What Product Is to Me

Early in my career, I thought of product management as a formula to be solved. An equation whereby with enough variables, and the requisite processing power, an algorithm would spit out the winning set of features. A paint-by-numbers list of capabilities that if built, would win the market. I was wrong. Product is more than a checklist — it’s a rebellion.

Building something new is an insurrection — a direct pushing back, shoulder dropped against the ordinary world we all inhabit. The sage chronicler of myth, Joseph Campbell, documents the path of one who decides to shun the ordinary life and embrace the unknown, extraordinary path.

“The usual hero adventure begins with someone from whom something has been taken, or who feels there is something lacking in the normal experience available or permitted to the members of society. The person then takes off on a series of adventures beyond the ordinary, either to recover what has been lost or to discover some life-giving elixir. It’s usually a cycle, a coming and a returning.” ― Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

‘Something lacking in the normal experience’. Isn’t this the inspired conviction that drives all novel invention? A felt lack fused with an imagined future. Rocket fuel for our journey. Once revealed, our job becomes summoning the will to embrace our future. Mustering the courage to stand up and say no. No, this isn’t as good as it can be, and no, I won’t settle for the status quo. In our hearts, we know we can do better so we must do better and our adventure begins by answering the call.

“Often in actual life, and not infrequently in the myths and popular tales, we encounter the dull case of the call unanswered; for it is always possible to turn the ear to other interests.” ― Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

The call. Product is a calling as well as a job. Useful, honest work for honest pay — raw yet real. More quiet farmer and less suited banker. It’s your sleeve wiping the sweat from your brow and the soiled grit under your fingernails that won’t come clean no matter how much you wash. Converting frustrated energy into useful matter — a revolution in physical form.

“A deliberate, terrific refusal to respond to anything but the deepest, highest, richest answer to the as yet unknown demand of some waiting void within: a kind of total strike, or rejection of the offered terms of life, as a result of which some power of transformation carries the problem to a plane of new magnitudes, where it is suddenly and finally resolved.”

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

― Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Building a product is a responsibility to return something better back to the world. Embracing the primal toolmaker buried in all of us by human birthright.

Of course, I’m not saying product people are heroes — nowhere close. No one loses their life writing software. What I am saying is that product, to me, involves a very real sense of craft, passion, and responsibility for the art of what we do.

“Passion is kind of an important word for me, whether it’s playing sports or whether it’s just living or whatever you’re going to do. In my opinion you should be passionate about it or else, why do it?” — Pat Tillman

If you’re lucky enough to hear the tormented call of the maker, heed it! From your heels to your head, heed it. Respect both the call and the calling by honoring the path wherever it leads. At times, it won’t be easy but it will be meaningful.

That’s what product is to me.

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