Jason Knight 0:00 Hello, and welcome to the show. I'm your host, Jason Knight. And on each episode of this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the brightest and best in product management to dig into their stories, find out what makes them tick and get some advice to help make this all into better product people. If you want more that type of thing, make sure you hop over to OneKnightInProduct.com and check out some of my other inspiring guests sign up to the mailing list or subscribe on your podcast app and make sure you share with your friends, family and any product curious pets. On tonight's episode, we go deep on whether there's such a thing as the right way to do product. Whether influencer content is setting too high a bar and making everyone else feel bad about their jobs. Some of the ways to survive in a poorly performing product organisation when it's time to leave some of the things to look out for when you're going for that next big job. We also talk about fortune cookie influencer advice and whether you can surely have a productive chat on social media without everyone shouting you down. For all this and much more please join us on One Knight in Product. So my guest tonight is Emily Tate. Emily is a product manager and product leader who was once included in a product management festival's 52 women making an impact in product management list and claims to be able to geek out about product all day long. Emily describes herself as a serial hobbyist who picks up a new hobby at least once a year, despises hustle culture and is reluctant to be opinionated online because all the arguments it causes. Luckily, we're in a safe place here. So I'm looking forward to some hot takes tonight. Emily is the Managing Director of Mind The Product, the world's largest community of product managers and is passionate about helping people realise they're awesome, and have something to contribute to whatever their passion is. Hi, Emily, how are you tonight? Emily Tate 1:38 Doing well! How are you? Jason Knight 1:40 I am all right. So first things first. We've all heard of Mind The Product. And we've heard some of the origin story from when we interviewed Janna a few months back, obviously, for those who are listening, the co founder, but in your words, and I'll check afterwards. Who are Mind The Product and why are they the best? Emily Tate 2:00 Yeah, so Mind The Product, world's largest community of product managers. And really, we're just here to help people connect with each other, learn from each other and share their own experiences. And obviously, it started off, I'm sure as Janna mentioned as a meetup that then grew into a conference that grew into multiple conferences that grew into training and other pieces of community and now as of 2020, into a membership programme that people can join and continue the learning all year long. Jason Knight 2:28 But you've been the Managing Director of Mind The Product since February this year. Before that you were Chief of Staff. And before that you were a general manager in the US. So you've been in a few roles. But before we talk about those roles, how are you filling your days, day to day as Managing Director at Mind The Product? Emily Tate 2:47 Yeah, right now, we are still in a transition period. And so in 2020, we pivoted from being primarily conferences and training to being more focused on membership, and now remote training and online training while still doing the conferences. And so we have, I would say, gotten out of the are we going to survive this mode, which, to be honest, was a lot of 2020. And now it's really starting to look to what does the shape of this organisation look like in the next three to five years, or even by the end of this year, and starting to realise where we needed to hire where we needed to put some different strategic focus things. We want to research more and see if we can do even better. So a lot of my day is spent dealing with, frankly, being pulled in a lot of different directions at this point. Jason Knight 3:35 With the product. Emily Tate 3:36 Yes, absolutely. And we know so we're we have a couple roles that we're hiring for that hopefully, once they get on board, I'll be able to kind of step back up a level and do more of the strategic thinking. But I'm spending a lot of my days these days thinking about membership, and talking to members and digging into what do we want this programme to be? Jason Knight 3:58 Any sneak previews of any cool stuff that's coming up? Or is that still under wraps? Emily Tate 4:02 Well, we just launched today, a new community platform. So now members can talk to other members in a kind of a members only setting which is really exciting. We've had some interaction through different networking events, or through the AMA and the different sessions that we have for members. But we know that there are people who can't make those live and want to do that more async. And so excited to have a platform that's a little more suited for purpose than Slack, which is not quite built for communities. Jason Knight 4:32 Yeah, there's a certain limitation to Slack, especially since everyone's using the free plan as well. So yeah, I completely get where you're coming from there. But how's the COVID exit plan going? I mean, as you said before, you've gone from being a very in person event meetup to having to pivot and get everything online and survive through 2020. But do you have already plans to start putting on big events coming out of this or is that still too early to say and you're