Product management is the closest to “owning” anything in a tech company. As a product manager you are responsible for the overall product feature set, development, design as well as the business metrics—competitive landscape, customer acquisition, how to market and sell the product.
It also touches all parts of the organization. Product managers work with engineering, design, sales, marketing and executive management. The product management role as a result is a great career path towards a CEO role—especially with a startup.
It is a highly sought after skill set and hard to find people with the right experience.
I had the great opportunity to interview Larry Cornett a very accomplished product executive. He was most recently VP of consumer products for Yahoo, and has worked with the biggest and best consumer and internet companies such as eBay, Apple and IBM. He is currently the CEO of Brilliant Forge focused on Product and Design advisory services for Fortune 500 companies and startups.
He has hired some of the best product talent and he says most product managers come into this line of work with an MBA. An MBA comes in handy for all the business things that are required with the job (mentioned above). A technology understanding is not necessary but can be very helpful. If you don’t have that technical degree, you will need to “learn enough to be dangerous”.
Here below is my interview with Larry, he address so of the key question such as what are the entry points for product management, skills required, challenges and growth potential.
Want to find out more about this career—Larry recommends:
• How To Create Products Customers Love
• TED
• TechCrunch
• Techmeme

User Interface design or UI design as it is often referred to, involves designing online and offline products in a way that makes them easy to use. It is one of the most in-demand careers in technology, and the demand for it will be growing as more things go on-line. UI design is a vital part of any product development and critical to product success. It can be the interface on your microwave, or the dashboard of your car and of course all online software design involves a UI designer.It’s importance is underlined by an article titled “The $300 million Button“.

UI design is the combination of the arts and analytical thinking; it uses both sides of your brain.

I had the opportunity to interview Mathew Holloway a renowned UI Designer in the Silicon Valley to understand UI design and its future prospects.
According to Matt, UI design involves a study of color, composition, typography, Human factors, psychology and cognitive thinking. He also believes that UI design evolves by the generational needs. For example the Gen-Y are more familiar with technology and devices that previous generation so they will design products with more graphics and gesture based.
He keeps up with UI trends by reading blogs such as boxesandarrows, core77 and stylistically stays in touch with street art and urban fashion in San Francisco mission district.
Matt says a good UI designer comes with an attitude it is about making things easier for the user and design is not “forced” onto the user.
He suggests the must reads on UI design:
Sketching—Bill Buxton
Desgin of Everyday things—Don Norman
Don’t Make me Think—Steve Krug
Design Interactions —Bill Moggridge