Amy Vaughn:
Hello, everyone, and welcome to our weekly power lounge. This is your place to hear authentic conversations from those who have power to share. My name is Amy Vaughn, and I am the owner and chief empowerment officer of Together Digital, a diverse and collaborative community of women who work in digital and choose to share their knowledge, power, and connections. You can join the movement at togetherindigital.com. Today, we’re going to help you all learn a little bit more about product management. This has been a pretty popular topic amongst some of our members as they kind of consider and look towards a career change or pivot. And I’m really excited to welcome a fellow Together Digital member from the west coast. Please welcome.
Amy Vaughn:
Ksenia Boyer. She has 18 years of diverse corporate experience spanning project management, clinical research, advocacy, and product management. Ksenia is now dedicated to coaching and facilitating teams, guiding them towards product management, a product management mindset. She has a knack for getting folks unstuck. Her passion for nurturing future leaders and advocating for digital etiquette promises to inspire our listeners today. Ksenia, thank you so much for being here with us today. I’m excited for this conversation.
Ksenia Boyer:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited.
Amy Vaughn:
Absolutely. Absolutely. As I said before, I think this is an area that’s growing, and I think it has a lot of curious folks. And it’s, you know, a space that I think some people kind of get intimidated by, right? Because it’s not like a scripted or a set path. And I ‘m a big advocate for this idea of a nontraditional path. But before we kind of get into all of that, I’m curious for you to share with our listeners what inspired you to transition from these sorts of various corporate roles into focusing on coaching and facilitating product management.
Ksenia Boyer:
Yeah. Thank you so much. So I’ll kind of go in reverse of essentially how we got here today. Almost a year to the day actually, the decision was actually made for me in some ways. So for better or worse, my entire division was restructured, which is a fancy corporate term for basically being laid off. So our whole group was laid off. It was a tough time, as you can imagine by their emotions. I’m sure many can relate to that especially over the last seemingly 18 months or so.
Ksenia Boyer:
But I really chose to take that time and now I was in a position of privilege to be able to do so. I have a husband who’s working so, you know, unlike many of my peers, I wanted to pause. I wanted to reflect and do a little bit of introspection on my values. I felt like I had lost sight of where I was and how I stem my energy. And in turn, I was actually suffering quite a bit of burnout because of my own choices. And I knew so much about the company, but how I was operating and how I was leaning into almost like this fuel of adrenaline versus authentic rest. So I focused on restoration and by happenstance was introduced to a wonderful startup focused on disease diagnostics technology in very, very early stage development. And I was like, why don’t I try going independent and working with them to mature this idea into an actual product? So that was my really first foray, around an area I’m really passionate about when it comes to healthcare and really progressing innovation in that space.
Ksenia Boyer:
So it felt like it was, you know, kinda 2 birds with 1 stone, flexing the product skills and some of the executive coaching I’ve been wanting to really explore and was able to do all of those things kinda wrapped in 1 in a very new space for myself when it came to, working in the start up. But leading up to that, I think I reflected on my, you know, building out my resume, looking at essentially my background just to be able to share with others, like, why you would want to work with me. Right? Like, where is the credibility? I realized that the thread of being customer focused, thinking about effective prioritization, and leaning into efforts that matter was threaded throughout pretty much my entire career. Beginning with the end in mind, you may have heard that from Amazon’s adage, like, who are you actually serving? Who is this for? What solution are you building? But, really, how is it gonna be utilized? Whether it was clinical research and thinking about patients and, ultimately being able to navigate a complex protocol or, you know, what is their expected experience to working with patient advocates and understanding their stories and the importance of understanding that power of storytelling to then moving into technology and having your end users be your customers even if they’re internal, that was all there. So it was really fun that I was able to wrap that up. And so while the choice was kinda made for me to pursue, I’m really grateful that that transpired because I don’t know that I would have taken that leap myself, to be honest, or at least not for a while.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. It’s interesting how, you know, a lot of times things it it it’s a matter of perspective. Right? Is it something that’s happening to you? Is it something that’s happening for you? And I think your response granted, you know, like you said, you had the opportunity in a position of privilege to be able to take that pause. But that pause could be a matter of, you know, hours, days, weeks, months, but at taking any sort of pause at all to kind of collect your thoughts and really kind of look at the span of your experience and really say I think is really great because I think something else that you said that really resonated there, and I think well with a lot of our listeners is, you know, that whole idea of burnout Yeah. You know, and sort of just kind of feeling and and and running off of that adrenaline of just constantly going, and there’s absolutely nothing like having that proverbial rug pulled out from underneath you, such as getting laid off, to sort of kinda snap you
Ksenia Boyer:
Mhmm. Out of it.
Amy Vaughn:
And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had conversations like these. And you guys can go back and listen to many of past episodes and how many women have sort of shared that their journey really began when those pivotal moments happen. So for those of you who are kind of in those difficult and challenging situations, I just want you to know it feels really hard right now, but this could be that moment that you get the chance to get back up on your feet and start something really new and something really different. Cohatch is a new kind of shared work, social, and family space built on community. Members get access to workspace amenities like rock walls and sports simulators and more to live a fully integrated life that balances work, family, well-being, community, and giving back. Cohatch has 31 locations open or under construction nationwide throughout Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Tennessee. Visit www.cohatch.com for more information. Zena, I would love for you to discuss with us a particularly challenging project or a situation that you faced during your corporate career that maybe when you were doing some of this reflection that, you know, helped you understand how you approached it.
Amy Vaughn:
Like, what were some of the lessons that you learned, and how did that help shape how you approach leadership and management, like, as you were taking this time to kind of reflect and look back? Was there something that stood out to you?
Ksenia Boyer:
Yeah. And especially if I focus on that last piece. Like, how do like, what was the impact? Right? And what was I able to carry forth into how I managed teams and hopefully how I came across as a leader. And so while I could spend time thinking about the rather personally challenging projects that really made me focus on my time management. Now after the fact, I would have done things very differently. But, one in particular or I guess one example in particular and then maybe one a, is thinking about the importance of being an ally and the importance of being really an authentic ally and taking the chance to speak on someone else’s behalf and how I was in that position of receiving someone who was actually looking for me and then how I translated that into my own leadership is something that will stick with me hopefully for the rest of my life. So not to go into the full specifics of the project, but essentially, I found myself in a situation where I was representing the technical side of the house. I was supporting Expedia Group IT department from product management, lens.