still trying to work out what's next? Emily Tate 5:00 We are still trying to work out what's next we want to go back to the in person events, we are excited to do that. We're hoping that we can, you know, we're still monitoring the situation and seeing when we might be able to do that next. In the meantime, we're still doing some digital events, starting to put some thinking to what might a hybrid event look like? And what could we do that might bridge that gap? And then at some point, are very ready to be back live. Jason Knight 5:26 Well, we'll get you started out before this in marketing, before heading to Saber Airline Solutions, as a product manager, then back to marketing. And then from then you've been product all the way. So what was it that you from marketing into product in the first place? And then why did you double back in marketing before you stayed with product? Emily Tate 5:50 Yeah, my path into product like many people was kind of accidental. So I really my my dream was to be in marketing as a brand manager for consumer packaged goods, like I really wanted to work in retail. So one of my dream brands was Limited Brands, some of that being that I worked for limited to as a store worker all through high school. And that was what made me start realising that I really enjoyed the business side of things in the marketing side of things, and went to school for business. During my master's programme, I did some consulting around marketing, and different programmes through that, and then landed an internship at Sabre that took me into product management. So it started off as a strategy internship, which I had no idea what I was doing. And then that transitioned into being a product manager for a very technical hosting platform, before people were really calling SaaS. But that's basically what it was was taking on prem airline software, and moving it into a data centre, that then they would access from a web portal. So basically, that was my job was being the product manager for that didn't again, didn't know a lot of what I was doing, but had really great leadership that helped walk me through it, I moved sort of back into marketing and was still heavily product for a while as we basically reorg through the company and different paths through the things that I was doing. And that product that was this, taking software and software as a service for these big airline solutions. That kind of shifted into the frontline strategy for everything that everyone was doing. So that kind of got distributed back out into the products themselves. And so my job was basically to kind of connect between those and help articulate what we were doing, and why we were different, and why this was a good thing that airlines should want rather than putting the servers in their data centres and on their site. So it was still in that product realm, but starting the messaging around that. And then from there kind of went back into product, I think it was just, I liked the tangibility of crafting a product, understanding the users deciding what was needed, and pushing things forward. I will say though, and I'm always the first one to say, I don't think I was doing product. Well, at that point. We were still very much the classic big design up front, we called things stories, but we were not really doing Agile projects would take years to get out. We had roadmaps with dates that had releases every six months. And most of my job was being sales support. So because airline systems are so technical, and so important, and the subject matter expertise is really important. The sales team would kind of have frontline conversations. But then when it got time to dig into the product, the product manager or the solution manager, as we called it, would come in and do the detailed demo, answer all the questions, have the strategic conversations, and go about it that way. Jason Knight 9:02 Yeah, that's really interesting. And one thing that we'll come back to shortly, is that not doing it well thing, because I know that we've spoken about that before and the impact of that on thinking and thought leadership. But do you think that having that marketing background, gave you any kind of edge or in maybe was even a disadvantage managing those technical products, because obviously, it's very traditional for people to go into product from a technical background. You've gone into marketing, which, from a certain perspective, could look like a really good move, because you've got all of the go to market and all of the potential strategy stuff. But the tech side maybe was a little behind that. But did you find that a problem, or did you find it was quite easy to kind of beef up that part of your portfolio? Emily Tate 9:47 Yeah, I've always loved technology. So I'm one who my dad and my grandfather both were building computers my entire life. My grandfather would go to the computer auction and buy the parts and build the computer so I had computers before most of my friends did growing up, even like I, my grandfather into his 80s would use his use his iPad to FaceTime us, and we'd get on Amazon get all his deliveries. So it's technology has always been a part of my world. The thing that I did learn through all of that is product managers don't necessarily have to be technical. And in fact, in some cases, I think it can hurt you, if you, the people that come straight out of development and into product have a really hard time letting go of the fact that they don't get to decide how things are built anymore. Yeah. But to be a product manager