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

Green Job Academy provides an opportunity for employment for the large segment of unemployed on welfare. I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen Fullerton who is the Co-Creator of Green Jobs Academy and partner at ILM Group focused  on recruiting for the Cleantech industry. Karen says it is truly wonderful that Green jobs unlike other sector jobs cover the entire gamut of jobs for folks with minimum education to the Harvard MBA.

Karen has always had a passion for Social Justice and was able to bring her passion and skill set together to creating an alternative-staffing agency—Green Jobs Academy. The agency deals with green jobs program for Calworks—responsible for the welfare to work program. The academy uses Raquel Pinderhughes curriculum from dept of urban studies and planning and San Francisco State and Karen staffing agency to create a unique and highly effective program for Calworks. The program is subsidized by the govt.; stimulus dollars being put to great use.

The program is 16 weeks in duration of which 8-weeks are in-class training and 8-weeks internship with Green companies.  She says that 80% of the students get permanent employment and are able to get off welfare. About 70% of the student body is female; women who were teenage mothers or simply fell out of the workforce.

The training and the Green Job academy includes hard and soft skills, environmental literacy, financial literacy and subjects like health and well being. There is a qualification process to take part in the Green Jobs Academy.

Karen sees the future of this program to expand to the unemployed and career transitioners that are interested in seeking a career in the Green economy.

Check out my interview with Karen.

“Singularity University” is where students from multiple disciplines and across the world come together to for a very lofty and delightful goal–finding solutions to humanity’s hardest challenges. Singularity had it’s first set of students last year and each and every one of them went on to do great things after the program.

The kinds of problems we are talking about here are:
Solving the AID epidemic
Creating habitat on another solar system

One of the co-founders put it like this,” attitude and approach to problems is everything” He completely goes against Murphy’s Law and states:

When given a choice…..take both!!
Start at the top and work your way up.
When forced to compromise, ask for more.
If you can’t win, change the rules.

Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis founded Singularity University. Ray is an author, scientist and inventor and I cannot list the inventions he has brought to bear—check him out at:
Peter is a key figure in the personal spaceflight industry-need I say more!

I met with a student of the 2010 program who left me completely inspired. “Erez” is from Israel and is one of the 80 students selected from over 2000 applicants that apply from all over the world and go through a grueling six-month process of selection into the program. This is not your typical 4-ear college but is a 10-week program you can apply to after your undergrad. The age range for current students is 18-50 .

Erez tells me that the underlying criterion for selection is the very mission of Singularity University: be able to exhibit disruptive thinking and create solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges, and this must come across in all your essays and interviews. This intensive program has the “who’s who” presenting—astronauts from NASA, Nobel price winners, thought leaders in policy and folks such as Google’s chief Internet evangelist.

Erez says peers are equally impressive at Singularity and range form entrepreneurs, inventors, a South Korean astronaut, a New Zealand Aquanaut—you get the picture.

Erez epitomizes conviction, belief and passion. He has many patents and his current project is a unique therapy to treat viral diseases and HIV/AIDs . He has socialized the idea with various scientists and got fantastic feedback, through Singularity he wants to by pass the long process of FDA approvals the huge amount of $$ in legal fees and take this to market in a way that is unique to all social entrepreneurs.

My film segment with Erez gives you a glimpse of my fascination with the Singularity University and it’s passionate students. If you have not checked it out already—Singularity University is located on the NASA campus in Mountain View, CA. It was really cool to conduct this meeting with the large aircraft hanger as the backdrop.

I left Erez rushing on to another groundbreaking talk and conversation with his fellow students. He tells me that he is very willing to forfeit sleep for another great conversation.

If you are that passionate individual and not sure how to meet like-minded people I hope this article will take you down that path!

You are well aware of the phrase “Give and you shall receive”? To me it is very much a way of living that you have to follow with blind faith. There are certain instances however it delivers immediately. For example, during Christmas time we have a school food drive and I participate in very actively. I go through our kitchen pantry and find all the impulsive and excessive buys of unexpired canned goods. I also take my children to the local market and make them purchase canned goods to add to this donation. This surely is great gratification in giving! I have emptied my pantry, I have taught the children about the less fortunate and overall it feels good.

So after reading this book, I decided to try out this principle without any immediate returns, I might have however expect returns somewhere at the back of my mind! I decided to offer my career coaching services to a student for free over a 2 month period. Over that time I developed a strong bond with this student and felt every achievement of hers as a personal achievement. She went on to find a job that was very well suited to her life purpose. I have felt my heart “expand” in a way I can’t describe. Through coaching her I was introduced to three new clients that came very unexpectedly. Would this have happened had I charged her, I am not sure. But I feel compelled to attribute it to the “giving principle” as I call it.

I was also able to apply this principle in my daily life. I was working on securing a spot for an upcoming coaching seminar and the person on the other end was very rude. My immediate reaction would have been to be curt, but I decided to apply the “giving principle” and was very nice and patient in return. What did that result in? The executive director of the center who was observing this entire interaction came up to me as I was about to leave and asked me “what do you do for a living”? I told her I was a career coach and she went on to tell me that they were looking to offer an on-going coaching seminar at this center. We talked about my background and credentials and she thought I would be a great fit.