Ksenia Boyer:
So my users, my customers were employees. And we were trying to solve for their needs when it came to support and working across what we called, a cross functional. So basically, many departments lead a type of effort, which can get muddy. Lead representation, ownership can get really muddy. And so we were trying to pull this effort together. It turned into a massive program. I found myself in a situation of disagreeing but committed. I don’t know if you’ve heard that adage from Amazon, I think.
Ksenia Boyer:
So essentially, I vocalized concern around how we were approaching this. I’m gonna try to limit the corporate buzzwords, but maybe we can make a bingo card afterward, but it’s like a shortcut. But boiling the ocean, kind of looking at everything rather than focusing on something more specific and niche and then iterating from there was the approach presented. And I spoke up and said, this is not gonna work. We’re going to fail because it’s not we don’t have a clear mission and vision. You know, I’m only representing essentially a slice of this, but also representing the voice of our user. So please listen. It didn’t really amount to that, unfortunately, so I had to commit.
Ksenia Boyer:
Right? That was the other part of it. I shared my disagreement, but, okay, let me see how I can help make this successful. And so after months of trying to beat this thing into submission, we were not reaching a point of progress. And so I chose to bring the group together, really the leaders that were representing this effort. I brought in my technical partner who represented essentially the development engineering side of the house and then worked with the program side of the house, on this Quest Functional team. And we just looked at each other and said, okay. Something’s gotta give. It’s becoming toxic.
Ksenia Boyer:
This is not productive. People are starting to complain about one another. Like, we have to move forward in a different way. And so I outlined an approach and a tactical shift essentially, like we need to pivot. There are some things that we can really look at and backtrack a little bit. Like, are we actually aligned on what we’re pursuing and what those end state goals look like? You know, kind of going back to basics, which can be very annoying, right, to someone who says we’ve already gone so far. Like, why did we go back? But we were getting you know, there’s some nodding in the room. There’s a small group of us.
Ksenia Boyer:
I think it was, like, 5 of us, more personal on Zoom. And made some good traction, had some good points made, and then my tech partner essentially echoed some of what I said and added to it. It’s like, and we can do this tactically, and here’s the timeline that I think we can deliver really. So I was representing why it was important, what was the value, you know, what can we do. He was representing how to really implement these things. And I experienced a HEAP EAT situation. I don’t know if you heard that, the hashtag HEAP EAT kind of thing. Like, repeat.
Ksenia Boyer:
Where the other director, we’ll call him John, protects his privacy because we have a good relationship. All of a sudden it repeated. I was like, you know, Tom, my my tech partner and ally, he goes, I really like what you said there and I really love that you pulled this together as this effort. You know? Thank you for bringing this to attention. Meanwhile, I was the one who did that. And at the moment, I’m like, oh, that sucks. Right? Like, kinda taking the credit. But I was like, you know, the idea stuck.
Ksenia Boyer:
I planted the seeds. That’s good enough. I’m not gonna go back and try to bring attention to this. It felt petty to be like, that was actually my idea. And much to my delight, Tom goes, hang on. I just told you about the tactical delivery. This is her doing. She brought everything together right now.
Ksenia Boyer:
Like and I brought it up to him years later. This is years ago. Clearly, it’s still such an impactful moment. Uh-huh. And so I told him about this. Like, oh, I don’t remember that. I’m like, it’s one I’ll never forget because it was so nonchalant. It was so organic and natural for him to just lead with that.
Amy Vaughn:
And it
Ksenia Boyer:
changed, like and it was a bit of a checkpoint, you know, for John. It was like, oh, I’m sorry. And that was it. Like, he was more aware. We were aware and it was awesome. And that moment really taught me the importance of taking stock of a conversation in a room, especially if you’re in a position of leadership and influence. To note if someone is being spoken over, if you feel like their idea is being kind of, you know, mixed in with others and
Amy Vaughn:
Yep.
Ksenia Boyer:
You have credit where credit’s due so that people feel empowered and actually comfortable to speak up. Otherwise, they never will. Absolutely. My peers and I really carried forth, like, in our management meetings and Mhmm. Really trying to and we encourage people to turn on their cameras because we had a globally distributed team. We’re mostly virtual. Like it’s not to force you to show up. It’s so that I can see that you are in a position to participate and be engaged and that if you’re being overlooked.
Ksenia Boyer:
So that was a critical moment.
Amy Vaughn:
Exactly. Well, and I think sharing that why, you know, or one of the most convincing words in the English language is because. The word holds so much power because it tells you the why, not just the how. And I love him, Pete. I’ve heard a similar phrase, and I love giving language to these things because I think it helps those who are listening, whether they’re allies or those who want to speak up on behalf of others, which, I mean, is, pro appropriation. Right? When somebody says an idea, it’s a guy, and then another guy’s like, oh, yeah. Great idea. But it was, you know, really just an iteration of an idea that a woman just said.
Amy Vaughn:
But I do think that one of the best ways to kind of cut that off at the head is to really have another man within the room, an ally speak up and say, actually, let’s redirect that to the person who actually spoke up and gave that idea to begin with. And it is. It’s small, but it’s so significant for that person that you did it. And, again, it’s so great I love that story. It stuck with you throughout the years. And It did. Yeah. I’ve had a leader, a CFO of a company once, and honestly I feel bad because I don’t remember the moment either.
Amy Vaughn:
There was, like, a mass lay off at our company, and I could tell we were all stressed out, but it was a very hard day for him too. And he didn’t want to be seen crying because he’s, like, this, you know, big CFO dude. But, like
Ksenia Boyer:
Yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
I could tell he had been. And so, like, I think I guess I stopped him in the hallway, and I was like I just was like, are you okay? And he remembered that and has remembered that for the longest time. And he told me one day at lunch, he was like, I have never forgotten that moment because he says that was like one of the hardest days of my life professionally, personally. He’s like, I never wanna live a day like that again. And he said, I just felt like complete crap. And he said it was such a small moment, and I would never feel so bad for, like, not remembering the exact moment. I’m like, I think I’m sure my brother is, like, checking in. Yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
But, like, I don’t remember the exact exact moment, but it does. It does make a difference, and it sticks with people, whether you realize it or or not. So Mhmm. Good for him. But, yeah, I love that. That’s a great example. And good for you. I think too, I think what this is showing is, you know, that I think ability I think that women in particular have this ability to sort of have that, that broad kind of 30,000 foot view, but also that empathetic kind of granular view of what’s happening with the team and that ability to see when things are turning toxic.