coming from a business background, you do have to be able to learn enough tech to talk to the technology team, and to talk to your customers when they need to have the technology conversations. So it's basically I quickly found that balance between learning enough to be able to describe what was going on to have intelligent conversations with my development team, to be able to ask the right questions to challenge their assumptions, or to kind of start to learn and basically censor myself before I asked the stupid questions to my developers, or tried to put something in that I thought was going to be a really small fix that then, you know, as I learned, the technology realised, actually, that's going to take a whole lot of time. So I think that it's, it doesn't put you at a disadvantage, but you have to be willing to make the effort to learn the technology that you were working with at that point. Jason Knight 11:29 Yeah, and having come from a development background, myself, obviously, have really clashed into that situation that you said just now around trying to over solution here the problem, right and sit there and go, Yeah, well, I know, I can write that myself, bla bla bla bla. And to an extent, I find that kind of natural when you come from certain background. And again, like you say, you have to kind of just tamp that down a little bit. But on the other hand, I guess if you keep doing it, it starts to become harmful. And that's why I started to think, to some extent, it's probably not that useful, or certainly, in my opinion, for some of the big tech companies to still require coding interviews to get into product management, for example, it just seems completely off message. But sure they do it for a reason. Just feels a bit off. Emily Tate 12:11 Yeah. And I'm sure that there are certain products where, you know, if you are a product manager for an API, or like a super back end platform like that might actually be really important. So it's not saying that it's it's never important to have that experience. But I think that people should think twice before assuming that that should be a qualification for a product manager. I think the other side of that, that I also see a lot is subject matter expertise is the other thing that people ask about is well do I need to have deep subject matter expertise in a particular area. And that was one spot, particularly working in product management and airline systems that the subject matter expertise was a big deal, particularly if you were working on some of the more kind of the core systems of airlines. So working in revenue management, or scheduling or some of those things, if you didn't have deep subject matter knowledge and what you were building, it would be really difficult for you to build the right thing for your customers. And so that subject matter expertise became super important. I think that's actually start what kind of started me on the journey that I took, because I realised at some point, I had been in this company for at that point, about five years, I had never worked in an airline, I knew a lot like I probably know more about airlines than the average human. But I still didn't know nearly as much as the people who were deep in the airline industry. And so I started realising actually, where I excel is not in being the deep subject matter experts in airline systems. I excel in taking product practices and applying that to different types of problems. And so I realised that I wanted my career to be more as a product expert, as opposed to a subject matter expert. Jason Knight 13:56 Yeah, that actually preempted my next question, which was going to be well, what was it that moved you into education and community building with mine the product, but it feels that you've answered that quite neatly already. But what was it that specifically got you into mind the product? Was it just right place right time? Or did you already have a relationship had already been like a member of the community? How did that drop into place? Emily Tate 14:19 Yeah, so I started attending the Mind The Product conference, actually, the second year it existed. So in 2013, in London, one of my colleagues randomly found it online. And our boss said, if you can get the early bird tickets, then you can go. And we had a development team in Krakow, Poland. And so it actually like we kind of combined the trip from Dallas to London with a Poland trip that we needed to do anyway. And Dustin, and I came over for the conference. And it was the first time that I had ever gone to an event that was all product people and was kind of looking outside the four walls of my company. Yeah, and my mind was just blown. Like being in a room with all these people who had The same challenges that you did. There, developers thought that they were the same kind of absurd that we were just being able to have that commiseration and then hearing how different companies were doing things completely changed the way that we started thinking about how we would evaluate our practices. So went in 2013, came back in 2014, and brought our Senior Vice President and during all of this, of course, they introduced Product Tank, and we have these meetups in a few cities around the world. At that point, there weren't very many. And our senior vice president basically said, why don't we have one of these in Dallas? And we said, well, you know, we've actually kind of thought about starting one. And he said, whatever you need to make it happen, go do it, I'll support you. And you know, if you need a