Don’t get me wrong. I have a lot of time and respect for 🖇️ Dana Blankenhorn - as you can see … so this one caught my attention
There’s a single rule I’ve learned studying technology this last half century. Product must be in charge.
.. and 🔗then he goes on
I totally disagree, so had to comment and did. Reproduced here for posterity
I don’t disagree on taking the finance wonks out .. but not sure I agree on putting product in … I know lots of companies that lead with product .. and it doesn’t work unless there is wider purview which is often missing in product thinking. Our friends in Cupertino don’t lead with product .. though many pundits think they do .. they lead with vision, experience and story that the product delivers against.
The ‘top’ needs to be market, future market, visionary oriented. Disciplines that used to fall under marketing … though sadly not anymore .. as they are all chasing data and models and RoI .. but those people exist. In all of those disciplines. The dude at the top can still be a focussed finance wonk … their ancillary skill (beyond those three core requirements) is to listen to everyone, take advice and pay attention.
Again .. the man at the top of Cupertino is ‘operations and supply chain’ ( by history ) but to the casual observer, that isn’t so obvious. Meanwhile, the man before him was vision and experience and story .. sure he definitely had a say in product … but from an holistic viewpoint -
Just one slice of the holisticism (is that even a word)… how many ‘product’ people get what good design can do.
If they do .. I mean REALLY do .. why are there so many badly designed, poorly performing products out there?
What Do You Think?
Postscript - sometimes the Leonardo images take a few tweaks to get even close to my underlying message - but in this case - third go - and was only generating 1 image at a time. Sometimes I run out of the 150 free credits that I get every day - and have to choose from a bad lot.
This image just spoke volumes to me as ‘the house that ‘product’ built.
Funnily enough - today’s emoji was also absolutely clear.
