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Trust your intuition, you will gain a lot from this CTO podcast featuring Jason Fried, co-founder and CEO of 37signals, a company known for having groundbreaking policies and products (Basecamp, HEY, Once, etc.). He is also bootstrapping hero and author of multiple books (Getting Real, REWORK, REMOTE, It Doesn’t Have to Be Crazy at Work).

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(00:00) INTRO

Jason Fried is the cofounder and president of Basecamp (formerly 37signals), a privately held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based tools possible with the least number of features necessary. With David Heinemeier Hansson, Fried is the coauthor of Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Successful Web Application; Remote: Office Not Required; and the New York Times bestseller Rework.

Swarmia is an engineering effectiveness platform for modern software organizations. Hundreds of data-driven companies from small startups to large enterprises use Swarmia to continuously improve across three key areas: business outcomes, developer productivity, and developer experience.

Swarmia connects with the tools your teams are already using: from source code hosting to your issue tracker and chat. With it, you'll stay on top of strategic initiatives, measure key engineering metrics (including DORA and SPACE), and drive continuous improvement in teams.

Learn more and start your free 14-day trial at https://link.alphalist.com/swarmia_podcast

Meri has a tonne of experience managing managers as a serial CTO, and we chat about everything from being a non-executive director, common traps of first-time directors/VPs of Engineering, what they look for when interviewing managers of managers, and so much more.

Guest biography:

Meri is an experienced CTO and leader of technology organisations, currently leading the technology team at Pleo. They particularly enjoy helping others to level up as technical leaders and managers of organisations, and works as a CTO coach and tech advisor to various companies in this capacity through micro-consultancy ChromeRose. 

They have led teams ranging in size from 30 to 300, in a range of organisations from Procter & Gamble, to the Government Digital Service, award-winning online print company MOO, mobile-first challenger bank Monzo and patient-inspired AI-driven rare disease treatment discovery company Healx, amongst others.

A published author and international speaker, they are the chair of The Lead Developer conference, and a tech advisor for Kindred Capital. Together with their wife, they run micro-charity One Goes Up to help young women & enby folks pursue STEM education & careers.

Transcript and show notes: https://managingmanagers.tech/episodes/episode-029-meri-williams/

“Product marketing’s purpose is to drive product adoption by shaping market perception through strategic marketing activities that align with business goals.”

Are you making the mistake of focusing too much on product and not enough on the market? In this episode, Martina Lauchengo, a partner at Costanoa Ventures and the author of the SVPG book “LOVED: How to Rethink Marketing for Tech Products”, discusses the often-overlooked importance of marketing in the success of tech products.

Martina challenges the traditional notion of “product market fit,” suggesting “market product fit” instead, because a product’s value is determined by the market’s capacity to absorb it. She emphasizes the critical role of go-to-market strategy in informing product development and driving adoption.

We explore the four fundamentals of product marketing outlined in Martina’s book: ambassador, strategist, storyteller, and evangelist. Martina shares real-world examples of how these principles have been applied successfully, highlighting the importance of understanding customer needs, crafting compelling narratives, and enabling authentic evangelism.

Tune in to discover valuable insights into how to rethink marketing for your tech products and achieve greater success.  

Listen out for:

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Martina Lauchengco’s Bio
Martina spent 30 years as a marketing and product leader. She started her career working on market-defining software, Microsoft Office and Netscape Navigator. She teaches what she’s learned with SVPG and is a lecturer at UC Berkeley’s graduate school of engineering. As a partner at Costanoa Ventures, she sits on multiple boards and coaches startups. She is the author of LOVED: How to Rethink Marketing Tech Products, a #1 Amazon Best Seller. Martina holds a B.A. in Political Science and M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University. She’s a native Californian, mother of two, and proud wife to Chris.

Follow Martina:

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What it takes to develop as a leader.

Great leaders and great communicators aren't born, they're made. That's why John Hennessy and Tina Seelig, directors of Stanford University’s Knight-Hennessy Scholars, are working to create the great storytellers of tomorrow, today.

"We decided that there was a leadership void, and that was a driving motivation to do this," says Hennessy, former Stanford president and current Alphabet chairman. The program, which he co-founded in 2016 with Stanford alum and Nike co-founder Phil Knight, equips scholars with essential leadership skills through hands-on experience and collaborative problem-solving.

Seelig, executive director of the program, emphasizes that great leadership centers on effective storytelling. "No matter how compelling your invention, your idea, the thing you want to do in the world, if you can't communicate it in [an] effective way, nobody's going to listen," she says.

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Hennessy, Seelig, and host Matt Abrahams explore what it takes to develop as a leader, discussing the role of communication, the power of empathy, and the centrality of storytelling.

