We Have Lift Off!

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, your mind racing as it processes all of the events of the day, and then suddenly find yourself in the midst of an existential crisis? Yeah, me too, and hence this blog.

4am and my mind is wandering through my past. My first job out of college. The road that I traveled to get to this point in my career. Former colleagues who have shared the journey with me, if only for a short time before they took a left at the fork in the road and I went right. All of the lessons that I've learned (usually the hard way) that I could/should be sharing with others. "You're right brain! I should be writing this down for the masses." So here I am. Sipping cup of coffee number 3 before I begin another 12 hour day at the office.

Domain name acquired. Check!

Website built. Check!

Blog post written. Damn it.

Ok. This is a first blog after all and I shouldn't expect to come out of the gate with 100 blog articles, millions of subscribers, Ted talks scheduled, and an appearance on a late night TV show booked. (do they even have those anymore?). But what I do have is a plan to share what I've learned over these past ~30 years in a series of bite size chunks. You know, those bite sizes that cause you to end up eating more than if you had just ate a full size version of the same product. You sit there, belly aching, guilty as hell and wondering why you did that, but it was oh so good. But I digress.

Future blog posts will focus on two of my biggest passions (work related), Product Management and Data Analytics (aka. a million other terms to describe leveraging data to make more timely and informed business decisions). Credentials you ask? I've been in some form or another of data analytics for over 20 years, working with over 200 different companies on their analytics strategies and solution development. I've been creating and managing products for longer than that, probably even before Product Management was cool. As I've said, I've been there and done that. (and boy have I seen some s#!t).

So what are some of the upcoming blogs you should expect? You have questions and I have answers.

• The Business Intelligence Blueprint (how to start a BI project)
• Leveraging data more effectively.
• The importance of data for the Marketer.
• Product Management processes.
• Essential tools for the Product Manager.
• What should I be measuring?
• The evolution of the Product Management team.
• Putting on your big boy pants. Moving from startup to mature product organization.
• Horror stories from the field. (that may be a good Halloween theme for a blog!)

I would suspect that the themes above will span multiple blog posts over the year as I've learned that a blog shouldn't be a novel. It's my intent to release a new blog post every couple of weeks, so please subscribe so that you are notified whenever I impart more wisdom. I'm sure you'll be waiting with bated breath.

With that said (written), I am going to grab cup of coffee number 4 and get on with another day in the life of a Product Manager. Another blog post in the making? Perhaps...

Thanks for coming along for this ride. Now sit down and buckle up because Houston, we have lift off!