Amy Vaughn:
Right? Because you’re not just focusing on, like, the output and the performance. It’s also, like, how are people at right now? How are they showing up? How are they feeling? Like, what’s the vibe of the room Mhmm. When people walk in? You know? And I don’t know that, you know, in a general, overly masculine environment that’s always something that we’re paying attention to. Mhmm. You know?
Ksenia Boyer:
Now I will add my leadership team and my peers were actually predominantly women. It was really cool how we’re able to carve out this team in a traditionally really male dominated field, especially when it came to technology and IT. And we almost developed the inverse of that where we were the most vocal in the room. Now we were also more senior. Mhmm. And I noticed that we tended to go down topics that made some of our male team members a little bit more uncomfortable or not as confident to speak up. And it wasn’t necessarily anything female, but it was just like obsession over certain music genres or, you know, how we spend our time. And then we kept kinda, you know, passing the mic to each other.
Ksenia Boyer:
And so it was eventually like, are we engaging everyone? That’s like, okay. Strong women. Hush for a minute. Let’s let everybody speak up. So it was almost like, well, wait. Hang on. We’re not doing any justice for you, you know Uh-huh. We’re not living those values ourselves.
Ksenia Boyer:
Like Yes. There was a bit of a and we would check one another and say on Slack, like, hey. Give you know, pause.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s a balance. Yeah. It’s a balance. It’s an absolute balance. But I I think that that’s great. I love that. All right. So as I mentioned earlier, you know, you’re passionate about helping others transition into product management.
Amy Vaughn:
And, again, this conversation was kind of spurred because we have a lot of folks who are interested in transitioning into product management. What insights or advice do you offer to those who are looking to sort of make a shift into this type of environment or role?
Ksenia Boyer:
So I think when you and I first set this conversation up, it was for the fall. And, honestly, now to then, I think myself changing mentally and the industry actually in many ways, which it wasn’t that long ago. Right? But things are changing so fast. I think I would have given a very different answer than today actually. So just thinking about that, there is no direct path. My career is very much a jungle gym. And I think just about every product manager you meet outside of maybe those in their early careers who are coming out of, like, an MBA program and tend to be recruited and kind of pulled into those, job paths out of the gates, you tend to lean into projects and have a certain skill set that lends itself there organically and someone takes notice. So that could be a path.
Ksenia Boyer:
It is a lucrative career. I think the salaries are published, you know, hopefully now pretty transparently, and that does draw people in, because, you know, you obviously wanna be compensated well for what you do. And so the paths are not direct for better or worse. Right? So, unfortunately, there’s not a preset curriculum and experience that says, you know, should you meet all these things, you will ultimately land in this kind of role. And I say for better because then you can make it your own. You can carve out the kind of work you wanna do, the type of product you wanna support, and the kind of company you wanna work for, all should be part of your evaluation. And then being honest with your own skill set. So, you know, we all hear about imposter syndrome and kind of, be it so you become a model and so forth.
Ksenia Boyer:
While that’s great, if you don’t have a certain skill set and experience and knowledge, especially around language and vernacular, you will not be successful. So it’s knowing the difference between do I actually have the skills and knowledge or do I need to study up a bit more, get a bit more exposure hopefully in your current job that can lend itself to that thinking and then eventually transition. And then of course, if you do have the skills, own it. You know, go after it. Own your space. What I learned was a humbling experience so I’ve interviewed with companies like Google. And to get into something like Google, don’t ever bother applying directly. You will never be heard.
Ksenia Boyer:
I think you’ve probably heard that from a multitude of, especially bigger companies. You need to have somebody that can give you a referral, that can help expedite that because you will be lost in the sea of resumes. I mean, I think the role that I was referred to I heard the number and I still have a tough time believing it. Something like a 100000 applicants, like, seems insane but okay. Fine. So I tried not to make that, you know, intimidating. Fine. Went into it thinking, I got this.
Ksenia Boyer:
You know, I’ve been doing this for a couple of years. I feel like I have the right skill set and aptitude, passion. Right? I’ve been studying up on these kinds of principles and frameworks and so forth. And I got into the interview and got humbled real quick, real quick to help me understand how Instagram works and how you’re able to get the algorithm. Like, so techie and down into the weeds immediately. And this is the first part of the loop that I’m like, oh, no. I know this to a point, and I know enough of this to work effectively with a technical partner and be able to challenge the logic and the decision making prioritization, but to actually sit down and code the logic and sequence myself and understand how that’s happening, you know, with hands on experience as a developer and engineer, that was not me. And so there was a little bit of frustration where I felt like the recruiter didn’t really articulate that well enough of saying, like, for a technical role in a lot of these companies, essentially the FANG, right, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google, you really do need to have that background whether it’s self taught or professionally in order to get past that bar.
Ksenia Boyer:
And a lot of times what’s frustrating is you probably won’t be doing that kind of work when you get into it, but what they’re trying to eliminate is that imposter versus imposter syndrome because you will be expected to get into the nitty gritty from time to time and understand some of the complexity at a much higher level. So that’s the one thing I’d say is if you’re really looking at a product and you don’t have that kind of formal technical background, I wouldn’t set your sights first at those big companies. Never mind the fact that you will own a tiny piece of whatever process or for, you know, the foundational infrastructure, like, you will only be responsible for this piece of the checkout experience or this with SEO. That’s it. It. This is your bubble that you live in. Yeah. Right? And then working with teams to develop.
Ksenia Boyer:
So if you’re really passionate about understanding the full life cycle and how that impacts users and bringing in that feedback and so forth, I say go after smaller companies. Product management is really becoming a lot more ubiquitous across a multitude of industries. Health care in particular, I think, is really starting to have a lot more of that discipline folded in and really exploring what it means to be agile. I think that a lot of times at the core where a product manager can come in and help a team shine is really working in what’s called sprints and agile and iterative development, right, not having that long standing waterfall type of project. Obviously, it doesn’t apply everywhere. But the flip side of those industries and companies that are a bit naive to setting up a product team or a product lens, thinking about the end in mind, your end users and customers, is that you probably won’t have as robust of a support system. Right? You probably might be the first product manager. I was the first product manager within Expedia Group IT, and I think I had naivety at my back because in hindsight, it’s like, what were you thinking? Like, this is a really hard sell actually to the team you’re coming into, never mind the fact that I didn’t have resources or a community at the ready to be able bounce ideas off of.
