We believe that product management isn’t an exact science. Each company and product person refines their own tools and methods, and to help share this broad range of practices with the community so that we can all learn from each other, we actively seek guest contributions.
Already have an idea? Maybe even a draft that’s ready to go? We’d love to hear from you! Simply email editor@mindtheproduct.com and we’ll guide you through the next steps.
Alternatively, for tips on what to write about, examples, advice on making the cut and what happens when you submit a draft, see below.
As a rule of thumb, anything you find useful or interesting as a product manager will be useful to other product managers too. once you have an idea, decide how you want to present it. There are a few different options to consider:
When it comes to blog posts, some contributors find it helps to write about work they’re currently doing (or have recently done), or a topic they’re enthusiastic about. You can always throw some ideas around in our public Slack community – people will be happy to let you know what topics are of interest.
For some quick inspiration, here are some of our suggestions:
At Mind the Product, we define product management as the intersection between Business, Tech and Design (IxD/UX). This means our topic spectrum is pretty broad. It’s important to note that we don’t specialise in any one of these areas, instead, we seek content that intersects with at least two of these areas. As a result, our articles fall into two broad types:
These articles have a temporal relevance to something happening in the industry. For example, a formal critique of a well-known product’s redesign, or an opinion piece on the current state of product management.
Opinion pieces can be easy to write if you have the appropriate style. The key is to acknowledge where you’re being subjective and to avoid framing this subjective commentary as ‘the way it is’, but rather ‘how I see it’.
To get a feel for this style, take a look at these examples:
Well-researched, informative and relatively timeless, these articles are usually an investigation into the roles and responsibilities of a product manager. They share lessons learned and experiences straight from the real world. They can also be instructive pieces on the instruments of product management.
Pieces might cover topics such as effective roadmapping, analytics and measurement practices, optimal team structures etc. You don’t need to be an expert, or to write about the advanced aspects of these topics, as it’s equally valuable to share real-world experiences and lessons learned from applying the basics. Some examples include:
As product people, we know that the career paths we all take can be very different. As a result, we’d like to learn how you landed your role and to share it with the rest of the community – there’s lots we can learn from each others’ experiences.
To do this, we’re launching a new, online Mind the Product series – ‘How I got my Job in Product’.
The articles in this series will be published regularly on www.mindtheproduct.com and will feature people like you. Anyone can apply to tell their story and we’ll make it super easy for you – all you need to do is complete a quick survey.
At Mind the Product we love to learn about how different product people and teams work – at the end of the day, we’re all trying to hone our craft and so sharing our learning experiences is key.
As a result, we publish your case studies, highlighting the approach, challenges, and results of your efforts. It’s a way to share your ideas with others and to showcase the work you’ve done.
Our case studies follow a particular structure which we hope will make it easier for you to draft them.
Submitting a case study for publication on Mind the Product is easy. Access our simple brief (outlining the structure and word count guidelines) here and send your drafts to editor@mindtheproduct.com including Case Study Submission in the subject line.
Our priority is to share ideas that you and others in the community can learn from. It’s, therefore, important to focus your article on what the reader gains, how it teaches new methods, helps to refine existing methods or to broaden the mindset (and ultimately, ability) of readers, as product managers. In the end, your article should provide actionable insight that enables the reader to go away with clear, concrete ideas about what they can do next.
Please note: Articles can mention products or services, but these must be passing references, and all articles must be valuable and informative in themselves (i.e. if product/service mentions are removed). We will reject articles if we feel they are simply an advertisement for a product or service.
Articles published on Mind the Product must be original work, and we ask that we retain that exclusivity for a minimum of 2 weeks on all articles submitted by guest authors. We don’t syndicate other blogs or publish pieces which have already been published elsewhere (including your own blog).
After the 2 week exclusivity period on Mind the Product, content submitted by guest authors can be published elsewhere with the following reference: Originally published on www.mindtheproduct.com, [enter the publication date here].
Please note that this does not apply to commissioned articles.
We want writing for Mind the Product to be a great experience for everyone and, if writing isn’t your strong suit, that’s not a problem.
To help you, and to ensure consistency across the website, we’d love it if you could take a look at our simple editorial style guide before submitting a draft.
Submitting an article or contacting us to discuss an idea is easy. Here’s how it works:
It’s important to us that our published articles have a high degree of quality and integrity, so we won’t publish just any product-related content to the community. If, after numerous iterations, we can’t come to an agreement on a final draft – it will remain a draft.
If this happens to you, please don’t lose confidence! It’s painful for us to have to decline such a strong initiative from a community member, but it does need to happen from time to time.
You still own your copyright so you can, of course, take the content and post it wherever you wish. At the same time, we’re always willing to consider alternative pieces and help a hopeful author reach the product community – if you’re willing to work with us on raising the bar, we’ll put the time in to help you refine your articles.
We’re all here to learn from one another, and if you want to talk about a rough idea you have, just email editor@mindtheproduct.com – we love to hear from you.
