In this keynote from #mtpcon San Francisco, Michael Sippey, VP of Product at Medium, shares some insights on how to think big and create clarity and focus for product management teams to unleash their full potential.
The Power of Optimism
At the start of his keynote Sippey says that: “Most acts of creation – live music and conferences like this – are optimistic acts”. Optimism is fundamental in order to make things, he says, and he defines it as “hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something”.
No one can be a product manager without being an optimist, but “optimistic” feedback loops can expose real product challenges. Sippey references a tweet – “My bank’s iOS app let me know it now offers ‘podcast streaming’ and I really need to talk to the product manager” – and asks if the banking customer is confused, what does it say about the bank’s internal teams? It means the engineers, designer…