Ksenia Boyer:
So there’s going to be, kind of, two sides of every coin when you look at these things and really evaluate within yourself at the start in the beginning. What are your values? Where are your skills and strengths? What are the things you can learn on the job and you feel like you’re confident and comfortable enough to, you know, put together your list of literally Google terms. Like, is this industry specific? And I’m a little too insecure to ask in the room and maybe rightfully so. Or is this unique to the project? But don’t ever be afraid to ask. I’ve challenged myself to look the dumbest in the room, especially when it comes to acronyms. Right? We all love Right? Because it could mean something completely different if you’re coming in from a different industry or even job. And, oftentimes, people upset me. I just noticed the acronym.
Ksenia Boyer:
So just a little bit of food for thought when it comes to that. There are a ton of resources out there, almost too much actually, when it comes to figuring out if you wanna do this and how you wanna do this. There’s a lot of communities. I’m part of the women in product. They’re wonderful and trying to support one another and sharing those learnings and how do I do the following and I have this problem. There’s product schools. So there’s the massive, almost university type of, communities forums that you can pay money for, you can learn. It kind of becomes a little bit more framework oriented, which I do caution people in getting obsessive with understanding all the frameworks.
Ksenia Boyer:
If you don’t, like, fundamentally understand why you’re doing this. I guess as a pseudo plug, I have 2 partners and I that are toying around and we’re kind of in the product discovery phase, if you’re familiar with the life cycle of creating actually a forum in a community. We’re calling it PurePath Academy, trying to understand how to provide a more tactical approach and pragmatic approach to learning products. And, like, if you think about, like, how do we get here? It is a windy path and it is convoluted, but there are some things that are fundamentally, like, core to understanding it. So Mhmm. If folks are interested in learning and providing some feedback, I’d love to chat with you about just your own experience. Because at this point, we’re very much in that, like, what does this look like on stage, just kinda shaping it. But there’s a ton of Coursera offerings.
Ksenia Boyer:
Google offers a bunch of courses that you can really get yourself to build your confidence more than anything. It builds your confidence and understanding, essentially, like, where are my gaps and how do I study up quickly to just be familiar with code types, to know the difference between Node JS and Python and Java and C plus plus. Like, you don’t necessarily need to do it everywhere, but you should know if your dev is suggesting I wanna do this versus that to be able to challenge why. Why would we go down this path versus if not so much how to do it?
Amy Vaughn:
I mean, this is exactly why we’re having this conversation because it is such a black hole. And I love that you guys are working and trying to solve that problem for some because I think, you know, product management is going to continue to be a growing and critical career path and role. It is essential for all of the technology that is continuing to thrive and grow. So, yeah, I love that. And I can only imagine the analysis paralysis that sort of comes with it. Again, you know, I think, you know, we were joking before you jumped on here about our Together Digital community and how you’re such a great fit for it because we’re all just such constant learners and how it can be sort of like a blessing and a curse all in the same. So if any of you wanna reach out to or connect with Kasina, you can through our Slack and nerd out some more and maybe kind of share some of those things and insights to help her start to shape Please. The community and the support that they’re going to be creating for those who want to start to kind of go down this path.
Amy Vaughn:
Because I do, I agree. You need to start to be able to define the areas and the spaces in which you do want to specialize so that you do know, again, sort of, like, what are the rules so that you can get in there, so that you then you can break them. And, you know, again, you’re kind of working in the spaces and the places in which you have defined your strengths, your passions, your abilities. And then you aren’t burning yourself out chasing down the paths and the opportunities that maybe aren’t right and aren’t best for you. Because there are there’s I think there’s this is I think this is what excites me about this area of work as well is because there is lots of opportunity here Yes. For folks. Right? You know? There’s so many different areas and different types of products that you could be helping to build and own that are solving a lot of problems for people. So yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. Lots of rife with opportunity. Alright. Let’s see. And my next question that I’ve got for you, in your experience, what are some common misconceptions or stereotypes about product management that you frequently encounter, and how would you go about debunking them?
Ksenia Boyer:
So something I’ve learned falling into this role, because I really did. I got pulled into it, when I was blessed with a director that saw something in me that I didn’t even know about and moving through working as a product manager and then a manager of a product and then eventually getting laid off and watching the industry from a very different perspective is that product management is defined very differently depending on the industry, the organization, and the type of company, like the size of the company. And so when I was actually tasked with recruiting my teams, I was in a wonderful position and I had the opportunity to build out a team. During the recruitment cycles, what I learned is that folks coming in from, say, Microsoft with a nontechnical product type of background or role, were often actually more program manager-esque, if that makes sense. So they really weren’t in the mix of building out a strategy as much or as often and were really focused on more of implementation. And in some ways, it then became more of a product owner role. So you’ll hear, like, product manager, project manager, program manager, and then product owner. And, excuse me, there’s a lot of thought leaders who are super frustrated by how this has evolved or devolved in certain ways.
Ksenia Boyer:
So I definitely recommend following leaders, thought leaders on LinkedIn, you know, Marty Kagan to Itmar Gilat, to Teresa Torres, Kim Kim Scott. Like, there’s a number of people I’m happy to share. I think the book list I gave you, Kaylee, has a number of those folks listed. And so what they’re really advocating for is keeping those concepts pure because at the end of the day, you’re setting someone up for failure if your expectations are coming in, right, as, oh, I’m gonna be running a program and really helping implement the execution versus, oh, I’m actually more earlier in that life cycle I mentioned before of the product of whether you’re now doing research around your user base and their problem areas and things like that. Those are very 2 different skill sets. Right? You can build both absolutely, but you also should not be able to do both because that’s exactly when burnout happens, if you are tasked with managing all aspects of that, you’re not gonna be able to do it well. You really need that durable team is something I think Marty Kagan coined and inspired is how do you empower people to have the right ownership of these things, of being a decision maker when it comes to what are we solving for and why. Really, in my belief, is the product lens, if we can do a bunch of things.
