November 23, 2021
This week of Thanksgiving I want to thank you for asking for help this year.
Your willingness to ask is the engine that powers our community.
So, thank you for asking and thank you for the concomitant challenges you create for me and my team – including how difficult it is to describe the impact of you asking for help.
How do I bring you into that aha moment when a new GM realizes he is thinking too small about his new role?
How do I help you smell that crackle in the air, that metallic residue of the electrical cognitive impact that leaves him transformed and excited?
And how do I also be clear that it’s not just him that leaves excited, but the members who came to help. They leave rejuvenated!
Or, how do I bring you into that moment when a laid off executive feels the sense of relief and renewed confidence that comes not only from having just received a much better job with much better prospects, but also from having not walked alone?
Or, how do I explain the moment when a member realizes he doesn’t have to leave his company where he’s built relationships, a reputation, and social capital – that, in fact, he may have one of the best opportunities available in the “metaverse” if he stays?
Or, how do I teleport you into that bittersweet session where a new mother realizes she is not alone in facing the challenges of caring for another life while still thinking of her own?
And, by the way, how do I explain why not walking alone is so powerful?
It often seems that the simple decision to walk together produces too big an impact for such a small act. (Maybe it’s akin to that other small-action-releasing-outsized-power in the natural world: that of a neutron colliding with a nucleus?)
And, most importantly, how do I help you see that this is just an ordinary couple of days in the life of our community — that if we go back just a few more days then we’ll discover intense conversations with product managers battling burnout, newly minted Chief Product Officers building effective board relationships, CEOs facing major crises, VPs of product trying to figure out next steps in their careers, and retailers navigating this challenging environment.
My commitment to you is to get better at helping you experience this cacophony of change.
That’s my commitment because I know that if you really feel these air-crackling neuron-rearranging moments, then that will rearrange your neurons encouraging you to ask for help even more.
And if you ask for help more, then all of us will grow.
So, to sum this all up, I know who I’ll be thanking this Thursday when I sit down to a big heaping plate of turkey and broccoli: you.
With love and gratitude,
Phyl
Winter Series
- Elder Fraud, Financial Mistakes and Caregiving – Thu, Dec 2 @3pm ET
Howard Tischler, Co-Founder and CEO, and Liz Loewy, Co-Founder and COO, EverSafe
To register: Click here to email Britany Chism (register your teams to join too!)
Many members are facing challenges with aging parents (and managing employees facing challenges with aging parents) and asked us to bring in experts from time to time who can help.
We found two amazing people (through one of our longtime members).
Liz Loewy, co-founder of EverSafe, was the founder of the Manhattan District Attorney’s first Elder Abuse Unit, and served as trial counsel in the prosecution involving elder abuse of the late philanthropist, Brooke Astor. In addition, Liz has served as a caregiver for her parents and grandparents.
Howard Tischler, co-founded EverSafe after his mother was financially exploited and lost her life savings. Howard will discuss what happened to his mother and how he managed his joint corporate and caregiving responsibilities while serving as a Group President and Lead Director in public companies.
There will be a robust Q&A session. Come ready with your own stories or stories from your workforce (and invite your colleagues to join as well, if you like).
Fall Keynotes
- The What & Why of Continuous Discovery
Teresa Torres, Author, Speaker, and Product Discovery Coach
Most product teams are starting to adopt discovery best practices (e.g. interviewing customers, usability testing, experimenting). However, many of us are still stuck in a project world. We do research to kick off a project, we usability test right before we hand off to engineers, and our primary means for experimenting is a/b testing. These methods are better than nothing, but the best product teams are shifting from a project mindset to a continuous mindset. In this talk, we’ll explore the key differences between project-based discovery and continuous discovery and give your team a clear benchmark to aspire to.
Bio: Teresa Torres is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, coach, and longtime friend of the Councils (she was a moderator of one of our Product Councils at one point). She’s coached hundreds of teams at companies of all sizes, from early-stage start-ups to global enterprises, in a variety of industries and has taught more than 7,000 through her Product Talk Academy. She’s the author of the recently published book, Continuous Discovery Habits, and blogs at ProductTalk.org.
- The Hows and Whys of Hybrid Work
Jaime Teevan, Chief Scientist for Microsoft’s Experiences and Devices
with moderator Ron Pessner, Vice President of Product, Microsoft
Jaime Teevan, Chief Scientist for Microsoft’s Experiences and Devices, is charged with creating the future of productivity at Microsoft and for its customers. As part of that effort, she helps lead the New Future of Work: the largest research initiative in Microsoft’s history with hundreds of researchers from across Microsoft, LinkedIn, and GitHub. Their task is simple (and very hard): make this new future of work – in office, remote, and especially hybrid – possible and productive. Jaime Teevan, and moderator Ron Pessner, will provide an overview of what Microsoft has learned and will offer tips for effective and inclusive hybrid work.
