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Synthesia becomes the UK’s largest AI product: Lessons for product teams

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Does product management only work for tech and startups?

B2B product management

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🌎 <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/world-product-day/" style="color:#FFFFFF;text-decoration:underline;">Happy World Product Day!</a> Be sure to celebrate product, yourself, and your peers today! 🎉

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Meta scraps third-party fact checking in favour of community notes

Eira is an editor for Mind the Product. She's been a business journalist, editor, and copywriter for longer than she cares to think about.

Eira Hayward

<p>Despite all the political, social and ecological upheavals in 2019, it&#8217;s been a busy and successful year for Mind the Product, not to mention the evolving <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/product-management-slack-community/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">product management community</a> we aim to support. Here’s a look at some of our highlights and learnings of the past 12 months.</p>
<h2>Our Community</h2>
<p>For starters, we&#8217;ve loved catching up with members of the product community throughout the year, especially through our ProductTanks all over the world. We have enjoyed learning from all of the incredible ProductTank talks and are so excited that the community itself is so strong. This year, it hit 175,000 members and saw 60,000 attendees across 700 events in 195 cities!</p>
<h2>Hitting New Locations</h2>
<p>We debuted not one but two new conferences &#8211; <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpengage/manchester/">MTP Engage Manchester</a> and <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/mtpcon/singapore/">#mtpcon Singapore</a>. Both of these exciting launches came in response to growing demand and got off to flying starts. We learned so much at each event and can&#8217;t wait to do it all again in 2020.</p>
<figure id="attachment_18335" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18335" style="width: 814px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-18335" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Happy-attendees-at-Mind-the-Product-Singapore.jpg" alt="Happy attendees at Mind the Product Singapore" width="814" height="543" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Happy-attendees-at-Mind-the-Product-Singapore.jpg 799w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Happy-attendees-at-Mind-the-Product-Singapore-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Happy-attendees-at-Mind-the-Product-Singapore-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 814px) 100vw, 814px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18335" class="wp-caption-text">We were delighted to welcome so many happy faces to #mtpcon Singapore!</figcaption></figure>
<p>Our Singapore conference was also the catalyst for another new initiative this year, <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/about/meet-the-team/">#mtpontour</a></span>. That’s right, Mind the Product officially went on tour for the first time in 2019, with some of the team travelling to AsiaPac in the latter months of the year to learn more about product practice in the region.</p>
<p>Of course, we’ve been travelling to and through the AsiaPac region regularly over the past few years and have always been astonished by how big the market opportunity is &#8211; and how quickly the product community is growing and maturing to meet that opportunity. There are some true world-beaters coming out of Asia that we can all learn from and we’re excited to help them tell their stories.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en" style="text-align: center;">One from the Product Leaders evening in Singapore. Such a fabulous location! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MTPonTour?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MTPonTour</a> <a href="https://t.co/NMwonuGnyV">https://t.co/NMwonuGnyV</a> <a href="https://t.co/fOTQR20JXU">pic.twitter.com/fOTQR20JXU</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">— James Mayes (@James_Mayes) <a href="https://twitter.com/James_Mayes/status/1182890954518417413?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 12, 2019</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: center;"><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>As our CEO James Mayes comments: “The sheer variance in product challenges and levels of product manager maturity across ASEAN is one of the things that makes the region so interesting and vibrant. There was also a huge passion and appetite for learning present in every conversation I had. I returned to London with the distinct feeling that, in many aspects, the region will accelerate through some of the challenges it currently faces, and at a pace which surprises many in Europe and the US.”</p>
<h2>Product Podcasting</h2>
<p>2019 also saw the launch of Mind the Product&#8217;s weekly Wednesday podcast, The Product Experience. Listening figures are going up and up every week, and to date the most downloaded podcast has been the chat we had with <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/the-abcs-of-product-melissa-perri-on-the-product-experience/">Melissa Perri</a>. It’s a wide-ranging conversation, encompassing how you can focus on the right thing, how to move up the ladder in your product career, why good people fail, as well as other insights and helpful observations you might expect from someone who’s often been called the product manager’s product manager.</p>