Ksenia Boyer:
We can be a feature factor if you want and continuously roll things out. But if no one is using them and if they’re not actually meeting the mark of solving the problem, we failed. And so you need to be able to distinguish that forethought and be able to look at a landscape, look at industry trends, usage trends, and so forth, which is typically a product lens. And understanding how then that needs to be passed to someone who’s really strong, equally strong, right, there’s not a hierarchy thing here, to then execute and deliver on that vision. Both are needed. And I think a lot of times, those get completed.
Amy Vaughn:
Yep. I agree so hard with this because it’s sad and it makes me frustrated that people’s people lose their jobs because of these misconceptions. I think that’s what makes me angry is, like you said at the beginning, people get set up for failure because people at the top that are leading organizations don’t understand the nuance of the of the roles and the titles and the needs of the roles of the responsibilities and, the needs for specificity, and those skill sets to be filled by the right people,
Ksenia Boyer:
that it does.
Amy Vaughn:
It ends up filling people up for failure, I think. Somebody I just noticed in the live chat with our live listening audience. Somebody said, this is so insightful. I’m an associate product manager, and I got thrown into my role with no background. So this is extremely helpful moving forward in my role. Thank you so much. So I’m glad that you’re finding this helpful. And I was just on a call with a mentee of mine who lost a teammate because I think they were just kind of set up for the similar kind of situation where I was just there was no clear definition of their role, their responsibility process, checks and balances, and they kinda just were thrown under the bus.
Amy Vaughn:
And, you know, and they didn’t even have, like, a direct manager because they didn’t know where to place them. Because there was, like they were, like, where do we put them? Like, where do they belong? Who do they belong to? You know? So because it is sort of, like, a newer, sort of role responsibility, I think there’s a lot of organizations that are still kind of figuring a lot of this out. We did also get thank you, Kaylee, by the way, for those who are live listening, and we’ll include these links in the notes. We’ve got a great reading list that Kasina mentioned as well in the chat. So lots of great books. We love our book references. So we’re gonna ask this one really quickly. Because I actually jotted scrum down earlier too.
Amy Vaughn:
I was gonna start to get to it, but I didn’t wanna nerd out too hard. But since Hillary brought it up, have you or do you practice scrum or agile management? And any recommendations along which is the best framework to look into there?
Ksenia Boyer:
So I guess I’ll end with the last part of that statement. There’s no such thing as the best framework, on its own. It’s understanding the context. Right? And where are you trying to plug it in? And I think what everybody will probably start to pick up on, especially now that I’ve called it out, in the courses and things that you may take, almost every time the instructor will stop with, that depends. It depends on who you’re solving for, what is the nature of your team. And it’s really frustrating because you’re like, great. Give me those tactics and give me that sense. But really what comes down to is understanding exactly the environment.
Ksenia Boyer:
Mhmm. How is your team structured? So for example, the startup I’m working on right now and helping with ordering our head circuit boards and certain hardware and firmware. Right? Whereas other things where you can look at, okay, we’re also creating a UI user interface that complements the device. And there, we can be a bit more iterative and a little bit squishier when it comes to long term vision essentially or specific tactics rather. And so with agile and scrum, you know, I think there’s a place for waterfall, especially when it’s like a physical build out. So if you’re building an actual office building, for example, there’s going to be things that require you to think long term to establish that you really can’t iterate on. And so agile and that kind of development is really key for areas that can be very dynamic. So industries that are really highly dynamic that are dependent on user feedback too, where you have the ability to have that flux and implement something different.
Ksenia Boyer:
But if you’re building an office and someone says, hey. Actually, we want 16 floors now. You’re gonna be like, no way. You’re gonna have to move. Right? That’s not reasonable in that context. So for frameworks and actually implementing things that work well, I mean, there’s 1,000 out there, unfortunately or fortunately. So it’s also looking at who are you solving and who are my people? Who are the people that are building this? What is their skill set? What is their familiarity with when it comes to the degree of maturity and agile development? If you’re just starting out, keep it simple, Thinking about a product canvas for example and really laying it out. And if you use tools like Miro, there’s an amazing Miro verse they call it with templates out the wazoo.
Ksenia Boyer:
There’s people on LinkedIn that post them all the time. But really, it’s thinking about what you are solving for, why, who’s consuming this information. Mhmm. Thinking about the people. And then leaning into, okay, I have a shortcut. Templates are shortcuts. Frameworks, they’re really just shortcuts to get to implementation and a way to be able to create cohesive and collective language. That’s what it is at the end of the day is are we all on the same page and aligned with understanding how to use this material? Really, because I think people get so obsessed with some frameworks and you get to it and it’s beautiful, And then we’re like, I don’t know what to do with this and when and why.
Ksenia Boyer:
Right? So don’t start with the frameworks, but start with your problem statement. Who are you solving for? And then go out and try to find the resources that should give you guidance on how to use them appropriately.
Amy Vaughn:
I love it. I love it. Put up my little hands for that. It takes me back to a couple episodes ago when I spoke with Katie Robert of Trust Insights, and we were talking a lot about how AI might not always be the answer. We love it because it’s the shiny object, but AI might not always be the answer to everything that you need because it’s that whole shiny object syndrome of we get so obsessed with the solution. Yeah. Scrum’s cool. Agile’s great.
Amy Vaughn:
But is it always the answer? It depends on what you’re building. It depends on the team, the structure, the support you have, the timeline. There’s just so many things. And I just loved all of those examples that you gave. I think they’re really good solid examples of why you should really take into consideration what it is that you’re building, what the problem you’re trying to solve is versus focusing so hard on the solution. Think about the problem first, then think about what the best solution is versus kind of trying to spit this square peg in the round hole. Great question. Thank you so much.
Ksenia Boyer:
And this is something inspired. Thank you. Something inspired when it comes to AI. I actually heard during a product networking meeting that someone was coming up with a product. I think it’s called a chameleon or something like that to basically replace product managers, to replace the thinking power and the strategy through an AI engine. Okay. And I’m like, interesting. Okay.
