For as far back as I can remember, my father has served as my primary role model, showing by example the importance of impeccable integrity, hard work and dedication, creative business thinking and the need for maintaining a long-term perspective. Today, in his mid-80’s, he is as energetic and engaged in the entrepreneurial life as anyone I know, creating new business and social ventures, and mentoring yet another generation of entrepreneurs.
While my siblings and I have had the privilege of growing up under his direct tutelage, many other people have had the benefit of his distilled life experience, because one thing he is not shy about is sharing advice....
Takeaways from Product Camp Vancouver 2018
This weekend, I attended Product Camp Vancouver 2018 alongside hundreds of Vancouver's tech community. I walked away from the event feeling inspired and connected. What a great event and wonderful community!
I attended the event without a clear understanding of what is typically in or out of scope for the Product Management (PM) line of work. My perspective is mostly heavily informed by my firsthand experiences on the delivery and growth sides for high-tech and professional services companies. I learned a bunch that helped connect some missing dots of concepts in my mind - very thankful for this.
Below are some of my takeaways, whether new or old ideas, which I am mulling over. These points are mostly from talks by Chloe Morrow (of Vision Critical), Cory Ayres (of Pendo), and Steven Forth (of Ibbaka), as well as with fellow participants...
Centres of Influence
Digitizing a thought I had written in a journal back in 2010 around the idea of a Centre of Influence (COI). I had defined COIs as those people we have relationships with who possess a level of influence over our decision-making. The influence is exerted by virtue of their primary relationship dynamic with their network. These are people trusted & networked as an influencer, and their advice is often taken with little further thought.
It's apparent that my then knowledge of personal/professional relationship dynamics was much more limited than it is today, but interesting nonetheless...
Best Purchases of 2017
Every so often, people talk about how it's so worthwhile to invest in higher quality rather than just buying something, that it pays for itself in the long run. While I've often found this to be a poor excuse attempting to justify expensive purchase decisions, there are exceptions.
2017 was a most fortunate year where I found not one, but a handful of these exceptions. These unicorn purchases transformed certain aspects of my day-to-day experience and have radically improved my enjoyment of life. I am happy to share this and endorse these products :)
So, without further ado, here we go!
Attending DealerTalk Calgary: Automotive Jargon
Since joining Convertus back in April of 2017, it was my goal to rapidly ramp up my knowledge about the automotive and digital marketing industries, plus how they intersect. It's been a steep learning curve this past half-year where I picked up the ins and outs of the local dealership's interests through to the OEM's.
I was fortunate to attend the DealerTalK Calgary event put on by Kijiji earlier this month. There I connected with many of the brilliant minds in this space. As a relative newbie to any subject matter, I always pay very close attention to the industry jargon used by the wizened and hardened veterans of the space...
Burden of Leadership - The Other Side of Layoffs
This post is a follow-up to an earlier blog post, The Burden of Leadership. A lot of people have recently been laid off around BC, and being a friend to some people in this position, I've acted as a shoulder to lean on and an active listener for them to talk through their thinking.
It's a crappy situation all around, and definitely a terrible experience for the period following in life for those who are laid off. That said, I've come across an article that offered another perspective that I'd like to point out. Please see below for an excerpt from an article by Karen Althen, titled What 1,700 laid-off Target employees can learn (from someone who was downsized by the company 6 years ago), originally posted on BizJournal…
Hire good people, and leave them alone
Past Joshua made note of some book excerpts. Can't remember why... but I'm typing them out here in case I remember, then Future Joshua can write the blog post he intended to :)
Edit: ohhh, these are from Drive, by Daniel Pink (link below)
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A startup engineer must be all things -- he (or she) is a full time software developer and part time product manager/customer support guru/internal systems maven. As a company grows, an engineer spends less time building the things he personally wants in the product. Our hope is that 20% time gives engineers back dedicated stack time -- of their own direction -- to spend on product innovation, features, plugins, fixes or additions that they think are the most important…
The Next Chapter: Convertus
This is a follow up to my recent journey to determine the next chapter in my journey. Along the way, I've had the many ups and downs to make for an emotional roller coaster ride, haha
As an update, I had a wonderful opportunity to join Convertus to help build the business on this next leg of the company's growth. It has not even been a full month for me with Convertus yet, and we've already been hitting some very significant milestones!
This is truly an exciting change for me...
Taking Action and Following Up
Having attended about dozen events as a guest speaker / professional delegate since 2017 started, I've noticed a pattern that feels like it should be talked about: people do not ask for what they want and do not follow up properly.
I am reminded of this quote, which I first saw at 14 years old on a poster in my highschool hallway, and which I have tried to live by ever since: You miss 100% of the shots you don't take in life...
Making tough choices
What's up?
In the beginning of February, I announced that I would begin a search to find the next chapter of my journey. The most important part to me is finding the right organizational values, direction, and fit. Secondary to that would be getting my bum in the right role, which I see as a matter of growing into from within.
How you doin?
It has been 45 days since this search began...