sponsor, we'll sponsor it, we'll take care of all of it. So Dustin, and I started Product Tank Dallas, in 2015. And we were about city number 30, I think at the time, so basically, I've been around this crew for quite some time, when the community was still fairly small. So you know, the first event that we went to was, I think, 350 people for the main conference in London, which is now what London gets on a monthly basis in their meetup, pre COVID. So it's, you know, over time, I just became friends with the, you know, with the crew, and a lot of serendipity I think so, you know, when I spoke at South by Southwest several years ago, and decided to stay in an Airbnb with James and Jana and Chris Massey. And, and actually Lily Smith joined us in that before the product experience podcast was the thing and had a great time. And I think there were some jokes made over the course of that week that we're someday we're gonna hire you. And I was like, Haha, never gonna happen. And then, a couple years later, just started having some conversations that were like, so were you serious about that thing? I don't know, are you serious about coming and, and eventually just realised that we didn't exactly know what this would be. But we knew that it would be a good match between me and Mind The Product. Jason Knight 17:08 Oh, it sounds like a great origin story, you can probably make a film of that one day. But one of the things that mind the product does well, of course, is bringing together some of the best minds in product management, thought leaders and the like. And these very often give very aspirational, sometimes very idealistic visions of the perfect product, practice the perfect product company, the perfect product manager. Would you consider yourself a very idealistic product person? Do you have any principles that you hold dear and won't budge on? Are you fairly flexible and pragmatic? Emily Tate 17:42 So the thing that you will hear the most out of my mouth is the phrase, it depends. I am a firm believer that there is not a single right way to do product. That product is all about building a set of tools for your tool belt that you can start to apply to different situations and really help you just get to the right answer. Because so much of product is just asking a question and finding an answer and then saying now, what's the next question we need to ask to make the next decision? So if you try to follow a single practice, it's just not going to work all the time, because there are so many different ways that the answer can come out that changes what your next question is. Or sometimes you get the final answer that you need, and you can just continue to move forward. So I would definitely say I'm not super pragmatic about a single way of doing product. I think probably the thing I am the most firm in my opinions is that there are many ways to do this to do the product processes. And that there are many ways to be a good product manager, I have so many conversations where people have this view of the product manager that is this ultra unicorn product manager who can do all the things you can think strategically and be super creative, and work through user flows, and do research and have deep technical conversations and look at data flows and all those kinds of things. And that sounds really great. That's a lot to put on one person. And so I think what you really find is that product, people fit a piece of each of those, but typically skew and one of the areas. So the way that I typically look at it is there's kind of strategic thinkers, and there's creative Dreamers. And then there's execute those who can just like get stuff done. And you probably primarily fit in one of those three areas. What I also tend to see is whichever areas you are not the strongest in is what you have in your mind is an ideal product manager. Because we tend to downplay our own value and the things that we bring to the table. Whereas if you start looking at okay, here's where I'm really strong, how can I use those skills to help bring value to my product? Or if I can't, then I need to find product where my skills will be valuable. So if you are a super creative and a super dreamer person, and you are working on a product that has no space for that, maybe it's not the right place, or you need to figure out how to hone that creativity within the realm that you're in. And I think as managers, we need to also think about the shape of our teams. So we need to not just say, I want the product manager that can do everything, we need to look at the team look at ourselves and say, kind of what's my primary area, look at each of the people that are on our team already and say, where are they? And then say, what gaps do I have? And then maybe that's the shape of the product manager, you need to hire next. Jason Knight 20:40 So do you think there's any benefit in staying specialised? Or do you think that ultimately everyone to be successful, is going to have to diversify their own personal portfolio as well? So, I mean, you touched on it that everyone judges themselves on their weakest skill that probably drives the most imposter syndrome. And maybe, in some cases, rightly so if they've actually not got many skills in the area, they're underdeveloped in that area. Do you think it's important then to round that out as you progress through your career, or do you think it's actually valid to be a very good delivery person or a very good thinker person and kind of keep within your your lane? Emily Tate 21:17 I think it depends. We have a