Ksenia Boyer:
Now I love AI. I love chat gpt. I feel like it gets you past that blank page and gets you to something a little bit there to work with. Sure. The idea of replacing people with these skill sets and being able to see to have that, we used to call it eagle and mouse vision, where you’re able to look up and see the world in front of you. Right? Or look down and actually see what’s my next step. They can’t do that.
Amy Vaughn:
No. Yeah. I cannot do that. No. No. I just have the empathy and the intuition that we do that we talked about earlier. Right? That’s like, I can’t read the room. Yeah.
Amy Vaughn:
I can’t read the room and tell me if the team, Like, it could tell me, like, maybe the output. It could read the output of, you know, productivity to some degree, but it can’t tell me if the team is coming in, feeling completely deflated and confused.
Ksenia Boyer:
Right. They’ll never tell you the lie. It won’t. Not effectively.
Amy Vaughn:
Exactly. Oh my gosh. We’re getting such good engagement from our live listening audience. Thank you all so much for, like, jumping in and chiming in. And Wendy was, it was kind of, a feeling that that whole frustration of job seeking and this whole kind of conflation of product program and project management roles and how people are just kind of blending them together. It is a frustration. I will ask you just to kind of, you know, hop on on Wendy’s bandwagon here. To you, would you see that as a little bit of a red flag when you walk into a company and they’re doing hiring and they’re kind of conflating all these roles together?
Ksenia Boyer:
Yes. Yes. And it really depends on your tolerance for teaching them. Right? So if you’re coming into a smaller company or where product management is a bit novel, it’s an opportunity. You can help shape it. If it’s a company that’s more mature and they’ve operated this way, then you have a decision to make about whether or not mentally you’re actually saying, I’m switching to program management. You can call it a product all you want, but I’m gonna make that translation and understand fundamentally what you are looking to deliver end to end. But if there’s not this acknowledgment in some regards and that’s a that’s really challenging, right, in the interview to be like, do you actually mean the following? And I’ve done that.
Ksenia Boyer:
Like, this doesn’t make sense to me. My expectation would be x, but you’re telling me y. Help me understand. And so I would say you will have a really tough time trying to translate all your learnings into what they’re looking for. So absolutely advocate for the interview, the team, and the people as well, you know, that are interviewing you on whether or not there’s that clear alignment. During my last year, even though I am independent in pursuing this effort, I was also interviewing with a few companies, in part for market research, actually. I don’t know if you can say that out loud, but I wanna see what our company is looking for and what kind of questions and what kind of environment they are describing. And one company I interviewed with that seemed wonderful, SmartThings.
Ksenia Boyer:
So the company that’s basically doing the Internet of Things and bringing together this infrastructure for, you know, your Google Home to talk to your doorbell and things like that. And we get through it. And they’re like, well, do you have specific Internet of Things experience? Oh my god.
Amy Vaughn:
Is there such a thing?
Ksenia Boyer:
Right. I’m like, it’s like coming out of college, but we want you to have 15 years experience. And I’m like Right. What? And they’re like, we love you. We love the approach and things like that and whatever. And I wasn’t actually in in all honesty, I wasn’t leaning into a role in earnest. I probably shouldn’t have been interviewing that far. I probably should have backed out earlier, but I wanted to see and I was really curious about what could be.
Ksenia Boyer:
And when we got to that point, I’m like, thanks, but no thanks. Bye.
Amy Vaughn:
And You’re like, with that question, I’m out. Right?
Ksenia Boyer:
Like, that’s the other question is, because unfortunately, I think one of the things you probably will lead into is how competitive is this place. Yep. There’s tens of thousands of people that are looking for work right now within product program and project management, know, both skill set and values. And so it’s really taking into account that if you get a rejection and a no, it’s probably because they’re literally looking for a very specific human being. Not even transferable skills, but have you done this exact thing in this capacity? Right. Which almost seems like unless I actually worked with this company before, the answer is probably gonna be no. Mhmm. Right? And so I don’t take that as discouragement, but take that as they have somebody very specific in mind.
Ksenia Boyer:
If then that’s not you, it’s totally okay and it’s probably not a good fit.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s not personal. Well, you said it earlier too and I meant to kindly bring it back home and reemphasize it. And I don’t know, keep saying it. It’s not always about what you know. It’s who you know. Networking, it’s such an important aspect to the job market right now. You need people speaking your name in the rooms you’re not in. And there are so many people applying to jobs right now.
Amy Vaughn:
Even if they’re not publicly looking, they’re quietly looking.
Ksenia Boyer:
Absolutely.
Amy Vaughn:
And you need somebody to put your resume in front of somebody else’s face right now. There’s just no way around it. If you don’t have somebody handing someone your resume over, just kind of assume it’s probably not going to happen. It’s a long shot if it is. So, yeah, don’t apply for every single job you see on the Internet. Do the extra time and research to find somebody to make sure that that resume gets to somebody who works there. Since we’re on the topic really quickly of interviewing, one of our live listeners, Jamie, had a question about interviewing. Do you have any tips when it comes to interviewing, questions to ask to see if the company knows how they define a product manager? I’ve left interviews or declined to follow-up with interviews because I don’t feel like they know what they wanted.
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. But it was more of a gut feeling.
Ksenia Boyer:
That’s a really great question, and kudos for leaning into that too and having really the guts to speak up and clarify, because you don’t wanna come away with that misconception. So interviewing as a general, as I said before, you know, take awareness of that or have some awareness that when you’re going after these really big companies, they are very formulaic. They will expect you to do certain things. The loops are difficult. They will expect you to solve questions like, at Google, I had, how many restaurants would you estimate are in San Francisco? Go. And you can’t say, well, I would Google that. Right? No. So you basically have to go through the math and the logic applying to it and things like that.
Ksenia Boyer:
So those companies expect you to be able to, they’re calling it thinking outside the box, but actually there’s a way to train yourself. So if you’re interested, there are companies called, it’s like PM exercises. We’ll literally have examples from a bunch of different companies and how you answer them and so forth. But for gauging the culture, engaging essentially, like, are you on the same page for that definition, I would lean into the day to day role or the core responsibility for this person, presumably product manager, what is their focus area? Are they focused on delivery and execution, or are they in the room talking through the strategy, the mission, and vision, and really advocating for the user? Mhmm. And I think that would be a good starting point for the conversation on, are you looking for me to execute, which most good product managers know how to do. Right? In some life, you’ve had a project type of role or you’ve been able to deliver whether you are our former, informal developer engineer type of, background. But at the end of the day, it’s not about how to do this. It’s why and why.
