Tag: Growth
How to grow your AEO function (without losing your mind)
I learned SEO the traditional way: by telling a client I knew how to do it, then immediately Googling “what is SEO.” I must have done something right, because not long after that I was hired to do it full-time. Seven years later, fate (and LinkedIn…
Why attacking your competitors online is dumb
Let's say a competitor copies your feature. They lift your positioning , write a misleading comparison post, or just take a cheap shot at you on X. And let's say you're 'right' – they actually did the thing, and it's actually annoying. Still don't…
on being held accountable
rea told me i hadn't earned the word sister. she was right. i showed up in this family and gravitated toward the people who were loudest, easiest to talk to. rea was quieter and i let the silence stretch. when she finally said something, she didn't soften it. she said "we'll see." that's the most honest response anyone has ever given me.
You're doing lifecycle emails wrong
High open rates can hide a deeper problem: your messaging tool may be working from outdated user data. Here is how data gets in, where it breaks, and how to audit it.
AI is killing no-code experiments
Every no-code A/B testing tool makes the same pitch: run experiments without relying on engineers. But these tools don't actual remove dev work, they defer it. No-code tools inject changes on top of the rendered page. When an experiment wins, someone…
How to fix your app onboarding drop-off points
A step-by-step recipe for finding where users drop off during your product onboarding, understanding why it happens, and improving activation rates.
November 2025 Reading List
Reviews of November 2025 reads, including Simon Jimenez's The Vanished Birds and The Phoenix Pencil Company, with ratings and notes on each.
You Need To Become A Full Stack Person
Why specialists who only ship in one layer are at risk in an AI-driven industry, and how to grow into a full-stack engineer or product mind.
How not to be boring
The world would be more fun if most startups hadn't undergone a personality bypass. But, sadly, most software companies look and feel the same. Founders have no end of excuses for this. It’s more important to build your MVP and validate it, or you…
Measure twice and release once. A/B tests of static sites
A release starts with an idea. When that perfect idea comes in the brainstorming, the idea that will appeal to all users and attract new customers. The idea is presented to a team of managers, marketers and is unconditionally supported by everyone.
Everything Becomes Growth Hacking
If your platform is being exploited by growth hackers, you need to moderate it, or you threaten its long-term health, reputation, and survival. It’s not easy—because growth hacking always finds a way.
Bluesky Continues Rapid Growth, Reaches Federation Milestone
Bluesky, the decentralized Twitter spin-off championed by Jack Dorsey, continues to surge in users as the team inches toward federation.
Why Every Moment Looks Like a Turning Point in Exponential Growth
Discover why exponential growth charts can be misleading and why "today" isn't a special turning point despite what many trend analyses suggest.
How to stay up-to-date
Continuous learning is an essential part of your career, let's take a look at how you can do your best to keep growing.
Careers Are Not Marathons Or Sprints
Why the 'career as marathon' analogy is misleading: there is no finish line, no fixed pace, and the goalposts are entirely yours to move or remove.
Give And Receive Feedback
How to give and receive feedback effectively at work, why the absence of it stunts growth, and what high-feedback organizations look like.
How I Learn
Personal learning system - scheduled study blocks, hour-long focus chunks, and applied projects - that I use to ramp up on unfamiliar domains as a PM.
Product Manager Skills
Core skills product managers should cultivate, starting with active listening and the Five Whys method to surface what customers actually mean.
You Don't Need A Coding Bootcamp
Why coding bootcamps over-promise and under-deliver, and how self-directed practice with free resources usually beats paying for a twelve-week program.
Process Is Not Replacement For Training And Tools
Why heavyweight process and sign-off rules rarely fix recurring quality issues, and how training and automated tooling produce better outcomes.
Failing Fast Does Not Mean Being Careless
Why fail fast in product management does not mean shipping carelessly, and how to structure experiments that produce useful learnings.
You Too Should Be Data-proficient
Core data skills product managers should own themselves: querying telemetry, spotting anomalies, and reading distributions without depending on data science.
Quantitative And Qualitative Metrics
When PMs should lean on qualitative interviews to find product-market fit versus quantitative metrics, and the bias risks that come with each approach.
Tools Of The Trade For Product Managers
Working list of tools across task tracking, notes, prototyping, collaboration, and security that have helped me stay organized as a program manager.
Getting Started As A Product Manager
Practical advice for new product and program managers on team dynamics, owning outcomes, and avoiding the trap of falling in love with a single solution.
Books To Read For Product Managers
Three books worth picking up as a product manager: Deep Work by Cal Newport, plus reads on customer empathy and shipping that hold up across PM levels.
Be A Mentor
Why mentoring others, especially folks from underrepresented communities in STEM, is one of the most concrete ways to give back as your career grows.
A Year In Review - 2018 Edition
2018 retrospective on personal growth, the move to Vancouver, docs.microsoft.com work, and goals being lined up for the year ahead.
On Feature Ownership
Why the mini-CEO framing for product managers is misleading and how reframing PMs as feature drivers leads to healthier scoping and team dynamics.
On Focus
An essay on attention and deep work, drawing from Cal Newport, on protecting concentration in an environment full of notifications and interruptions.
Talking Docs At Open Source Summit North America 2018
Slides and recap from a talk at Open Source Summit North America 2018 on running docs.microsoft.com as open-source documentation at scale.
Helping People Work Efficiently While Remote
Practical patterns for hybrid teams where most members are on-site and a few are remote, drawn from years of working remotely from British Columbia.
Productivity Tips - 2018 Edition
Practical productivity habits for 2018, including using a task board like Trello, blocking distractions, and turning learnings into yearly retrospectives.
A Year In Review - 2017 Edition
2017 retrospective covering docs.microsoft.com platform consolidation, side projects, conference talks, and lessons heading into the next year.
3 Years At Microsoft, Life Changes, And More
Notes on three years at Microsoft, from PM work on Outlook Groups and migration tooling to broader career and life shifts along the way.
On Importance Of Documentation
Reflections after a year working on docs.microsoft.com on why documentation systems matter and how publishing infrastructure shapes product adoption.
What Makes A PM A Great PM
Notes on traits that separate strong program managers, drawn from time on both product and content teams: 360-degree product view, soft skills, customer empathy.