<figure id="attachment_18334" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18334" style="width: 799px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-18334 size-full" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Lily-and-Randy-host-The-Product-Experience.jpg" alt=" Lily and Randy host The Product Experience" width="799" height="532" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Lily-and-Randy-host-The-Product-Experience.jpg 799w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Lily-and-Randy-host-The-Product-Experience-300x200.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Lily-and-Randy-host-The-Product-Experience-768x511.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 799px) 100vw, 799px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18334" class="wp-caption-text">Hosts of The Product Experience &#8211; Lily and Randy</figcaption></figure>
<p>Episode 35<a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/shape-up-ryan-singer-on-the-product-experience/"> with Ryan Singer</a> from Basecamp was also hugely popular. It included the opportunity to download Ryan’s free e-book, <a href="https://basecamp.com/shapeup">Shape Up – Stop Running In Circles and Ship Work That Matters</a>. It’s a conversation in which Ryan shares the Basecamp approach &#8211; one that challenges most of the orthodoxy around Agile as a framework, but retains all of the spirit of agile as a philosophy. Another much-downloaded podcast episode is the <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-say-no-gabrielle-bufrem-on-the-product-experience/">conversation with Gabrielle Bufrem</a> (who also gave a great talk at our new MTP Engage Manchester conference) where she talks about prioritisation frameworks, scalable product strategies, and how to say no.</p>
<h2>Worldwide Celebrations</h2>
<p>And let’s not forget that we hosted our second annual World Product Day in May &#8211; a day when 90 product events took place across the globe and thousands of celebratory messages exploded across Twitter in a single 24-hour period.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en" data-conversation="none">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en" style="text-align: center;">We couldn&#8217;t hold back the excitement !<br />
Happy <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WorldProductDay?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WorldProductDay</a> 😎 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ProductTank?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ProductTank</a> <a href="https://t.co/wm3cJ1Fh1S">pic.twitter.com/wm3cJ1Fh1S</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">— SafeBoda (@SafeBoda) <a href="https://twitter.com/SafeBoda/status/1128724321009053698?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 15, 2019</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<h2>Talks you Loved</h2>
<p>Our most popular articles and videos over the last 12 months are, as ever, a mix of the practical and philosophical, and they provide a good guide to the state of current debate and thinking about product management. A look through the most-watched conference videos of the year shows that we definitely now all understand and appreciate how difficult it is to make successful products.</p>
<p>It’s pleasing to see that the year’s most-watched #mtpcon talk <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/lean-agile-design-thinking-by-jeff-gothelf/">Lean, Agile and Design Thinking by Jeff Gothelf</a>, was delivered from the stage of our new Singapore conference. In this talk, Jeff goes through the basics of the three main frameworks &#8211; Agile, Lean and Design Thinking &#8211; and offers a set of principles that can help product managers meld them together.</p>
<figure id="attachment_18336" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18336" style="width: 801px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-18336" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Marty-Cagan-speaking-at-ProductTank-London-1024x683.jpg" alt="Marty Cagan speaking at ProductTank London" width="801" height="613" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18336" class="wp-caption-text">Marty Cagan&#8217;s ProductTank talk resonated with so many of you</figcaption></figure>
<p>On a similar theme, <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/product-is-hard-by-marty-cagan/">Marty Cagan</a>’s ProductTank London talk was much viewed &#8211; it also looks at how we use Lean and Agile techniques, and at the difficulties of producing products in the internet age. <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/what-do-you-need-to-be-an-outstanding-product-manager-by-patrick-roelofs/">Patrick Roelofs’ talk</a> from MTP Engage Hamburg was another highly viewed post: in it Patrick looks at what it takes to be a successful product manager, and stresses how important it is that we think about how we look after ourselves and our relationships in order to be successful.</p>
<h2>Articles you Couldn&#8217;t Get Enough of</h2>
