Industry News

Chris Jones describes his favorite product manager interview question, but in the spirit of “know thyself” I think this is an exercise everyone should go through for themselves:

The question comes late in the interview, but early in the overall hiring process. The setup goes like this: “Now that I know you a bit, I’d like to give you a list of 4 broad work attributes. You’re a product manager, so I already expect that you’re strong in each. But I highly doubt that you consider...

Earlier this month we reported about a Google algorithm update that happened Halloween night through November 1st and seems to be continuing on all week long. It is a creepy update that seems to be gaining momentum as the days go on.

Here’s a pragmatic approach to roadmaps that I can get behind. Escape From the Feature Roadmap to Outcome-driven Development:

You’re exploring new lands. You know where you want to get to — that’s your outcome — but there’s no established route to get there. So you’ll probably set out, and if you’re measuring yourself correctly and you’ve got good feedback loops in place, you’ll be able to course correct and quickly iterate towards your outcome. But you could only draw the complete...

I really like the this Mountainsides approach to software projects from the Postlight team:

It’s sort of like a Gantt chart that was left on the stove too long, leaving all those neat and tidy bars melting into one another.

I feel like we’re trying too hard to make “product thinking” a thing with fancy words and lofty concepts. Like we have some kind of inferiority complex with other disciplines we’re trying to make up for.

Talk to customers, understand the market and the business, and experiment until you get it right. That’s pretty much what product management is, right? How you do that looks different for every company, but that’s where the art comes in.

You can’t codify product management.

This past month in Google webmaster and SEO news was pretty busy. We had a Halloween search algorithm update that still seems to be creeping around. We also had another few updates including Google saying they are going to make tweaks to the news algorithm. Google+ is shutting down, Google launched their Home Hub and discover feed and so much more.

Yesterday, on Halloween, I saw a some chatter within the industry around significant ranking changes in Google's search results. The thing is, the complaints are not widespread but there are a nice number of complaints in the SEO communities. I am thinking this is a niche targeted update, impacting a specific tactic or vertical - but it is way too early to know the specifics.

How A Knowledge Graph Updates Itself

unsplash-logoElijah Hail

To those of us who are used to doing Search Engine Optimization, we’ve been looking at URLs filled with content, and links between that content, and how algorithms such as...

One day you will be able to tell your grandchildren that you remember when Google's home page was simply just a search box and nothing more. Those days are long gone with the introduction of the Google Discover feed now showing up below the Google search box on mobile.