Creating productivity tools at the intersection of product strategy, mobile software development, and user-centered design

Posts tagged Personal Musing

Inches Make the Champion



Sometimes, we give too much credence to the big decisions in our life. What college should I attend? Which job offer should I accept? What city should I live in? No doubt, these are important choices and should be made with the utmost scrutiny. However, we shouldn’t ignore the details either because it is often those seemingly trivial decisions that allow us the luxury to make the meaningful ones.

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We ultimately control our own destiny, and that destiny is composed of the thousands of  little decisions we make each and every day.   Additionally, with every decision there is almost always the choice to stop trying.

So your team lost in this season’s playoffs. Brush yourself off, and practice harder for next year. So you messed up the final round interview. Pick yourself up, and find the next opportunity. So they rejected your application. Turn back and try a different route.

These are the perpetual decisions that we face every day. Do we give up, or do we make the conscious decision to keep going? Do we take it easy just for today, or do we refuse to take that option?

Remember, success isn’t supposed to come easy, otherwise everyone would already be doing it. Instead, it’s the ones who are crazy enough to keep pushing when everyone else has already stopped that will break through to the next level. It’s the ones who love what they are doing so much that they don’t need external approval to keep moving forward. It’s the ones who have so much fire inside them they don’t even know what it means to stop that will reach the other side.

People make choices, choices make people. What will you choose today?

Posted in Articles, Top Articles - Tagged

Dealing with Stress



Feeling stress is the mental equivalent of feeling tired after physical activity, such as running or lifting weights. One more rep when working out breaks your muscles, but allows you to come back stronger. Similarly, one more hour of work when you’re feeling stressed breaks your mind, but allows you to come back stronger.

That crash is a sign that you are hitting up against a wall. Hitting a wall enough times is the only way to break through that wall. So don’t back down when you’re sleepy, hungry, or stressed out. Keep pushing until you crash, because that’s how you make it to the next level. That’s how you make progress.

No one said success would come easy. Fight on.

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Day in the Life



[Author's Note: This is the story of one of the most incredible days in my life. If you don't know the BART system very well, please open this map on a separate window for reference.]

Head out Sunday morning to SF, in middle of a hackathon. Super intense weekend to begin with, leading the team to victory as the head Product Manager. Long hours, lots of code, all that jazz. Pretty fortunate though to have a good crew, and I’ve made sure that we’re all cranking along. Got to the Millbrae BART station slightly before 9 AM, not as early as I would have hoped, but should be fine. Get on the train, try to relax, but can’t. Have the headphones on, listening to some music. Take out laptop to start looking over notes and brainstorm the final presentation.

A little while later, train stops at Powell – that’s my station! Stand up, feel my headphones snap out of position. Walk out. Wait, that’s not right, my phone must have slipped. Step back in, quick scan. Nothing there. Rush back out just as the doors are closing. It’s probably somewhere in a pocket. Put my laptop in its cover. Put the covered laptop back in my bag. Put everything else down, tap all my pockets. Hmm, no phone. Look up, see the train pull away … Yup, today is going to be a long day.

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Posted in Articles

Dropbox and Evernote Rivalry



Within the document syncing industry, Box has taken over Enterprise Storage, Dropbox has taken over Personal Storage, and the other players (i.e. SugarSync) have more or less died out.  Within the note-taking industry, OneNote has control over the Education market, Evernote has control over the Home market, and traditional players (ie. Moleskine) have learned to partner and adapt to the changing times.  However, as the dust settles in their respective industries, the battle between Dropbox and Evernote has just begun.

When one starts to consider the amount of overlap between Dropbox and Evernote, the similarity between the two services can be quite surprising.  Consider this: personal document storage mainly consists of personal notes.  On the flip side, personal notebooks greatly benefit from being synced across devices through cloud storage.  Since these services are just two sides of same coin, the two companies involved are actually fighting to solve the same use case for the same users.