Ksenia Boyer:
And that’s my maybe it’s my own personal hell that I will die on and not be eligible for many careers in the future, but I do fundamentally believe that you need to build a partnership with your technical team and that trust that you can then pass off and you can agree to your success criteria, acceptance criteria, you know, all of those agile type of functions. You’ve you’ve clarified the language and the expectations, and then you’ve passed the baton for them to deliver and then come back to you with, okay, here’s the feedback and here’s where we need to judge it a little bit. So those kinds of thoughts of, like, help me understand a day to day. What is there you can even get into agile if the company operates at agile. If they’re not, that would be a huge red flag actually. Like, if you’re not doing agile and you expect product management to come in and be successful, that’s more challenging. That to me says more programs.
Amy Vaughn:
Awesome. Super helpful. And then somebody asked about the PM exercises links. Kaylee shared that in the chat too. So thank you, Kaylee. Alright. Let’s talk for a few minutes about digital etiquette. I’m starting to fold some questions into one another because we’re getting close to time, but this has been great.
Amy Vaughn:
I love all the questions we’re getting from our audience.
Ksenia Boyer:
Thank you.
Amy Vaughn:
Let’s talk about digital etiquette really quickly. What are some strategies or practices that leaders can implement to foster a culture of digital etiquette within their organizations? And can you define digital etiquette for us as well?
Ksenia Boyer:
Absolutely. So this is something I’ve unexpectedly fallen into. This seems to be that the tale in my memoir will be unexpected, maybe. I am an employee as the customer just for a bit of context. And so what we learned, sometimes rather painfully and other times organically, is that when you’re implementing change, when you’re implementing new technology or really a shift to even a new platform that is expected to be used by the majority of people. And it could be your customer base in general. It could be consumer facing products as well. Think about the nature of behavioral science essentially and how people interact within those tools.
Ksenia Boyer:
And you know, together, digital is a Slack user as well, so there are certain kinds of cultural norms and mores that are expected. And what we learned almost after the fact so I helped bring Slack to Expedia Group and we consolidated, believe it or not, 11 different messaging platforms, which seems insane, but implemented this massive tool and basically said, okay. Here’s some guidelines. Here’s some things around the channel. Implemented this massive tool and basically said, okay. Here’s some guidelines. Here’s some things around channel usage and best practices and so forth, but we’re not thinking about cultural differences and how this tool could either be a really powerful enabler for the kind of culture you want or be disastrously toxic for it. Because a lot of times, people have a very blurred line nowadays between work and life, right, which is also for better or worse.
Ksenia Boyer:
We kind of go from these technologies and some of the practices we use, whether it’s texting your friend to how you message someone professionally, there’s probably some carryover. Right? Use of emojis and shortcuts and things like that. And so what we learned and how to retroactively instate essentially or implement is this consideration around digital etiquette and not Slack bombing, not sending messages one after the other because you’re elevating someone’s anxiety or saying, hey, without any context. I’m sure it would be like, no. And people have even I know devs that I even created, like, automated How can you help educate and not expect that people will assume and understand? Because we’re also different. Right? And how we operate is different whether it’s generationally, regionally, geographically, right, globally. You’re going to have different types of cadence as you speak and actually how you interact with technology as well. And so digital etiquette to me is really thinking about what are the guardrails you can implement, whether it’s a configuration and say you cannot do the following here or the best practices you can help educate so that people have awareness around insensitive speech, not safe for work emojis, things that could be viewed as gaslighting, aggressive, you know, all those kinds of things.
Ksenia Boyer:
It’s a really great opportunity to actually make it a bit more neutral. And this isn’t about, you know, your personal life on Reddit. Have at it. This is a corporate professional environment, right, hopefully in some capacity. So there’s gonna be different rules and expectations you need to follow just like you have an appropriate code of conduct. Right? If you’re a thoughtful company around educating people what’s expected of them, this should be really folded in. And it does go into security and the type of files and content you put forth, but really it’s how you interact with one another, and that really matters to corporate culture.
Amy Vaughn:
I love it. That’s great. Super insightful. Yeah. That’s so great. Alright. Let’s keep going. Mentorship.
Amy Vaughn:
This one’s really important, especially in such a tricky kind of new and evolving space and field. How do you approach mentorship? How do you talk about it? And how do you sort of develop a successful, mentorship relationship?
Ksenia Boyer:
Hugely important, especially as we just mentioned, if you’re coming in as the only product manager on a team or maybe it’s really early in that company’s journey in incorporating product management practices or just in general. Right? I think finding a community, building a community if you don’t have one. At Expedia Group, we broaden it to actually the broader department. So it’s not just insulated within IT, and we were able to learn from people that were more mature. It could be outside of your work as well. You know, these kinds of communities are amazing individuals for finding and cultivating relationships that can be mutually perspectives that’s different from our own? And so I think we get caught up in this concept of needing a formal mentor. And that’s great. I think if you have someone that you can find and if companies have programs that encourage, you know, signing up and kind of aligning on background and experiences and making that a standing monthly, weekly connection, great.
Ksenia Boyer:
Mhmm. But it doesn’t have to be so formal and so rigid. What we did a lot of times as a team in Expedia is using peer reviews. And so peer review is mentorship in many ways where you come up and say, okay, I have a presentation coming up or I have this idea or I want to pursue something. And we went through these exercises that may be viewed as a bit brutal to someone new to it. But you really tear down the idea. It’s not the person, it’s helping me understand the following. I love radical candor for that where it’s like I really wanna advocate for you on behalf, but I don’t understand this and where is this going.
Ksenia Boyer:
That’s a mentorship scenario where that person is helping you think through and refining a message or strategy down to the essentials so that it could be effective. And I think a lot of people walk away and go, well, that was a mentorship. Well, they taught you a few things and they help you become, you know, as a sounding board. So those kinds of experiences too that are more around something tactical and actually tangible could be a great way to learn as well. So I would be open to a variety of ways. Become a mentor even if you feel like you’re new to your career because it’s like, you know, you learn best by teaching essentially. Having someone to walk through and see it from their perspective will help you ultimately. I’ve mentored quite a few people in my career and I’ve learned so much from their perspective and just, like, understanding, especially generationally, like, where are you coming from with this? Help me understand and manage my team better because I don’t speak this language anymore.
