I was at Google’s Women Techmakers event this Saturday and it was a somewhat productive way to spend my day. I did expect it to be better than it was, but as always, that’s a case of my own mismanaged expectations. There were several speakers at the event, some of them good and some not soContinue reading “Moonshot thinking”
Combining form, function and design
I came across what I think is a stunning product – one that combines form, function, and design. It’s called a soft scale and what it does is deceptively simple. It converts an ordinary bathmat into a weight and BMI scale Fiber optic LEDs sewn into the mat display weight trends of the past two weeksContinue reading “Combining form, function and design”
Behavioural Design
I happened to read a really interesting paper on Behavioural Design and the impact it can have on development policies. In technology, decoding user behaviour is one of the most important components of the design process, however these tenets of product management are yet to be adopted effectively outside the tech industry. The implications ofContinue reading “Behavioural Design”
Words with Friends
I recently started playing Words with Friends on my phone and I quite like it apart from the pesky ads that show up after every single move. It was an interesting study for me though, so I dug a bit deeper and learnt about the gaming industry in the process. Every single number in there wasContinue reading “Words with Friends”
The quagmire of A/B Testing
When I first started as a product manager, I didn’t know what an A/B test was. I read about it briefly and I thought “Okay, all you have to do is compare two versions of the same thing. No big deal”. It wasn’t until I actually implemented my first A/B test that I realized there wereContinue reading “The quagmire of A/B Testing”
Mind games
You know what’s worse than mind games in relationships? Mind games in interviews… or as they’re more commonly known—puzzles. I had my first experience with them in college during on-campus recruiting. Instead of being quizzed on my engineering chops, I had to answer brainteasers about ants, triangles, and eggs. I was incredibly frustrated to say the least, becauseContinue reading “Mind games”
Technology – with meaning
A lot of people decide to get an MBA because they want to switch careers. I’m not one of them. When I graduated from college in 2013, I didn’t even know about the existence of product management. It was only after I started working at ZeMoSo (a product development startup) that I realized what it wasContinue reading “Technology – with meaning”
Texts from the News
Instead of making New Year’s resolutions this year (which I inevitably fail at keeping), I decided to go with themes for the year instead. One of the themes is learning more about the world around me. With that in mind, I subscribed to and downloaded Espresso (from The Economist) and WSJ (from The Wall StreetContinue reading “Texts from the News”
Parallels – Neopets, Xanga and Twitter?
My journey on the interwebz began with Neopets when I was eleven. For the uninitiated, it’s a virtual pet community with “free games, shops, auctions, chat and more!” Personally, I couldn’t care less about feeding my pets or clothing them. I knew they weren’t really hungry or dying as they liked to remind me (Neopets are immortal),Continue reading “Parallels – Neopets, Xanga and Twitter?”
The trials and tribulations of the online travel industry – Part 1
After nearly 7 months working for a travel startup, I have concluded that this industry is a notoriously tricky one. While the concept of travel itself is glamorous, creating a successful travel-centric product is more difficult than it seems. Here are a few reasons why: Monopoly: The most common revenue model for online travel companiesContinue reading “The trials and tribulations of the online travel industry – Part 1”