For those learning the Product Management discipline, Inspired is one of the best books you can start with. However, don't take the book literally, Marty Cagan offers some extremely hazardous guidance in advocating for high-fidelity prototypes as the only means of shipping software: In my mind, there’s only one form of spec that can deliver [...]
Why we write (a work in progress)
We write to think We write because you don't know what you know We write because it's the only way to onboard others on your thoughts Temporal knowledge vs durable knowledge
First rule of Competitive Intelligence
If you want to predict a competitors future moves, look at their leadership team's previous moves. This is summarized in a simple maxim I learned from Ben Gilad at the Academy for Competitive Intelligence: Leaders repeat the strategies and tactics that get them promoted until those strategies and tactics get them fired.
develop a point of view, read the foundational texts
Every discipline and domain has foundational texts. These texts are oft cited and under read. They represent the dominant philosophy of the domain. For example in business: Innovator's Dilemma, Crossing the Chasm, and Strategy books by Michael Porter. Everyone cites their superficial perspectives. To be an expert in your domain you have to read the [...]
An In Progress Product Manager Onboarding Guide
Recently I've had the opportunity to work with a few talented Product Managers who are new to the discipline. So I decided to capture a few of my thoughts on onboarding in hopes that at it will be useful to others. It's still very much a work in progress, full of typos and incomplete thoughts, but [...]
Why we read
The core asset an organization gains from seniority in the Product Management discipline is experience. Prior knowledge that is ready-to-hand for today’s problems as well as the unforeseen opportunities of tomorrow. To grow in an organization — you must grow in experience. Most people think this is simply a function of years on the job [...]
defining your career
Your career is defined by your skills and how you’ve used them, not by any external measure of your progress. Continue reading: Julie Zhou VP of Product Design, Facebook How to Think About Your Career
About this blog
Mikal Lewis, Austin based human.
Business lessons from a Baltimore childhood
Growing up in Baltimore, I got in a lot of fights – more than I’d like to admit, but probably fewer than my memory serves. One particular fight, at age twelve, stands out in my memory. In my neighborhood there was a pecking order. And I, a skinny kid with an undersized stature, needed to [...]
Game Theory: How a CES Announcement Provided PS3 Another Year of Profits
Way back in the 20th century, 1994 to be exact, a price war was raging between the Daily News and the New York Post for the price of New York’s Daily Tabloid Newspaper. The lessons of this exercise in game theory provides insight into the ongoing console wars between Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. In addition, [...]
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