Episode Reference Links:

• John L Hennessy 
• Tina Seelig 
• Knight-Hennessy Scholars
• Leading Matters Podcast
• Ep.155 Can We Be Candid? How to Communicate Clearly and Directly
• Ep.35 Leading From the Hot Seat: Hot to Communicate Under Pressure

Connect:

• Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart Premium
• Email Questions & Feedback >>> [email protected]
• Episode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart Website
• Newsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.io
• Think Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube
• Matt Abrahams >>> LinkedIn

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Introduction

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This episode is sponsored by Grammarly. Let Grammarly take the busywork off your plate so you can focus on high-impact work. Download Grammarly for free today

Become a Faster Smarter Supporter by joining TFTS Premium.     

Know your audience and tailor the message for them.

In high-stakes communication, every word counts. For Jen Psaki, that means knowing who she’s talking to — so she knows just what to say.

As the former White House Press Secretary and current host of Inside with Jen Psaki on MSNBC, Psaki has discovered that communication isn’t about “saying the most words or saying them the loudest,” but about knowing your audience well enough to tailor the message just for them. “You need to think about how you're going to get your audience to listen to you,” she says. “The goal of communicating is to crack the door open so somebody wants to hear more.”

In this episode of Think Fast, Talk Smart, Psaki and host Matt Abrahams explore her approach to strategic communication: identifying your audience and using what you know to engage with them and get them to engage with you.

Episode Reference Links:

• Jen Psaki 
• Jen’s Book: Say More
• Ep.22 Under Pressure How to Communicate Clearly and Timely During Crisis
• Ep.155 Can We Be Candid? How to Communicate Clearly and Directly

Connect:

• Premium Signup >>>> Think Fast Talk Smart Premium
• Email Questions & Feedback >>> [email protected]
• Episode Transcripts >>> Think Fast Talk Smart Website
• Newsletter Signup + English Language Learning >>> FasterSmarter.io
• Think Fast Talk Smart >>> LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube
• Matt Abrahams >>> LinkedIn

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Introduction

 ********
This episode is sponsored by Grammarly. Let Grammarly take the busywork off your plate so you can focus on high-impact work. Download Grammarly for free today

Become a Faster Smarter Supporter by joining TFTS Premium.     

Uanset om du arbejder i en lille, stor eller gigantisk virksomhed, sü foregür alt det arbejde I laver i 3 forskellige flyvehøjder. Der er simpelthen 3 forskellige niveauer. Nemlig det strategiske, det koordinerende og det udførende.

Uhyggeligt tit er der ikke sammenhÌng mellem disse 3 niveauer, og den ene hünd ved ikke, hvad den anden laver. Derfor ser man tit, at teams pü det udførende niveau arbejder pü ting og sager, der ikke har rod i strategien, men stikker af i alle mulige andre og mere tilfÌldige retninger.

Det er selvfølgelig ikke sÌrlig smart, for man kan kun bruge sine ressourcer 1 gang, og det skulle da helst vÌre pü noget, der hÌnger sammen med strategien. Og lige netop dÊt skulle det koordinerende lag helst sikre. Det gør de bare langt fra altid.

Men der findes en løsning pü, hvordan man kan skabe den sammenhÌng, der bør vÌre mellem de 3 niveauer. Den løsning hedder Kanban, og i denne episode fortÌller jeg om, hvordan det sü lige hÌnger sammen.

 

How do I  help my team become agile?

 

Hello and welcome to episode 100 of the HSS.  If this hapesn to be the first episode you lsten to, in each episode I discuss a difefernt essential skill with the help of an expert. I have spoken to globally recognized authors, Harvard professors, military leaders, psychologists, pscyhitiatrics, people who have done scientific reserahc on how to become better at the so called "soft" skills to help you thrive in your career.

I want to thank you for being with me in this learning journey. I started this alongside my graduate studies in Organizational Psychology at Harvard, and through my own career journey which at this time involves working with multiole technical teams to help them become high perfoming, and create an agile organization. 

This is why today I chose to highlight this topic of agility because it embodies what soft skills are about, how to integrate human dynamics to deliver a solution. 

In this episode I’ll play some excerpts from some of the folks who co-created the famous Agile Manifesto, the base document for all things agile. Let's listen to Jeff Sutherland talking about what makes a great team, Jon Kern, on what we really need or don’t need, to get things done faster, and Arie van Benekum on the essentials of collaboration. 

Lets talk about AI, Artificial Intelligence. You are probably using itn right now to make your life easier, create transcripts, products, images… but are you really using it to make yourself a better person? Today you will learn how in this conversation with Camilo Rojas, Ph. D.

Camilo is the CEO and Founder of ProjectUs.ai, a venture capitalist backed MIT Media Lab spinoff that created an AI tool that seeks to help people become the best version of themselves. 

Camilo did his postdoctoral research at the MIT Media Lab, focusing on the ethical use of AI to help people develop complex skills that we talk about on the podcast such as e.g., empathy, self-awareness, effective communication, etc.), and to help teams and organizations become more creative, cohesive and productive. 

Today, you will learn how Project Us AI was developed and how it works, misconceptions about AI and possibilities for the future.

Iy yoiu want to learn more, click on this form.