Tim Hildred

I can’t decide if I want to pursue a career as a writer or a grifter. I’m still weighing the prose and cons.

I’m Tim, a product marketing manager at an enterprise software company with an open source development model. I’ve been selected to participate in a 1 to 2 year leadership development program in the APAC region. A year passes both quickly and slowly; this show is a way to both share what I’m learning and see how far I’ve come.

This episode explores how “nothing is forbidden, everything is permitted” (the motto of the assassins in assassins creed video game series) can apply in a work context

Of course I want to make clear that there are plenty of immoral and illegal things that are not and should not be permitted. The motto speaks to me in the context of pursuing something new without a clear precedent. In cases where you’re trying to do something positive that hasn’t really been done before, you really can do it however makes sense.

In the case of my group project, one of the questions that came up repeatedly was staffing: how to staff a particular role. The team thought about it, and gave a suggestion; the role could be a good fit for someone from within the company looking for a new career direction.

Our suggestion was validated by everyone we discussed it with. If our suggestion is taken on board, it could result in a good person staying with the company & a knowledgeable resource for our customers.

A suggestion I’d have for future Tim is: when trying to accomplish something new don’t be afraid to suggest something based on intuition, and validate it afterwards.

I’m on a seafood diet… if I see food, I eat it!

I’m Tim, a product marketing manager at an enterprise software company with an open source development model. I’ve been selected to participate in a 1 to 2 year leadership development program in the APAC region. A year passes both quickly and slowly; this show is a way to both share what I’m learning and see how far I’ve come.

This episode is all about what what happens when you think something’s true that isn’t, and what you do from there

Our group project is actually a continuation of another team’s efforts. They did A LOT of work to get the project to the point we took over: interviews, market research, even a pilot. They also did a lot of work to hand the project over to us, presentations, question and answer sessions, email, and in person conversations.

One of their achievements in particular was core to my understanding of where the project was and what we needed to do. In a meeting about a future opportunity to develop the project, we found out that the way we’d understood that achievement was not correct. That meant we’d based our project plan on an incorrect assumption.

At first I thought “we are in big trouble, this changes everything”. I was frustrated because I felt foolish for not having asked more questions earlier on. As I thought about it more, I began to wonder “what does this really change?”

The things we’d planned to do would still have to be done. The work streams we’d identified were still valid. The brief that our project sponsors had given us didn’t rely on our incorrect assumption, and in fact had provided a hint about our misunderstanding if I’d been paying closer attention.

So we decided to continue with our plan more or less in tact. We’ve identified an assumption about what we’re building that we might not be the only ones making, which gives us something to test and report back on.

I’d challenge future Tim to take a closer look at new situations and not take everything at face value. One way to do that is to identify the

What did sushi a say to sushi b? Wassabi! (listen, its funnier)

I’m Tim, a product marketing manager at an enterprise software company with an open source development model.  I’ve been selected to participate in a 1 to 2 year leadership development program in the APAC region. A year passes both quickly and slowly; this show is a way to both share what I’m learning and see how far I’ve come.

This episode is all about “the slow way is the fast way” (paradoxes make for great content by providing a clickable title and the impression of wisdom).

One of the things I’ve been finding as my project team moves through the mission we’ve been set upon is not only that things move slower than you want them to but that if you look around and pay attention when you’re doing things the slower way, you can often figure out the right way to speed things up.

By way of an example; part of our project involved producing some collateral to share an idea with. Our company has 2 existing processes for producing that collateral; the faster way and the slower way. The faster way has more gatekeepers; the slower way is… slower.

Our project got directed into the slower lane; and that got me down at first. However, as a show of good faith and to see what I might learn and who I might meet, I rolled with it.  One of the people who I was connected with made an offhanded comment about someone who had a similar objective to our group project and wasn’t it a shame that person wasn’t on the call. When I followed up with that person it turned out that she wanted a very similar outcome to what we did, and was happy to use her influence to try and get us past the gatekeepers into the “fast lane”.

Had I not gone “the slow way” I would have never gotten to go the fast way, which would have led to a worse project and ultimately customer outcome.

A challenge I’d set for future Tim is: what things in your life are going slower than you want them to now; what are you not paying enough attention to in that situation that might help you get a better outcome?

Thats all, thanks f