. In December 2018, Great Britain's Royal Statistical Society named the core fact in this story—that only about nine percent
Shane Parrish’s essay The Map is Not the Territory begins: The map of reality is not reality. Even the best maps are imperfect. That’s because they are reductions of what they represent. The same is t
Customer Discovery questions by: Tristan Kromer “Question everything, even the question mark.” – Dick Allen, Zen Master Poems A customer discovery interview is a sea voyage for which there is no map.
H. Armstrong Roberts / Retrofile / Getty When Stevie Peters was a kid, she used to read books for pizza. She remembers participating in Pizza Hut’s reading program , which still exists today, as her f
As we’ve facilitated more live workshops, we have gotten more and more questions surrounding the topic of margin. My hunch is that living in a marginless society have caused many to ask harder questio
“Wisdom is the art of knowing what to overlook,” wrote psychologist William James. Unfortunately, if this is the case then few of us can honestly say we’re wise. Knowing where to allocate our attentio
Through various methods, Silicon Valley has drilled into the minds of entrepreneurs the concept of product/market fit. Marc Andreessen says it’s the only thing that matters , and Brian Balfour has an
I’ve already covered why newsletters are better than social here , so let’s get into how we can approach newsletters in the best possible way. There’s no one right way to do newsletters There’s no one
Back when Steve Jobs unveiled iCloud in 2011, we were pitched a vision of data being available everywhere. Jobs pitched demoting the Mac and moving the digital hub into the cloud. All of our devices h
In this post I will talk about my personal knowledge management system, how it developed into a Zettelkasten, what Zettelkasten is, and why I think iA Writer is pretty much perfect for it. Background
I am working hard on the “Building Blocks” chapter of the Zettelkasten book and I want to finish it first to show it to the public. It covers all parts of the toolkit. To sketch a structure and talk a
L ast year, at a friend’s wedding, I sat across from the perfect dress. Rendered in a warm, dusky orange and a just-revealing-enough neckline, it hugged every curve of the cousin of the groom as we ch
Why a Digital Diary Will Change Your Life I found something so rare it feels sacred — a digital space that values private, quiet contemplation. Opinion Columnist Credit... Farhad Manjoo Last summer, i
Most business ideas are neither objectively good nor bad. The quality of an idea for you (as a founder) depends on your goals, your skill set, and your risk tolerance. Even the quintessential lousy id
A little less than a year ago I wrote a post about cultivating my blog as a kind of garden. I made reference there to something I heard about from Robin Sloan, the game designer Gunpei Yokoi’s idea of
Roden Issue 027 June, 9, 2019 Tiny Loops, Hold Me Closer A long walk and how apps suck us in and never let us go Rodenians far and near, unseen and unheard — I’m Craig Mod . You, in theory, subscribed
A few months ago I wrote about what I look for in product management software , and mentioned that we’re going to try out productboard and see how it goes. As I mentioned in that post: In short, I am
I like a good efficiency hack as well as anyone, but sometimes we should take the long way around. This story is part of a series on how we make time —from productivity hacks to long walks to altering
How I modified my digital tools to reconnect with time on a six-week, 620-mile trip on foot across the country. The jazz cafe was tiny, with a few polished wood tables, a record collection on display,
I’ve ditched my smartphone and started using this thing . ?? The long and short of it is that I’m uncomfortable with the amount of time I spend tethered to my iPhone. If you find this interesting, rea
Admitting a mistake can be incredibly difficult for some founders. They become so invested in proving the validity of their original idea that their businesses fail. Not every founder falls into this
Over the past few years, I’ve witnessed and been part of the evolution of the product manager role and product management as a discipline. Yesterday, product management was mostly unknown unless you w
Roli Saxena joined Clever last year to lead customer success. But in a turn of events all too common at growing startups, her role started to expand — and expand. Today, she’s running all of sales, st
In the summer of 2016, I gave a talk at a small TED x conference in northern Virginia. I began by admitting that I’ve never had a social-media account; I then outlined arguments for why other people s
The first few weeks of a new quarter bring a predictable pattern: We look back on past goals and set our sights on fresh, new ambitions. But while plans are projected in months, we know the true progr
I’M LEARNING new tech and it’s hard. Maybe you’re in the same boat. Through the rosy lens of memory, learning HTML and Photoshop back in the day was a breeze. It wasn’t, really. And CSS, when it came
Here I sit, in a cabin on Lake Superior by the fire, with late-season snow pelting the windows and ominous waves crashing against the rocky shore. Despite the treacherous terrain that surrounds me, I
Benefits of a daily diary and topic journals 2019-01-28 You know those people whose lives are transformed by meditation or yoga or something like that? For me, it’s writing in my diary and journals.It
Product managers often think of project managers as tactical professionals. This is only partially true, but it’s an understandable misconception. When they work together on a product, the product man
It was my first week working for Shawn . “We’re going to take the month of January to focus on writing about margin ”, he said. While it wasn’t my first time hearing the word, it was the first time I
I walked into one of my favorite coffee shops recently and immediately noticed how busy it was. Nearly every seat was filled, and there were a few people waiting for their orders near the counter. As
Trying to organize a large product backlog is a tough thing to do. As times goes by, and the product grows, what was once a simple list of prioritized items gets unwieldy. Working from a huge list mak
I cringe every time I see product teams use a spreadsheet to rank the ideas in their backlog based on some made-up math formula usually consisting of things like business value, user value, and techni
Most of us spend hours each day tapping the glass of our smartphones. But what if you could do just as much — maybe more — and give your fingers a break? Credit... Ben Boothman When Apple co-founder S
Lenny Rachitsky Follow Apr 10, 2019 · 11 min read It’s 2012 and our team has just joined Airbnb. We’re tasked with building out a “social travel” experience for Airbnb travelers. The thinking is that