Now, the logic above contains some major assumptions, but let’s see if we can validate this chain-of-thought.  To start, does Dropbox mainly consist of personal notes? Right now, the answer would be “No”, since Dropbox also stores images, presentations, spreadsheets, movies, code snippets, and anything else you can throw into a folder.  However, much of that can be labeled as “work-related stuff”.   MS Office documents, application code and visual designs are all files that sync across devices so users can work on them at any place and any time (one might even say it helps users become productive anywhere).  If we play out current trends to the extreme, then Box is the company who will take over the majority of those users.  This just leaves more personal items to be stored on Dropbox such as pictures of friends, family videos, personal checklists and other notes.  At the same time, Evernote gives users the ability to store more than just – the app can also capture images, videos, and lists!  With the addition of Clearly, Food, and Hello, Evernote can even help store websites, food memories, and names. Therefore, the first half of bridging the gap between the two companies is to realize that Dropbox will eventually be useful for fewer file types and Evernote actually encompasses more file types.

The other half of the equation is answering, “Does Evernote greatly benefit from being synced across devices through cloud storage?”  From a superficial standpoint, the answer is obviously “Yes.”  Evernote’s users definitely benefit from accessing their notes across a wide range of operating systems, powered by Evernote’s dedicated servers.  The deeper point though goes to the  question of whether or not Evernote is a cloud storage company, rather than just a standalone note-taking service.   Since Evernote actually offers a number of different apps, all built on top of their storage capabilities, one can respond in the affirmative once again.  More significantly, Evernote is pouring lots of support into their developer community to build out Evernote Trunk, where programmers can use various APIs to access all the notes stored in Evernote’s servers.  In this sense, Evernote is very much playing the role of general note storage, and leaving the content creation piece to third-party services.  Thus, Evernote is definitely in the cloud storage business.

All that being said, a multitude of other highly uncertain variables must also fall into place.  For example, one must assume other competitors won’t suddenly start gaining traction, when in fact the space is filled with players big (Google Drive, Apple iCloud) and small (SpringPad, Catch) alike.  Additionally, there’s the possibility that one of the companies starts to move into new territory, namely going after the enterprise market (Dropbox for Teams, Evernote Business).  Finally, there’s always the chance that customers opinions just change.  Altogether, there’s actually very little certainty of what will happen in the productivity industry, which is what makes it all so exciting!

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Chasing Your Dreams



Everyone in Silicon Valley says that they want to start something on their own, but then they don’t. And I don’t blame them. Trekking out by yourself is downright scary. The lack of a steady paycheck, no health or medical insurance in sight, and the uncertainty each day brings are difficult for anyone to handle.  So even though I’ve told others to take a chance and chase your dreams, I was always hesitant to take the leap myself. But 2013 changes all that. It’s time to eat my own medicine.

So here’s what happened. Back in late August of 2012, I started on my journey to learn programming, since my goal for awhile has been to become a rockstar Product Manager. I formed a study group through friends I met online, and we began meeting weekly to go through learning web development.

Since we were all starting from zero, our beginnings were pretty humble. The target was to get out a web app out by the end of year, but step one was just some basic HTML and CSS. Then, we moved onto advanced CSS3 and HTML5 with forms, so even though the pages were static, the content wasn’t. Next up was JavaScript, including some AJAX and JQuery thrown in. Each of these subjects took a couple weeks each, and as such, September, October, November flew by.

As November was coming to an end, I started learning Ruby, which was supposed to be the last step to making a web app. Wrong. It turns out that to program with Ruby, one must also master version control systems (Git), command line interface (Terminal), web server maintenance (Heroku), and databases management (PostgreSQL). And let’s not forget Rails – that Convention-over-Configuration, Don’t-Repeat-Yourself, Model-View-Controller monster of a framework.

Luckily, I had some SQL experience as a business analyst writing queries, and great co-workers who were willing to answer tons of my neophyte questions. More importantly, I was highly motivated to get something out the door according to the original timeline. So during the day, I worked on developing and executing mobile strategy as a full-time Mobile Product Manager, and at night, I coded. Over time though, I realized the window of opportunity was closing quicker than expected.

In the middle of December, a sudden move by the company would force my hand. The executives decided on performing some general restructuring, and due to no fault of my own, I was let go.  In fact mobile traffic, mobile revenue, and mobile margins were actually the highest they’ve been in company history!  As it turns out, this was quite a propitious event, as it gave me the free time to complete my project by end of year.  Right now, it is a race against the clock to get something done.

