I graduated from WPI (Worcester Polytech Institute) with a major in Management of Information Systems (MIS) and a minor in Computer Science. For those wondering, jsneedles wrote a great piece What is MIS anyway? My interactive qualifying project, Online Music Store Accessibility was my introduction to user experience and usability. The biggest challenge of the project was not the research itself but picking the topic. I chose to research a problem related to the Humanistic Studies of Technology and specifically accessibility. It was the first time when I had to formally discover an unmet need. So I focused on podcasts for blind and low vision users. Podcasts seemed like a great resource of information but iTunes was a closed system and did not allow screen readers. The study was featured in the Journal of Human-Computer Studies (Factors that affect visually impaired users’ acceptance of audio and music websites). That’s how I first got to run user research, design surveys and analyze data.

My major qualifying project team built a survey creation web tool for Computerworld (similar to what Typeform and Wufoo can do today). My role was designing the web interface. We didn’t call it product interface at that time. The team ended up winning project of the year in the Computer Science department.

I loved web design so much that I decided to pursue it as a career after graduation. I took a web dev and design job at Northeastern University supporting the graduate programs marketing. I had the pleasure of working with a great team on digital & print campaigns for Newsweek, Scientific American and Times Magazine leading all creative and interactive aspects. Marketing was a great way to learn about conversion optimizations and acquisition strategies. But I wanted to do more. I wanted to make it easy for everyone to find and enroll the right graduate program. I myself was going through graduate school at the time when I faced the problem, it’s very difficult to figure out which program to enroll in. It’s not like you can sign up for a 30-day trial and change afterwards.

I was fortunate to work with a very strategic SVP, Stephen Director, who supported my vision. He allowed me to grow the team in order to accomplish what I wanted for the university. I recruited a small dev/designer team and we got to work. I lead project management, sketched mock ups, conducted student research and ran design sprints. It’s surprisingly easy how much usability research you can do at a college campus with a box of pizza 🍕

Another important skillset for a product manager is the art of persuasion. And what a better way to learn that than to have to communicate your vision to tenured faculty and deans with multiple doctorate degrees and worldwide esteem in their respective fields. A lot of it has to do with just being a good listener. Getting away from the opinions and uncovering the underlying why’s.

That’s how I was able to shift the paradigm from sitting in a conference room making decisions about how we design something to hearing directly from the people who will use it. I know it sounds trivial now, but it was not 5 years ago. It was about serving as the advocate for the student/researcher/faculty member. We shipped many interactive websites including Northeastern’s Graduate Studies, Global Experience and Cooperative Education.

While working at Northeastern, I enrolled in their Innovation MBA program focusing on new product development. I worked on a team project with the Wall Street Journal building a jobs portal similar to Linkedin. And that’s when it hit me. I was not just building websites, I was building digital products. And I was able to do that because I had collected various experiences in the past: web development, market research, usability studies, project management and communication.

A very good friend introduced me to the Founder and CEO of Insurify, Snejina Zacharia. Her vision to make insurance shopping simple and easy for everyone inspired me. It was an opportunity to help millions of drivers and make their lives better. I had ran into the same problems when I first had to buy car insurance, so I jumped on board. The rest is history, which I’ll cover in future posts 😉

Conclusion

People get into product management from various disciplines (engineering, marketing, design) and different industries (eCommerce, manufacturing, education). It’s less about what you have done, but why you have done it. How is the life of X better by using Y? Are you able to back up your decisions with data? The data do not have to always be related to revenue in order to be significant or interesting. The reason I’m saying this is that in higher education it can be difficult to quantify depending on your role. Look at support tickets, traffic, site feedback. Go to your campus center: observe and listen.