counter or a bell that goes off every time I say, the, I do think that you need to be able to play somewhat in all of the areas. So you know, you, we do have these roles that are very generalist roles and have to cover a lot of things. And so you need to have a base level of, I tend to be more on the strategic side, I need to be able to execute when it gets down to it. And I need to be able to have some of that creative thinking. And I need to be able to kind of have the visionary in the design side of stuff. But I don't necessarily have to be the expert in all of them. So it's not saying that you kind of do the one thing, and that's the only thing you'll ever do. Because really, products don't exist in that way. Sometimes they need you to be more fluid through the different pieces of it. But it's more about recognising what piece that I'm going to naturally be the strongest in. So that then I can either seek out help when I'm kind of getting out of my depth and some of the other areas, or I can basically actively work on those things. So if I don't have a choice, but to become an executer, because there's nobody else, you know, we've got to get this thing done, and it needs someone who can do the execution, I'm gonna have to play that role. But it's not necessarily my happiest place in the long run. Jason Knight 22:41 But obviously, this presupposes a certain level of product thinking within your organisation as well. And if we go back to some of those idealistic articles, and talks, and blog posts, and books, and so forth, don't have to too far to find examples of product managers working in situations that are very far removed from that. It's not that they're just a bit weak in one area, or their teams were weak in one area, the whole company just works very differently to how any of these books represent that reality. And then I'm thinking of maybe the more junior or inexperienced product management practitioners in those companies who aren't working like this, and they see all this great content. They're not living it, they can't change it. Or they certainly can't change it very easily, given their position in the organisation. Do you think there's a certain amount of pressure that this type of content puts on people who are in those situations, and maybe even makes them feel a little bit sad about themselves? Because they're in that position, which they can't actually attain what they think they should? Emily Tate 23:40 I definitely think there that it does, I think that influencer content can almost be like, the beauty Instagram that gives people you know, like, makes them self conscious about their appearance, it makes us self conscious about the way that we work. And it's not to say that the content is bad, I write some of it, I do the talking and all those kinds of things. But the thing that I hope that most people can understand, and we probably don't say enough, is that probably half of the articles, half of the talks, half of the trainings that come out there are actually not built because people have done it right. And then write down the thing that they did. It's because they've done it wrong so many times. And so the thought leadership and the articles come out of, here's the here's a piece of place of frustration that I see. And here's how it could be done better. And they might have had one experience where it's done well and 20 experience where it was done poorly. And even when you write things or you know, here's how it should be done. You always have to kind of pull that back into the context that you're working in. There was actually a thread that John Cutler has started today that I chimed in on a little bit around. It is easy to let that context piece become a crutch where you you basically claim? Well, in my context, that won't work. And you use that as an excuse to not try anything different. I'm definitely not advocating for that. But I do think that sometimes you have to recognise, it's okay to break the rules. As long as you are understanding what rules you're breaking and understanding why you're breaking them and doing it intentionally, either, because it's the best thing for your organisation at that time. Because again, what we're trying to do is figure out what the next question is, we need to ask and figure out how we get that next answer. So however you accomplish that, go forth and do. But basically, we also want to make sure that we are at least attempting to try things differently and looking at what other organisations are doing, and learning from the practices of other product managers who have seen different experiences. Jason Knight 25:49 Yeah, absolutely. I always like to think of it as trying to turn a tanker. And there's obviously a bit of a cliche itself, but even very small companies can be surprisingly tanker, like, yeah, if certain attitudes get bedded in. So yeah, I think it's really easy to get frustrated when you go and speak to the CEO and say, We should do X, and they say no, or they say, maybe later or whatever. And just go back to your desk and feel a little bit sad, because you think that that's the way it's supposed to be. And I think, as I've spoken to a few people on even on this podcast about is like, small, iterative steps in the right direction, it's still better than not doing them at all. Yeah, so it's all about maybe just trying to work out what that timescale is that you're comfortable with that change being delivered in. Because I guess the alternative is that you just try somewhere else, and try and work for a different