In the short period I’ve been at it so far, my thoughts and feelings have been all over the place.  The crazy part is that having read many start-up articles detailing the peaks and troughs, I knew this emotional rollercoaster was coming!  Armed with this knowledge, I was determined not be swayed by my fickle emotions.  But to no avail. In the past few days, I’ve experienced some of the most exhilarating times ever in my life, and when fear and trepidation set in, some of the scariest moments ever as well.

My dream is to get a job within the productivity industry, and I know I will make in someday.  For now though, I’m just bleeding cash with the palpable feeling of risk hanging over my head.  In the end, I don’t think there’s anything that could have fully prepared me for this journey.  But frankly, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

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We Are All Makers



When you code, you either produce a working program or you don’t. There isn’t partial credit for a program that mostly works. Even if only one line is written incorrectly within a hundred lines of working code, the entire feature is considered broken. Oftentimes, these types of small errors creep in when you are only able to give your work half your attention. Therefore, a common pre-requisite to producing great code is having uninterrupted “maker time” when you can dive deeply into a problem to figure out its solution.

In contrast, there is the concept of “manager time” where work can be done in piecemeal fashion and still lead to results. However, I believe that being effective in any endeavor, including management, requires a period of intense focus. In product management, the feedback loop simply isn’t quite as immediate, which has lead to the flawed conclusion that long periods of concentration are unnecessary for good work.

When a product manager digs through data spreadsheets, users insights and competitive analysis, a meaningful amount of raw processing power is required to synthesize and organize all of the information. The results of this process are usually tickets, specs, and requirements, which can be categorized as the action steps for the team. Next, a product manager has to lead the team in executing on these action steps to build product features and enhancements (and to fix bugs). After that, code gets shipped and consumers start to react to the new changes. Then, data starts to pour back in about how the product is doing – How do customers like feature X? How is engagement with feature Y trending? Finally, the product manager analyzes that data and uses it to inform the next round of decisions.

Sometimes, this full cycle can take weeks, or even months, before the company can make any type of conclusive judgment the on how well the manager did in deciding on the plan of action. It is clear though that the plan of action plays an integral part in determining the success or failure of the product. If the right feature wasn’t prioritized or if the wrong feature was cut from the roadmap, then there are consequences. Similarly, if the wrong view is being rendered or if the wrong variable was being passed to a method, there are also consequences.

However, in the latter situation, the feedback is almost immediate. If you run a broken function, an exception is thrown.  Maybe the error is caught later on by QA. In either case, you as the programmer know pretty quickly that something isn’t working. And a common cause of these errors is writing complex code when you’re not focused.

Granted, managers can check email or sit through meetings in varying bursts of time, but if they are to come up with effective roadmaps and clear action steps, long periods of concentration are absolutely necessary. It may not be immediately apparent that product managers are doing maker-type work due to the long feedback cycle, but in reality, even managers need a maker’s mentality in order to be effective at their jobs. Or, perhaps another way to look it is just that we are all makers.

Posted in Code, Discussion, Top Articles - Tagged

What Do You Do?



[Preface: This is a purposely provocative article that generalizes many events and ignores real-world exceptions. Please read with a grain of salt.]

The first time you start routinely meeting people and asking about their background is probably around college. Before that, you were only in high school, and you already knew everyone around you by virtue of growing up with them. College is often the first time you truly get a chance to discover yourself, so it’s no coincidence this is also the first time you start knowing how to describe yourself. During that time, your identity is represented by your major – or at least your planned major.

After graduation, when you meet new people at a get together, the answer to “what do you do?” becomes a conversation about the college or university you attended. While the individual school rankings are immaterial, the general level of the school becomes a basic gauge on who you are and what you’ve accomplished. Around the same time, asking what company you work for also becomes important since it also becomes a fair measure of your value.

A couple years later, after people have settled into their careers, people might start judging you based on your job title to determine your status.  You’ve found a good niche for yourself, and life is good.  For most people, this is where it ends. From that moment until retirement, your standing is based on how high you’ve been able to climb the corporate ladder, with some people making middle management faster than others.

However, for those who are truly successful, the appropriate response to “what do you do?” once again turns to what company you work for. However, this time around, you aren’t just another employee toiling away to get to the top – you are the top.  You are part of the rarefied elite leading the direction of the company, and when your company’s stock price fluctuates for better or for worse, there’s a good chance you had something to do with that movement. Therefore, your status is now closely tied to your company’s brand value.

