January untitled notes: 01-26
- Iria Carreira
- 19 hours ago
- 2 min read
New section on my website, make some noise! MONTHLY UNTITLE NOTES IS HERE! yes I used capital letters. No, I am not really shouting.
So, something I do get asked a lot by folks is what kind of podcasts, articles, and so on I consume as a product manager who transitioned to product from architecture and construction. Personally, I think this is very difficult to answer because it changes and adapts with time.
But I decided to create a section and try on a monthly basis to quickly share some stuff I consume with the masses that read this blog (masses equals the 10 people, and that includes family members). This will also force me to actually write more, which is good for the brain.
So the January drop comes:
Podcast episode
On the podcast frontier, my highlight is Elena Verna on Lenny's podcast. Link here.
I need to disclose that I am not a Lenny fan. I think he is a tech fan person that challenges very little his guests and it works just more like a PR platform for both sides. I wish he asked less "fan boy" questions so the listeners will get a more real view of the interviewers but nevertheless he has some good guests in terms of product.
For those who do not know Elena, just go and listen to all the episodes that she has done at Lenny's. She is a product growth queen. I personally do not find too much common ground with her because she works in customer segments that already love tech; I work on a customer segment that might or might not have access to wireless on-site and might or might not hate technology in the first instance. Regardless, she moved to Lovable, a product that I personally love, and on the podcast, there are some great comments on elements that I can relate to through my PM career, particularly at Tandem.
Some elements that resonate:
She hires folks who do not need clarity but find clarity in chaos. This is such a key skill on product. Noise is always around, and the speed these days is mad, so to go this 10/10.
To discover what your superpowers are. This is a work in progress for me still.
In the age of AI, the speed of development requires PMs to have high agency and autonomy, and this is elevated across the team, including engineering.
On relying on data, this is something that I always ponder about; a product relies on data to make decisions. In my opinion, a bit too much, but also when working on B2B and new products, the data is more scarce, anyway, I did find interesting her comment on differentiating between patterns and data points.
Now on the articles side:
I am, as many of you probably are, concerned about how this tool, which is AI, will be used. One of my biggest worries is whether we outsource our thinking and critical thinking to them. So this article on brain connectivity was a good read.
I did consume some other good podcast but less PM related so not sharing those this month, maybe next one!