company that has a different timescale. Emily Tate 26:37 Yeah, I think it's, you know, there's, you have to kind of start setting in motion, okay, if I'm in a situation where we are not working in a product lead way, and I don't like, we don't like the way that things are going, it's, it's important to start to think about what are my markers, and what's the point at which I say, I have given this a chance, and now it's time to move on, I think it is important to give it that chance and actually make the attempt to insert a small bit of change and to try something that is within the realm of your control. And if you're just not able to get traction, and that's just not satisfying for you, then start looking for the next thing. And I would say when you are interviewing for the next thing, I you know, I have not worked in Silicon Valley, I have mostly worked in Dallas and kind of other areas of the country that there are a lot of companies that don't have the fancy Silicon Valley ways of working are big enterprises with deep process and heavy red tape, and all that fun stuff. And when I'm interviewing people from those kinds of companies, I'm actually not looking for what they have done in terms of their processes, because I recognise, especially when I'm looking at more junior level team members, because I know that they don't have the they don't have the power to change that, especially in big bureaucracies. But what I am looking for is, do they recognise that this isn't the best way of working? And you can tell when someone is kind of giving an answer to you know, so tell me about the last project you worked and how did it go or whatever, and they start telling you the story. And you can see the tension and the people who wanted to talk to their customers more or wanted to be more agile with things, or the people who it's just the process, and it's how it went. And it's what I was told to do. So I did it. So if you are in one of those situations, I would say start honing your story around. Basically, here's here's how I worked these last few things. And here's what I learned about what I would have done differently. And I think that will go a long way and finding the next role that fits more of what you're looking for. Jason Knight 28:47 Yeah, absolutely, always about doubling down on the things that do fit the narrative and explaining what didn't, and trying to, as you say, just make it a learning exercise rather than a massive weight around your neck. But you touched on a just stand around the types of things that you look for in a product person when you're hiring them, for example. And obviously, it's going to depend like everything, but what are some of the hallmarks of a good product manager that you look out for you have looked out for in the past, irrespective of environmental things in their company, but some of the things that you think are kind of constant in any good product management candidate. Emily Tate 29:25 The first thing I think, is a level of curiosity. I think that's what most great product managers I know have in common is they are curious about how the world works around them. They have lots of questions and they want to get answers to them. I also look for people who are interested in learning like to continually learn, I will always ask some form of how do you learn about your craft? How do you how do you improve in your craft? And I actually don't care what the answer is I don't I you know, even if you're interviewing with mine the product I actually don't need to say, I read all of the products, articles, and I do all the things. I just need to know that you're doing something. Because that shows that you're going to be able to pick things up and continue to be excited and try be willing to try new things, I should say, maybe not always willing. But hopefully, it's a signal that that you're probably willing to at least consider other perspectives and other ways of working, as opposed to people who basically when I asked that question, they say, Oh, well, my company does lunch and learns. And they brought in a trainer who did this thing. And I get you know, a newsletter from my company that has things about our industry. And when it's all about the things that your company is providing to you, you know, not to say that that's an immediate disqualifier by any means. But it doesn't show that you are actually looking outside those four walls. And that's where you're going to start to get the real insights. Jason Knight 30:54 Absolutely, when you could start a podcast. But obviously, also, then there's the flip side of that is good product managers need good product companies to go and work for? Are there any warning signs that you've either seen yourself or heard of that you would advise someone getting into product to think twice before moving into that company? And again, I'm sure it depends, but like, specifically, any examples you can think of something that you just think is a massive red flag, Emily Tate 31:22 The thing to look for as a positive sign is changes that have happened in the last, you know, the last couple years, especially in big organisations, it's going to take time, it's going to move slowly. Red flags, I would say, I would try to dig into how products get funded, and how roadmapping happens. So it's not to say that if your company funds, you know, at the on an annual basis, or anything like that, that it's an immediate, no. But that is probably a signal that change management's going to be difficult, you're probably not going to have as much freedom