On the next level, your identity becomes a matter not so much of where you work, but what industry you work in.  You have reached the pinnacle of your field, and the companies in it now clamor for your attention.  When you move from one one firm to another, it makes the front page news of your trade publication.  At this point, you don’t describe yourself based any particular company or job because your goals are much loftier.  The focus is now on pushing the envelope in a particular area, and you’re one of the few who can actually make it happen.

There is one final tier though.

What could possibly be higher than being at the top of your field? Well, some people have reached a point where they don’t even have to answer the question of what they do because the other person already knows. Their reputation precedes them. Celebrities, rockstars, and sports figures fit nicely into this category. Within the political realm, people who reached the Senate or higher probably count. In the business world, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

All this is to say, how do you respond when people ask you what you do? Do you tell them your job title or your company? Or perhaps you don’t have to say anything at all.

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Emerging Productivity Technologies



A critical component of start-up success is having a credible product that satisfies a sizable market with an unmet need. However, clear opportunities rarely exist because most lucrative industries are either entrenched with a handful of colossal incumbents, or in absence of high barriers to entry, these markets are filled with countless me-too companies scrambling for any slice of ever-thinning margins.  However, in rare cases, start-ups have an amazing opportunity to enter into a space as the foundation of an industry is shaken up by external change.  This could be due to social shift beyond the industry’s borders or when emerging technologies signal a shift in what the standard product can provide.  Therefore, one of the reasons productivity software is so exciting is the existence of both factors that allow the potential upheaval of current market leaders.

  1. Cloud Computing – allows a user to store their ideas in the cloud and access them on demand
  2. LiquidText – allows a user to manipulate their ideas through a natural user interface.
  3. Tablet Adoption – allows a user a large screen to view their ideas simultaneously, a portable form factor to carry with them at all times, and enough consumer penetration to shift the burden of teaching users to use the technology to the tablet manufacturer
  4. Operational Transformation – allows a user to message and collaborate other people at real-time speeds, with the technology available through an open-source protocol along with a number of other userful APIs
  5. Touchscreen Responsiveness – allows a user to write to a screen like they would on a real piece of paper

Altogether, we have a future where online, real-time collaboration is not only possible, but actually a norm.  The user experience will be intuitive, interactive, and fluid with minimal delays in user feedback.  What makes this inevitable is that once users acclimate to new technology, they soon see it as standard.  With the thousands of productivity apps in iTunes alone, some of them will offer these features and soon everyone else will follow.  The leader though will be the one who can combine everything in a elegant and seamless experience, which is exactly what I intend to do.

Posted in Strategy - Tagged , , ,

Becoming the Best



In order to get good at something, you have to be able to reach a breaking point and take one step further. When you lift weights, your muscles hit a breaking point, and that one extra push-up is what helps you get stronger (after you heal and rest). If you lift weights, but never push yourself, then you won’t get stronger. If you shoot jumpers, and never push yourself one step past your breaking point, then you will never become a better shooter.

In order to get above average at something, you have to go through more of those cycles than other people are willing to endure. You have to continue pushing yourself over a long period of time. You don’t just work on your jump shot for a couple weeks. You work on it for years.

In order to be the best at something, you have to have pushed through more cumulative breaking points than everyone else. It’s that simple. You don’t even necessarily have to do it that long since breaking through walls is something very few people engage in at all. Most people don’t even get good at anything, much less above average at something.

Therefore, while talent obviously helps, what matters most in becoming the best at something is hard work and determination.  Talent gives you the ability to reach your breaking point quickly, but determination is what allows you to keep going past it.

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All Things for All People



“While it may be obvious that Evernote and OmniFocus are not meant to do the same things, pointing out this difference speaks to a larger point about apps like Evernote that try to be all things to all people. That simply is very hard to do, and rarely works out for the best. It would be better, I think, for Evernote to do fewer things very well than many things just okay.

That may be the biggest reason why Evernote simply hasn’t worked for me.”

Evernote, you can’t be an Everything Bucket, please focus!

[Reposted from: http://readwrite.com/2012/10/24/why-evernote-just-doesnt-work-for-me]

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