My mom asks me all the time, “Are you happy?” I find the question to be annoying. (Sorry mom) The reason is that I don’t actually want to be “happy”. Happy to me implies blissful cow-like behavior. It implies sitting and staring at the sunset and thinking, “Gee, this is…
I just started a search for a product manager on my team at Engagio. Summary Smart, intuitive, empathetic, energetic, friendly, fun person who can put on a professional game face for customers and partners. Here are some additional qualities I look for. Works well with others A Product Manager works…
I’ve complained about the Electoral College before, 12 years ago. This thing doesn’t make any sense in today’s world. From Wikipedia: Some delegates, including James Wilson and James Madison, preferred popular election of the executive. Madison acknowledged that while a popular vote would be ideal, it would be difficult to…
The election is over and the next President of the United States will be Donald Trump. To many people like myself, we imagine someone voting for Trump and it fills us with rage and frustration. However, with my empathy hat on, I know that the people who voted for him…
One of the strangest things in American politics is how evenly we are split between the two major parties. Look at the last few months of the popular vote between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Here is the same chart with % chance of winning The second chart at times…
My house is shaped funny. This results WiFi dead spots. This weekend, we moved a bunch of furniture around to give two of my kids their own room, rather than sharing. Doing something like that always involves alot of work you didn’t expect and plenty of dust in the air which…
Marketo Retrospective Part 9 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. This might be the last one. It’s the part that very few people understand, but I think it is the reason Marketo did well. Some people call it Product Market Fit, but…
Marketo Retrospective Part 8 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. Today, I focus on the Marketo’s Marketing. Like building a Sales Team I think this is an area that Marketo really shined and set the benchmark for thousands of other companies in the…
If you have a corporate email address, you should read this post. You currently may not realize, but IT and the management of the company have full rights and access to your email..right now. They can copy your entire inbox and see every message. This probably doesn’t bother you too…
Marketo Retrospective Part 7 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. Today, I focus on Building a Startup Sales Team. I think this is an area that Marketo really shined and set the benchmark for thousands of other companies in the past 10…
Marketo Retrospective Part 6 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. Today, I focus on product development. Specifically about a philosophy I have around maintaining products after initial innovation. When you have a startup, the first innovation is complete free from existing…
Marketo Retrospective Part 5 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. So far, the learnings have been in fits and spurts. Also, not much complaining so far. Today, I’m thinking about how Brand Identity evolved at Marketo and specifically how it…
Marketo Retrospective Part 4 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. I learned alot of things and this is my way of processing all of that experience into bite-sized nuggets of wisdom. Today, a little deep dive into how the client-side…
Marketo Retrospective Part 3 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. I learned alot of things and this is my way of processing all of that experience into bite-sized nuggets of wisdom. Today, here is what I learned about remote offices.…