to move with new information and move with the learnings that you have and actually iterate on things if you were having to present a roadmap at the beginning of the year and stick to that roadmap, or get permission to change it throughout the year. So I think that that is probably my biggest spot that I would look for is how does planning happen? How does funding happen? How does road mapping happen? Jason Knight 32:22 Yeah, that makes sense. And obviously roadmaps always controversial. And we probably don't have enough time to do that discussion, justice. But I think for me, something that I've started to look out for is, if there's professional services involved, as well, what the mix is, and how that's resourced, and whether that's all coming out of the same bucket or not. Because that can be a big problem when you're trying to operate on that kind of mixed model or very sales lead. And Sales Lead isn't a problem in and of itself. It's possible to be well sales lead. But if everyone's always fighting for the same resources, there's like client projects, massive red flag for me. Emily Tate 32:59 Yeah, I definitely, I think that that is another really big one. And that's kind of, you know, when Marty Cagan talks about empowered teams, and he talks about, I forget the word he uses, but basically, it's a team that is constant. And that the team is working on a product, as opposed to a lot of these like shared services, technology, things where you are fighting for the resources, and the resources are treated like cogs. And you know, it's, it doesn't work like that, like developers are, you know, they build context with the product that they're building. And they the best developers, have a mind for the strategy of the product and where it's going and care about where it's going. You can't get that when you're doing it in a well, this, you know, this month, you might work on this project this month, you might work on this next one. Jason Knight 33:44 Earlier, you called out the lack of nuance online, and how everyone's always fighting each other whenever anyone offers an opinion. And in some ways that stops you want to offer too many opinions, so you don't get dragged down into the morass of everyone else. But have you ever managed to get yourself dragged into a massive product flame war? Or have you managed to keep your powder dry in that respect? Emily Tate 34:06 I mean, I probably have, I can't, I don't have one that comes to mind as like particularly traumatic for me, I think because it is a little bit of I do a lot of the type of tweet and then delete the draft. But mostly just because it's it's so hard to explain how you think about anything that we do in 280 characters or even in a thread. It just you you lose so much of the little things in the little grounds. And I clearly talk a lot. I am not someone who like I'm not very concise. And so when I try to put things into a Twitter thread, I get very aware that it can come out wrong. And then I just don't have the energy to fight with people online. It's just it's not my happy place. I don't do it well, and so I know that it probably It hinders some of some of my ability to get things out there as much. But it's not to say that I won't be opinionated online, I do have plenty of opinions, I will put them out. Mostly it's the things that I don't want to get dragged into of like, today, there was another round of definition of MVP going around online. And I'm just like, people, we have done this 1000 times, like, I'm happy to have discussions with people in person where it's like, I'm talking about how this is working, in my context with my company, and how I want to do it better or worse, or whatever it may be. Do it worse, who wants to do it worse? Right. But it's just the like, we don't need the monthly cycle of should designers code, I think we've had this conversation, let's move on and have new conversations. But I think the problem is, is that it's really hard to have those conversations in these concise forms. And so I tend to be more on the side of conversations with people as opposed to jumping in on flame war of the day. Jason Knight 36:08 Yeah, I also find that quite a lot of content out there, more and more every day, in fact, of one of the thought leaders writing the same stuff again, and again, kind of touching on your point, getting a handful of likes and retweeting it themselves. And it just seems like there's a lot of fortune cookie product advice out there at the moment. And I guess Twitter lends itself to that as well, which exacerbates the problem. But there's no always insightful, right? Emily Tate 36:33 Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't. It's, you know, again, like I struggled to do, I think that's a really good word for it, the fortune cookie product advice, I, at least not in the 280 character form, I write a paragraph, nearly, you know, at least once a month, Martin and I kind of switch off doing the the mind the product newsletter, we always have a little editorial blurb. And you could probably say the exact same thing about some of those where it's like snippets of product thinking, and I don't think that those things are necessarily bad. And I do recognise like, for a lot of people who are doing this, and spending the time to create the Twitter threads and do the short snippets of wisdom, I can be really cynical about some of them. But a lot of it actually comes from good intentions. And a lot of it like they will fully say is brand building and is a strategy for getting themselves out there. So