Bio:
Jaime Teevan is Chief Scientist for Microsoft’s Experiences and Devices, where she is responsible for driving research-backed innovation in the company’s core products. Previously she was the Technical Advisor to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research, where she led the Productivity team. Dr. Teevan uses AI to help people accomplish their goals, developing the first personalized search algorithm used by Bing and introducing microproductivity into Office. Her groundbreaking research has earned her numerous awards, including the Technology Review TR35 Young Innovator and Karen Spärck Jones awards. She holds a Ph.D. from MIT and a B.S. from Yale, and is an affiliate professor at the University of Washington.
Ron Pessner, a longtime CG Councils member, is in charge of collaboration across the Microsoft 365 collaboration suite (that span across Word, Excel, PPT, etc). He has spent 18 years at Microsoft and has done a number of things including GM for Games for Windows, senior role at Xbox, led Windows 10 for Window Phone, and multiple roles in the Office organization. Prior to Microsoft he worked with a number of startups in the early days of the web and mobile internet.
- Heartwood: The Art of Living With the End in Mind
Barbara Becker, Author
To access recording (Council members only): Click here to email Britany Chism
For our second Fall Meeting keynote, Barbara Becker, author of Heartwood invites us into a conversation about the art of living.Members of our Councils are facing difficult life moments now, as they have in the past and as we each will in the future. With this talk, we help deepen the trust and safe space needed for members to be vulnerable, find support and connection, and, of course, ask for help throughout the meetings and beyond.We also hope to reveal, for your own reflection, the individuals and events in your life that shaped who you have become as a person. In work, and in our daily lives, we aren’t often granted the opportunity to name and to process the people we love, the challenges we face, and the difficulties that become part of us – that become our own Heartwood.Bio:
Barbara Becker is an ordained interfaith minister and has sat with hundreds of people at the end of their lives. Barbara speaks on a wide range of topics, including deepening our sense of meaning and spirituality and mid-career pivots. She has dedicated more than twenty-five years to partnering with human-rights advocates around the world in pursuit of peace and interreligious understanding. She has worked with the United Nations, Human Rights First, the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, and teaches at Columbia University
Previous 2021 Talks
- Battle Buddies – A Way to Support Your Teams
Craig Hopkins, CIO, City of San Antonio
Join Craig Hopkins for this short webinar focused on Q&A to introduce an idea that has taken off in Craig’s org, the City of San Antonio, where he is the CIO.It’s called Battle Buddies. So, what is a Battle Buddy?Adapted from the US Army, a battle buddy is a partner assigned to an employee in an organization who is expected to assist his or her partner.Even though we are not in military combat, Craig says our corporate responsibilities can feel just as stressful and overwhelming at times.A battle buddy is not only intended for comradery and support, but also to help reduce stress, provide professional and leadership guidance, and at times, get into the trenches together to get things done. Since we will each be watching each other’s actions, we are all battle buddies to each other, as partners and as a leadership team, driven by our mission while adhering to our Core Values.Craig will talk about how this has worked in his organization and how to set it up in yours.
- Clubhouse and the Audio Revolution (not recorded)
Jonathan Ehrlich, Partner, Foundation Capital
Two things to know about Jonathan Ehrlich:
1) he co-led the seed round in Clubhouse and was thus the first venture capitalist to spot its potential;
2) he’s a Councils alum with an interesting career arc.We held an informal conversation with Jonathan about Clubhouse, the future of audio, and Jonathan’s career journey from a mostly offline retailer in Canada to relocating to Silicon Valley and reinventing himself.
Bio:
Jonathan Ehrlich is a Partner at Foundation Capital who invests in early early-stage consumer, marketplace, commerce, and SaaS startups and technologies. He joined Foundation Capital in 2013 as a partner after spending nine months with the firm as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Before joining Foundation Capital, Jonathan spent 17 years as an operator during which he founded three companies, built a $100M+ revenue business, and ran marketing for Facebook. He is the first institutional investor in Clubhouse and currently sits on the board of Bulletin and Chord. His Foundation and personal investments include Shelf Engine, Mainstreet, Truepill, Hooked, WayUp, League, Front, and Flexport. When not working, he can be found on his bike or chasing his four kids around.
- JTBD in Large Distributed Environments
Jay Haynes, Founder & CEO, thrv.com
Jobs To Be Done has proven to be an effective methodology for building much better holistic end-to-end products and customer experiences.
*But* CG Council member companies with large distributed environments are finding it difficult to apply JTBD in effective ways.
Jay Haynes, CEO of thrv, and a global expert on JTBD will come and speak to the Councils community on this specific challenge of using the methodology in large, complex technology environments.
- See talks from the last month and beyond here.
