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My Product Management Toolkit (19): Socratic Questioning
One of the first things that I learned when I started out in product management was the importance of asking why, using the ‘5 Whys’ to truly understand a problem or a situation: The ‘5 Whys’ technique, however, only got me to a certain point, especially in situations where I wanted to encourage other people…
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“Yes To The Mess” (Book Review)
In May last year, I attended a great talk by Ken Norton – partner at Google Ventures – titled Product Managers: Make Yourself Uncomfortable. In his talk, Ken talked about the book Yes To The Mess: Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz by Frank J. Barrett, a management consultant and jazz pianist. Ken talked about feeling uncomfortable, his point being that…
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Cobalt uses Blockchain tech to process FX trades
It was around this time last year when I first started looking into blockchain technology and its capabilities. Even though blockchain technology was initially developed to accommodate Bitcoin transactions, my personal interest has been much more in its potential to act as “shared ledgers” for a wide variety of transactions or ‘contracts’: In the past year,…
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My Product Management Toolkit (18): Tracking Consumer Trends
As a product manager, I know how easy it can be to get trapped into the every day and lose sight of what the future could bring. We tend to get immersed in the more tactical, day-to-day stuff and forget about the bigger picture. Also, there’s a daily avalanche of new technology developments and market trends,…
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Plum (Product Review)
When I reviewed Cleo a few weeks ago, I also came across Plum. Plum describes itself as “your personal savings” assistant and lives in Facebook Messenger. How did Plum come to my attention? – I came across Plum whilst reviewing Cleo, another virtual savings assistant. I then spoke to Victor Trokoudes, co-founder and CEO of Plum,…
As I learn ... 