<p>If building products is hard, then maybe getting their positioning right is harder, and Vikash Koushik Sreenivasan’s<a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/five-steps-to-positioning-your-product/"> article on product positioning</a> was a much-read blog post this year. As Vikash says, brands need to stand out clearly and connect with their audience to be successful, and this requires companies to go beyond just stating features and benefits. He says: “Focusing on the market and its maturity will let you weave a story that stands out, focus on the customer, and differentiate yourself.”</p>
<figure id="attachment_18337" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-18337" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-18337 size-large" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/roadmaps-1024x532.jpg" alt="roadmaps" width="1024" height="532" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/roadmaps-1024x532.jpg 1024w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/roadmaps-300x156.jpg 300w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/roadmaps-768x399.jpg 768w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/roadmaps.jpg 1600w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-18337" class="wp-caption-text">Janna Bastow’s post on ditching your product roadmap timeline went viral</figcaption></figure>
<p>Managing your roadmap is a perennial topic for us at Mind the Product, and Janna Bastow’s post this year on <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/free-your-product-roadmap-and-ditch-the-timeline/">ditching your product roadmap timeline</a> was hugely popular. Janna wrote the post after her tweet that “timeline roadmaps set up product teams to fail” went viral, and it serves as a FAQ for anyone trying to move away from a timeline roadmap.</p>
<p>Kate Hopkins’ article on <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/how-to-spot-a-partial-product-manager/">How to Spot a Partial Product Manager </a>was our most-read blog post this year. We’ve all met a partial product manager, says Kate, perhaps we’ve even been one. These partial product managers are all people who have allowed themselves to be sucked too far into one aspect of a product manager’s role, and who need to take a step back and re-centre themselves.</p>
<h2>Cultural Change</h2>
<p>Digital transformation has been THE business buzzword of the past few years, so Martin Eriksson’s much-read post on <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/why-digital-transformation-requires-product-management/">Why Digital Transformation Requires Product Management</a> clearly resonated with many of you. Martin pinpoints the problem with many digital transformation programmes when he says that “most organisations going through a digital transformation think of it as a transformation project, rather than an ongoing cultural change”.</p>
<p>Solving the problem starts with tackling how digital transformation is funded and organised, he says. “Instead of investing in a project, invest in cross-functional teams with a broad remit to reimagine what your business can be in a new digital context. Staff that team with in-house experts from across the business and back them up with new hires who can bring new skills and different contexts to the table,” says Martin. Sounds like a product team…</p>
<h2>News to Your Inbox</h2>
<p>Finally, a quick nod to your reactions to our <a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/product-management-newsletter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Prioritised newsletter</a>, which each week rounds up the best articles from around the web on product management, design, and development. The top 2019 read from our newsletter was <a href="https://www.infoq.com/articles/adapting-spotify-model-moo/">Claire Donald’s account</a> of how online print and design company <a href="https://www.moo.com/uk/">Moo</a> implemented and adapted the Spotify organisational model.</p>
<p>Over the last couple of years, the conversation has shifted and we’ve definitely taken steps forward. Judging by what product people most want to read, we’ve moved beyond obsessing about which framework to use to talking about product outcomes. We’re therefore more focused on ensuring that the organisation, its people and culture, both around a product and across a business, are set up as they should be to understand the customer and deliver those outcomes.</p>
<figure style="width: 799px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/dd0f1228-6c82-4051-be29-477d1b5b2582_Share20you20story20with20mind20the20Product.jpg" alt="" width="799" height="533" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Share your product stories with us, we can&#8217;t wait to hear from you!</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Here&#8217;s to Next Year</h2>
<p>As ever we’re grateful that so many of you turn to Mind the Product for guidance and allow us to sustain our position as the foremost community and authority for product people. Please keep on contributing your own lessons learned through<a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/write-for-us"> guest posting</a>, engaging with our<a href="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/slack"> Slack community</a>, or attending and speaking at our <a href="http://www.producttank.com/"> ProductTank</a> meetups all over the world.</p>

core/freeform

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2019’s Product Highlights

Eira Hayward

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