that then they can do the other things that they do, which is oftentimes coaching, or they've written a book that they want to sell or things like that. And I actually have no problem with that. I have trouble doing it myself, because I get super self conscious, which a lot of that's also my own imposter syndrome, which I have written about and spoken about. And I just get this mindset of like, if I put out the little bit of wisdom that I think I have, someone's gonna smack it down. So I actually think that some of the people who are writing things regularly in these platforms, I actually appreciate their courage for doing that, because it is really easy for them people to come, you know, with flaming arrows at all of that kind of stuff. And I think most of it is very well intentioned. Even if they know that, like, Yes, I'm writing the thing to get the likes. I will say ones that I like, there was a time back a couple years ago, it was before the pandemic that there was, I don't even remember who it was. It wasn't in tech, it was just a random thought leader who would like every other day write for things leaders have in common. Kindness, a sense of self purpose, and the next day was like 10 things every leader does read a book a month do this thing. And like every week was just like some pedantic, just ridiculous list that was built to get 1000 retweets. Yeah, and those ones I have no energy for. But I feel like most of the people in our space who are at least who I follow, I should say, I'm also very generous with the unfollow button when someone is bugging me, because I want my online space to be a place that I enjoy. It's that doesn't mean I have to agree with everyone. I follow people who challenged me and who make me grow in my own on my own journey as I figure out what it means to be in this world and tech in general. But I you know, I think that a lot of our product thought leaders, well, while I may not do it, they're putting out stuff that is worthwhile. And even if it's things that I have heard 1000 times because I'm very involved in the product industry. A lot of times it's hitting people who are newer into the industry, or who might not have access to all the things that you know, they might not watch 20 talks a week, like I might do on some weeks. And so it's like, you know, that actually may be the first time that that person has seen your roadmap should be about outcomes since like, cool. Let that had that. Jason Knight 40:05 I think probably I'm just jealous that no one looks at mine. Emily Tate 40:09 I am definitely jealous that I can't do it better. I think that that's probably that's probably part of my thing is like, I feel certain that if I were to write a Twitter thread about my thoughts on product management, that it would totally flop and then I would be sad. It's it's probably way more again, it's way more about my own imposter syndrome, that it is that it's bad for other people to do it. But it also does make me sad, because I also do recognise that there is an element that being a woman in tech, it's easier for people to pile on. Yeah, it's just a fact. And there are so many women I admire who have gotten drugged down the most horrific hate holes, that it's just over the silliest things. I would say some, but I don't want to bring it up again. And you know, potentially start another flame war over someone. But there's one in particular recently that just really, like, made it the kind of thing that's just like, why, why are we even here? Like, what what are we doing? And so it's, I think that I kind of stay away from it some myself to protect my own, to keep me from just giving up on the tech industry altogether. And I it's probably not the right thing to do. There's probably better ways to handle it. But it is where I am at this point. Jason Knight 41:28 Yeah, absolutely. And it's obviously a really common theme and hopefully something that Twitter and all the other platforms can do something about because some of the stuff that gets left up there is just completely crazy. Some of the stuff that gets taken down is just we no rhyme or reason behind it sometimes. Yeah, efforts continue. For speaking of social media, where can people find you if they want to have a chat after this about product or get any more insight into product management, when you do feel comfortable putting it up? Emily Tate 41:54 You can find me basically everywhere @thedailyem. So that's Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, all those places. My Instagram has nothing to do with product. I did basically post pictures of flowers and paintings that I do. So it may not be the most interesting. But the other is all talk product. And I am always up for a product chat, if anyone ever wants to talk. Jason Knight 42:21 So that's obviously been a really interesting chat. So really appreciate you taking the time and taking us through some of your thoughts and opinions and hot takes on Product Management. Obviously we'll stay in touch but yeah, as for now. Thanks for taking the time. Emily Tate 42:33 Thank you. This was fun. Jason Knight 42:36 As ever, thanks for listening. Hopefully you found the episode inspiring and insightful. If you did again, I'd recommend heading to one night in product calm and checking out some of my other episodes, including with Janna Bastow, the co founder of minder product, make sure you sign up or subscribe and share with your friends and never miss another episode again. I'll be back soon with another inspiring guest but as for now. Thanks and good night.