Jason Fried tells us to go Easy on the M&Ms. He’s talking about managers and meetings. This (and his Remote chapter, and TED talk) got me thinking about a better flavor of M&Ms: minimalism and meditation. These new M&Ms are a provocative counter to managers and meetings.

In summary, Fried explains that meetings and managers interrupt productivity. Meetings break up the day. They communicate too little information for too large a time investment. Managers disturb the workday with frequent checkins and status updates. And they are the ones that schedule meetings. It’s a bad cycle. Business should go easy on these M&Ms, like a chef salts a well seasoned dish. Just enough to enhance. …

Coffee shops are magical places

Fundamentally, they are spots to caffeinate and enjoy delicious pastries. Many offer much more. Coffee shops are places to be productive and collaborate on side projects. They are places to socialize and meet new people. Most have plenty of seating, plugs to charge your laptop, and wifi. They are open before business offices. They have wonderful ambiance that gets creative ideas flowing.

How it started

My infatuation with coffee shops started last year. My friend Brandon Fancher and I started meeting at our local coffee shop before our day jobs. We worked on a crytocurrency side project. This started as a weekly routine. Then our work became a daily habit. We had an excuse to leave our houses early, and skip the traffic. We held each other accountable. We started a routine of coffee, code, crypto, and conversation. …

Sometimes people ask me how to get into digital product management. This happens at meetups, or through friends and colleagues. I usually share some resources and chat over coffee. I thought I’d share my regular response.

It goes something like this:

You want to be a product manager? That’s great! It’s rewarding and enjoyable. But I’m a bit biased, because it’s what I do everyday. It’s a cool combination of design, tech, and business.

Product (quick videos)

The #1 product management resource that I recommend is this online class. It’s the one my mentor gave to me. …

Side projects are a great way to exercise creativity, meet new friends, and advance your career. They can make you happier, healthier, and more productive. They are easier to start than you may think.

What’s a side project?

A side project is usually a creative or learning endeavor that has some sort of output. This could be blogging, selling your paintings online, creating a software app that solves a problem, writing a book, podcasting, making candles, recording a music album, giving advice on gardening, speaking at local meetups, etc.

Simon Sinek’s TED Talk explains how certain people and organizations are more innovative, influential, and profitable than others. It’s because they start with why, over what. They focus on why they do what they do — their mission, vision, and beliefs. Not what — not the actual product, service, or feature.

Every business owner, marketer, designer, product strategist, and app builder should consider Sinek’s why framework. Use why as a tool for growth. A compelling why attracts others that agree with your cause.

Why helps determine whether the driver for your business, or app idea, has a strong vision, with potential, and good understanding of the problem — verses wanting to build something cool, or perhaps an idea that needs more direction. …

This is the bitcoin and blockchain introduction I wish I read months ago. There are lots of terms to understand. And how they fit together.

I learned about bitcoin from my good friend Brandon Fancher. His initial explanation led me to more questions. So I Googled, YouTubed, Wikipedia-ed and wanted to learn more.

I signed up for bitcoin.com’s 10-day email course. I highly recommend the course. This article is heavily paraphrased from that course.

So read this for an introduction. Subscribe to the bitcoin.com email course yourself. Then download their wallet. And get started with bitcoin!

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, a new type of digital money, used as exchange. It’s like regular currency, or fiat, except it uses cryptography to verify transactions and control its creation. …

We all keep hearing about bitcoin, blockchain, and cryptocurrency. It’s fascinating technology with a great mission. Decentralized, borderless, peer-to-peer. It has potential to disrupt traditional financial systems.

My good friend, Brandon Fancher, and I got interested in late 2016.

We read Satoshi Nakamoto’s white paper. We watched YouTube videos by Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Susanne Tarkowski Tempelhof, Jimmy Song, and Roger Ver. We bought some Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum… and some regrettable altcoins. We explored developer technologies. We wanted to contribute, and build something in the space.

Inspiration

Our inspiration came from trying many wallets and exchanges. Most missed good design. We didn’t feel good using them. They were technical. Unapproachable. One exception was Exodus. Pleasing design. Easy to use. But a desktop application. …

original post on the MapAnything blog

As the “Where” company, MapAnything helps companies understand where their business is, and where it needs to be. Let’s take that a step further…wouldn’t it also be helpful to know, not only where your customers are, but also what are they saying about you?

As a product manager at MapAnything, I’m always exploring innovative ways for our clients to visualize the “where” of their data. So, how can MapAnything put the “where” in your customer’s social interactions? With the help of Twitter and Zapier, of course!

So, why do it?

A few use cases to consider:

• Call Center — Discover exactly “where” customers are located when they tweet about needing immediate help or assistance, allowing for a field agent to be efficiently assigned. …