• Building a Startup Sales Team

    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…

  • UX and Technical Debt

    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…

  • Brand, Culture and Recruiting

    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…

  • UI Frameworks (2006-2016)

    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…

  • Remote Offices

    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.…

  • UX Follow-Through

    Marketo Retrospective Part 2 As part of a series, I am doing retrospective lessons from my 9 years at Marketo. The time was filled with good and bad and everything in between. Looking back is the best way to learn and do better in the future. This time, I am…

  • The Power of a Single Word

    I am a firm believer in retrospectives. How can you expect to improve without looking back at what you did? I am going to do a series of lessons learned from my 9 years at Marketo. Doing one giant post will be too long, so I’m breaking it up. This is…

  • My Design Process

    I’ll try my best to be concise. Step 1. Receive commandment from God Or your CEO or your PM or boss, whatever. They will say something like, “We need _____” Fill in the blank with any two word feature. (Example: Dynamic Content, Enhanced Security, Cool Dashboards. Step 2. Talk to users Is…

  • Ponderlust

    There is a phrase called Wanderlust. wan·der·lust ˈwändərˌləst noun: a strong desire to travel. There should be something called Ponderlust. pon·der·lust ˈpondərˌləst noun: a strong desire to contemplate. I know many people who have this symptom. When faced with a situation, they want to think about it, alot. In one sense, this…

  • FUD

    Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt. FUD is responsible for millions of deferred decisions each day. It stops us from embracing reality, moving forward and dealing with our circumstances. FUD doesn’t make you conservative or liberal. It makes you stick to the Status Quo. The Status Quo is the universal remedy for FUD. You…

  • Paying Attention

    Before they can pay money, they have to pay attention. Make no mistake, it’s a real currency. Every waking moment is accounted for. Whether it is social media or a smartphone game or even staring at the wall, you are paying out your daily allowance of attention. Most companies want…

  • Engagio closed $22M Series B

    Original Haiku Post I am currently Head of Magic (PM/UX) at Engagio. The experience so far has been excellent. The culture is authentic and vibrant. The product vision is very strong and the market dynamics couldn’t be better. Engagio has a strong analytics product already in the market, which is doing very…

  • The Decline of Facts

    I’m not looking forward to the presidential debates. The reason is that facts will not be part of the discussion. Imagine this fictitious argument: Fact Person: “The world is spherical.” Feelings Person: “I feel that it is flat.” Fact Person: “There are pictures, science, facts. It’s provable!” Feelings Person: “All…

  • Taking advantage of the herd mentality

    It is a sad truth, people go in herds. There are obviously some early adopters, but the majority of people do not want to be the first one to do something, even if it is clearly a good thing to do. Case in point: The NFL Draft. It has been…