TWIL #2: Pies and Bots and My first week at Yammer.

TWIL #2: Pies and Bots and My first week at Yammer.

This Week I learned…

A couple days late on this one as my mind is still asploding.

—Why is your mind asploding, Anna Marie?
—Ah, you see, I just started this new role at Yammer, and as anyone who’s ever had a job will tell you: ohmygoodnessallthenewthingstolearnsomuchsowowahhhhhhhhh.

Stay tuned for more of my thoughts on Product Management at Yammer, but for now here’s a snapshot of what I learned this week while it’s still this week. (Pssst, check out Week 1 of “This Week I Learned” for more on this project.)

What I’m reading:

Still on The Inmates Are Running the Asylum by Alan Cooper. About 60% through.
Product Hunt’s Rise. Beautiful (and long) piece on how the products we build are the extension of what we think about and do for years prior to their launch.
A number of things about bots
* Messenger’s impending platform
* Are bots a feature or product?
* A conversation w/ April Underwood (Slack), Naveen Selvadurai (Expa) and Ben Brown (XoXco) [VIDEO]
Some pieces about people quitting Slack:
* Jason Fried (Basecamp)
* Bobbie Johnson (Medium)
* Samuel Hulick (User Onboard)
As always, way more on Quibb.

What I’m doing:

Onboarding at Yammer!

What I’m learning:

How to make pie. For Pi day!
How to make a bot.
* Made one with Zapier + Yammer, but couldn’t get the granularity I needed. Will try custom rolling one next week.
* Playing with Twilio/Google Sheets/Botwick. Trying to keep costs down. We’ll see where this goes.
What my team likes to be bribed with:
* Jen likes Sourpatch Kids
* Greg likes Chocolate
* Jens-Fabien likes cheese and dense breads (?!).
PM-y things:
* How Yammer PMs begin a product exploration by setting a testable hypothesis with our analysts.
* How to invite debate, encourage dissent, and keep disagreement lively while maintaining deep mutual respect and joy.
* How to enjoy an hour-long lunch break. (I’ve been shocked by how luxurious it feels to sit with your team for an hour every day. Thinking about writing a full post on this later.)
* Oodles and oodles about Yammers’ vision, product strategy, core metrics, and other proprietary delights.
Office-y things:
* How to set up a meeting in Outlook.
* The ins and outs of large company corpnets, HR policies, and org charts, Oh my!
* Where the beer closet is.

What I’m drafting:

“What It Really Means to ‘Bring the Donuts’”
“The Factorio Factor”
“When The Awkward Silence Isn’t Awkward”