The Product Experience

Ben Newell was the first guest we got by recommendation. After giving a talk on persuasion techniques at ProductTank Dallas-Fort Worth, it was a no-brainer for us: this is a key skill for anyone whose job includes wrangling tricky stakeholders, herding teams or presenting to senior management – an area where in which we’d all like to improve.  A long-time veteran of the travel industry and now the VP of Product at rewardStyle, Ben shared some easy-to-use tips on how to get better at something you do almost every day. Quote of the episode I was scared to put this talk together and let my wife see it – for fear that she might get all of my tricks.  Where you have someone you respect greatly, and is like-minded, and is equally as skilled at what they do… these are the areas where it’s most challenging. Listen if you’d like to learn more about: * When to have that conversation – how your daily hormone cycle affects what kinds of meetings to have, and how this affects remote and co-located teams * How to run a meeting, and the difference between presentation and discussion * Using data to tell a story * Using WIIFM to your advantage Links mentioned in this episode: * The chart Ben mentions can be found in this fun article from Wired: 4 Tricks to Sharpen Your Mind for the Best Workday Ever Hosts The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver. Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services. He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community. He’s also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe. Music Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more here: https://www.facebook.com/Paupulism/ Suggest a guest https://mindtheproduct.typeform.com/to/oi0UyX Talk to us * Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MtpPod * Slack: Use the #podcast channel in the Mind the Product slack community: https://mindtheproduct.slack.com/messages/CE13B3A23  

Podcast: Moving Up the Career Ladder with Thor Mitchell

Thor Mitchell knows his bones – he’s an ex-Google product manager (Maps and Google+ APIs) and was most recently the Chief Product Officer at Crowdcube. Following a talk at ProductTank Bristol, he joined us to chat about the advice he gives both to aspiring product managers and to those angling for leadership positions. Quote of the episode In almost all cases, the person best qualified to make decisions… is the product manager, no matter what level they’re at… Have confidence in your convictions, because you’ve spent more time thinking about this than anybody else. Listen if you’d like to learn more about: * What is the core difference between a product manager and leader? * How to communicate with people at all levels. * Assumptions that managers and stakeholders have the answers. * When hiring, what is the most important skill for product managers? * What kind of training do I need to become a product manager? * If a product manager does all the real work, what does a product leader do all day? * To advance your career, do you need to become a manager of product managers? Or can you continue to be a practitioner? Links mentioned in this episode: * Six leadership styles, from the Harvard Business Review. There’s a good summary at https://www.corporatetraining.ie/harvard-leadership-styles/ * Product.careers is the site Thor started to encourage university and graduate students to get into product management Your Hosts The Product Experience is hosted by Lily Smith and Randy Silver. Lily enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. Lily has spent 13 years in the tech industry working mainly with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She has worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank in Bristol, the Product Managers’ meetup with regular events and talks on Product now with 800+ members and growing. This year Lily will be launching Productcamp in Bristol and she joins the MTP team as co-host of  The Product Experience podcast. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy has been working as an interactive producer and product manager across the US and UK for nearly 20 years. After launching Amazon’s music stores in the US and UK, Randy has worked with museums and arts groups, online education, media & entertainment, retail and financial services.  He’s held Head of Product roles at HSBC and Sainsbury’s, where he also directed their 100+-person product community.   He’s also spoken at Mind the Product Engage (Hamburg), at a number of ProductTanks (London, Zurich, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol, Oxford,  & Brighton… so far!) and at conferences across the US and Europe. Music Our theme music is from Hamburg-based Pau, featuring ProductTank Hamburg’s own Arne Kittler on bass. Listen to more here: https://www.facebook.com/Paupulism/ Suggest a guest https://mindtheproduct.typeform.com/to/oi0UyX Talk to us * Twitter:  https://twitter.com/MtpPod * Slack: Use the #podcast channel in the Mind the Product slack community: https://mindtheproduct.slack.com/messages/CE13B3A23

Ear Worm: the Product Experience Podcast is here

Earlier this year, I had the chance to speak at Mind the Product/Engage in Hamburg. It was a fantastic experience, and an opportunity I didn’t want to waste. In preparation, I took the chance to give the talk a few dry-runs at ProductTanks across the UK – and I learned something that was obvious, but which I’d never really thought about: you lot are really smart. The quality and calibre of speakers taking part in our meetups is consistently good and regularly excellent. I learned something every time I shared the stage with other people from the product world. ProductTank is now held regularly in more than 160 cities. It’s a full-fledged global movement of people collaborating on how they can make better products, and improve the way in which they build those products too. That’s something to be very proud of. But… Only a handful of these meetups regularly record and post videos of their talks. That’s a lot of great learning that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. And that led to an idea: What if we could talk to the best presenters from ProductTanks all over the world, and share it in a podcast? That led to Lily Smith and I creating The Product Experience with Mind the Product. We’ve spent the past few months talking to some immensely talented people, and we can’t wait to share the conversations. You’ll recognise some of the names – but some of the best chats are with people you’ve likely never heard of. These are some of my favourites – the product people who are down in the trenches with some killer insights on one or two very specific things. Today we’re posting the trailer for the series, so look for the full episodes to follow soon! In the true spirit of our craft, this is very much a work in progress. You’re our customer: we’d love your feedback and participation, and we promise to never give you an NPS survey. * Suggest a guest * Tweet at us * Join the conversation on the MtP #Slack – use the Podcast channel About the hosts: An organiser of ProductTank Bristol, Lily Smith works with growing businesses as a consultant product manager providing product leadership, process guidance, hands-on delivery and mentoring to founding teams and their product managers. She’s led teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery phases for more than 13 years, primarily in the SaaS and mobile spaces. See Randy’s bio below.