The Product Un(censored) Show #2 — Ken Chin
The second episode of The Product Un(censored) Show was released today, and I thought it would be good to write about the side of Kenneth Chin which we didn’t discuss on the show. Yes, I do wish sometimes that I could be like Joe Rogan on his shows where he just records as long as it take so I could cover all bases. One day perhaps. One day…
Back to Ken, I remember meeting him for the first time, not too long after he arrived in Malaysia. We had lunch in a nyonya restaurant called Limapulo, and I remember being quite fascinated by this new CPO of SEEK Asia. Little did I know that Ken would have a big impact in the product scene of Malaysia as well my own career path as well.
In his early days of arriving in Malaysia, he was hunting for a product community and before our meeting, had thought of starting one up. Well, thankfully he didn’t, because it allowed me to tell him about PM Huddle, the product meetup group in Malaysia that I co-founded the year before he landed on these shores (you can read the origin story here). Long story short, he supported the product community both in and out of PM Huddle and when he finally left, it was definitely a loss for the product community in Malaysia. One of my favourite sessions was at PM Huddle #11 TIL night, where he presented a 15 minute lightning talk about “Understanding Common Biases in Product Management”. I even managed to dig up a picture of his session!
From a personal perspective, Ken is the reason that I submitted a proposal to speak at Prod Mgmt Festival ‘s inaugural APAC event in Singapore in 2018. Honestly, the topic I submitted was something I was reading about when he encouraged me to submit a proposal and somehow, my topic got selected! For those interested, this was my talk at PMF APAC 2018:
This was a pivotal moment because I then applied to speak and got accepted for PMF APAC 2019 and I was invited to join the PMF APAC board for 2020. Ultimately, the stint in the board was short lived due to Covid scuppering the 2020 event planned for Singapore, but it doesn’t detract from the fact that Ken was a pivotal part of this development.
So yes, this is why I mention at the start of the podcast that Ken is someone that I have really come to respect, and I know that wherever he ends up next, he will definitely have a positive impact on the product scene there.
You can watch the video of the show here:
Or if you’re more a podcast person, check out the podcast here (along with options of various podcast platforms to view it on):
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