So what do I think of this book? I think it works! You have to consciously apply the giving attitude. It may be something as simple as a smile.

He calls left brain thinking as L-Directed Thinking, those of us more comfortable with our left brain tend to become lawyers, accountants and engineers and the others that use R-Directed Thinking, think more holistically and intuitively and tend to become inventors, entertainers and counselors. He argues that our culture tends to place high value on L-Directed thinking but this is changing dramatically.

Why is this happening? Jobs such that require left brain thinking–analytical/logical that are used in careers such as medical data entry or programming are being outsourced or are better crunched by microchips. The left brain thinking created all that is sold in our very large electronic retailers with over 39 varieties of cordless phones, DVDs, Blue-Ray players etc.  He talks about how all this abundance is creating a premium on the less rational or R-Directed sensibilities—beauty, spirituality, emotion. Products no longer can just be functional but must be visually appealing with great design. When I got to target I have choices and tend to pick out the best looking thing, be it a garbage bin!

Pink talks about the “six senses” design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning and advice on how you can develop these senses. Here below is his description of these senses and the importance of integrating and developing them for a successful career.

Design: Pink says is a high concept aptitude that is difficult to outsource or automate. A product cannot just be functional but must be beautiful, whimsical or engaging. Look around you and you see that everything has a design. Design is used by businesses to differentiate. Schools such as Pratt Institute and Rhode Island School of Design are seeing a huge rise in applicants. Careers in architecture, Industrial design, and graphic design are all taught here. Pink mentions CHAD, Miami public school system, New York City High schools, Washington DC Charter School boast of Schools of Art and Design. In the UK the number of design students climbed 35% between 1995 and 2002.

Story: With the advent of the internet facts have become widely accessible thus becoming less valuable what becomes important is ability to place these facts in context with emotional impact. Essence of persuasion and communication has become compelling narrative. Advertising, counseling, consulting etc all that require story make up 25% of U.S. gross domestic product. Think of the presentations you go to and those that stand out—they stood out because the presenter had great stories woven in. Or the realtor’s post card that describes the house with imaginative narrative or the details behind a wine bottle that takes you to Tuscany–all these result in differentiation. Story is big in the medical field where integrative medicine is a growing discipline.

Symphony: It is not focus and specialization but putting things together—i.e. seeing the big picture, combining pieces to create a new whole. Only the human mind can shift through large data and see relationships that a computer cannot. Entrepreneurs and successful business people have this ability spades, they know how to recognize partners and find trends resulting in strategic thinking. They use intuitive contextual reasoning all characteristics of symphony.  Big picture thinking is now of high value in law, medicine entrepreneurship and business.

Empathy: Feeling with someone—an ability to care for others and forge meaningful relationships. It is impossible for a computer to reproduce this sense and very difficult for faraway workers connected by electrons to match. This “sense” is big in law, those lawyers who can empathize with their clients are the  successful ones. Doctors that can empathize vs. those that show detached concern can have life and death results in the care of their patients. Pink has a great story in which the doctor that “listens” and is “intuitive” to his patient does the right thing. Nursing is field that is seeing a rise in demand—their empathic nature keeps them in high demand—a doctor in India might do a good job in reading an x-ray but empathy of touch, presence and comfort will be hard to deliver.

Play: The benefits of laughter, games and humor are known to be huge—Laughing clubs are big in India.  Playing video games has gotten a bad rap but Pink points out that on tests of visual perception game players scored 30% higher than non-game players. A recent study showed that playing video games at work can boost  productivity and enhance job satisfaction. Video game developers are less coders  and are more artists, story tellers, designers you get the picture! DigiPen Institute of tech offert a four-year degree in video gaming. University of Southern California offers a masters in fine art degree in game design, CMU offers a masters in entertainment technology. Play is also got through humor which reduces hostility, deflects criticism, relieves tension and helps communicate difficult messages.  Most effective executives deployed humor twice as often as middle-of-the-pack managers.

Meaning: Purpose and spiritual fulfillment. In Victor Frankl’s book: “Man’s Search for Meaning” Frankl argues that “man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to seek meaning in his life”. Spirit and health is a new trend in medicine. Spirit is big business –The candle industry, yoga studios, evangelical bookstores, body shop etc are all on the rise. People today want deep meaningful experiences. Bet your business on it!

Our schools however need to catch on, we still test our kids with the PSAT, SAT, GMAT etc that all measure the  L-Directed thinking (logical, sequential, speedy thinking) If you cross over and have the opportunity to get into say the Stanford D-School where the faculty in engineering, medicine, business, the humanities, and education are brought together to learn design thinking and work to solve big problems in a human centered way. It tells you that this good marker to where the jobs are headed!

I manage billion worth of spend for a billion revenue division of a Fortune 100 company. I lead 5 Financial Analysts – in Shanghai, India, Italy and the US. My team does all the forecasting, budgeting and financial analysis for that spend, and works with the procurement team to understand cost drivers of our raw materials, helping them with their procurement
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