Ksenia Boyer:
And so I think there’s a whole bunch of different flavors. Pursue, you know, internally, externally. Build those sorry. Corporate speak. Outside your company, inside your company Yeah. And really try to make them authentic. I think the whole thing is like, okay. Give me all the advice.
Ksenia Boyer:
Someone’s gonna be like, for what? Like, I know you. Right?
Amy Vaughn:
Yeah. You need to come in prepared. Yeah. I I love it when, like, the mentee really kind of owns the relationship and is accountable for sort of setting up the time, showing up. I love the construct. A a former mentor of Mike Genna gave this to me of the 3 c’s, which is you come with a comment, which is a general status, a celebration, which is something that is worth talking about and celebrating since you met last, and then a concern, which usually takes up most of the time. But even if it’s like last minute, I’m like, oh my gosh. Okay.
Amy Vaughn:
I can at least think of one for each of these 3 c’s to go in with to talk about to make sure that we make good use of the time with them. Because I’m not huge on formality, like, if it’s overly formal. And I do agree with you. I think the internal is great, but the external, there’s just this additional sense of psychological safety when you get outside of your company’s walls, when you have that kind of trusted, you know, space outside of the corporate walls, that makes it just a little bit easier to have those harder conversations sometimes. And I love your addition of peer mentorship. I think it’s such a big oversight on a lot of our parts that, you know, somebody that’s just a half step ahead of you, you don’t realize. I mean, they know. They remember.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s so fresh in their minds, like, where you are. Mhmm. That’s why I know Together Digital, we’ve got our peer groups. And I’m like, people, get into your peer groups. Leverage that membership benefit because it’s such an important aspect of opportunity for growth. And I love that you mentioned Kim Scott. And I noticed she’s in your book list as well. And her book is on my shelf, Radical Candor.
Amy Vaughn:
It’s such a great read for those of you who haven’t read it. Clear but kind. It is a great way to mentor people in a way that, you know, provides the opportunity for growth in a way that is, again, clear but kind. Mentorship. Yeah. Can’t say enough about it. It’s such an important way to keep people growing. And and again, not leaving the industry, you know, not leaving the industry altogether.
Amy Vaughn:
Sorry. We gotta keep keep, we gotta keep women in the workforce. You know? We can’t keep just running in the other direction. Right. Alright. Let’s see. How are we doing on time? Oh my gosh. Alright.
Amy Vaughn:
I’m gonna let’s see. I was oh my goodness. This has been so good. So we’ve got the list of books. That’s great. We’ve also got in the list with the chat how folks can connect with you, so that’s great. I’m gonna go ahead and wrap with you know, this is this complex little world, this product management, and, you know, digital landscapes constantly evolving. While ensuring that your team stays aligned and focused on goals, how do you kind of stay up to date with things? How do you keep yourself motivated and on track personally?
Ksenia Boyer:
A great question. Sometimes I do not. Oftentimes I do not.
Amy Vaughn:
See, that’s okay. I love that answer because that’s okay. Oh my gosh. We always want to be peak performance imperfect and on top of everything. That is okay. We just keep doing our best.
Ksenia Boyer:
Right. Exactly. Exactly. Like, my husband is like, did you beat your clone today? Right? I’m like, did I exercise and all the things? I’m like, no. Today we’re buddies. It’s fine. Like, we’re just at bare minimum, like, showered and had a good meal. That’s about it.
Ksenia Boyer:
I
Amy Vaughn:
I love it.
Ksenia Boyer:
But in terms of trying to help others and right, especially when resources and time are at stake beyond just your own, it’s really thinking about the end in mind. So if you’re looking at delivery, if you’re looking at what could we do next and we have a 1,000 different things coming at us to include maybe even our our executives and leaders have the magpie effect of, like you said, the shiny new thing and they want you to implement and then we have all this feedback from these teams. It’s really being ruthless in your prioritization and really evaluating all the things that are coming at me. And this is actually the expectation for the product manager. That’s what I would expect them to do is to be that conduit. Evaluate all the different potential things that are coming at you and then looking through and saying, well why would we pursue any of them? And having strict criteria. Like, when it comes to actual life, you are pre implementation and you are accountable to building that backlog and the list of things that we will go after next. And I actually do this personally as well, like, of all the 10,000 things I can do, what are the things that are the most important? The book essentialism is amazing for help focusing on that.
Ksenia Boyer:
Yeah. And what are the things that become a distraction where it’s a productive distraction? I love that concept of like you feel like you’re doing a bunch of stuff but actually it’s not helping you move ahead in any direction. So it’s really looking through that lens of, is this gonna bring the value we’re looking for, the impact we’re looking for? Does this align with our mission and vision strategies? Because all of a sudden, you could be presenting something that’s like, what is this? This doesn’t align with any of our goals. But what does Exec want? You know, kind of like the hippos. If you ever look up the animals of the product kingdom, it’s pretty hysterical, all the different types of people you may encounter. The hippo, right, highest paid person’s opinion saying, I’m gonna do this. And then people run off and do it and then go, why did you do this? It’s like, you told us to. Well, there’s a way to avoid that, right, is to evaluate.
Ksenia Boyer:
Did it meet this criteria? Did it score high enough on maybe our heart score of talking to people? But that’s actually the number one thing and this is something I do that’s so nerdy. I check-in with my family, my friend myself, my friends, like is there anything you want me to change? My husband and I have, like, reviews which sound so ridiculous. But it’s like, was there anything I did that pissed you off this week? That really you felt like I wasn’t doing well enough. And it comes from a place of its 20 years in the making. So we’ve taken time to really communicate and learn that, but it’s seeking that feedback, seeking that introspection, and then going back and looking ahead and saying, how do I do better? How do I use this time more effectively? And then it’s a kind of watch, rinse, repeat over and over.
Amy Vaughn:
I love it. It brings us right back to where we started, I feel. It’s like now instead of getting mowed over by being laid off and slowing down, the enforced slowdown, now you’ve just taken that moment. You’re, you know, every week could just kind of slow down and reflect.
Ksenia Boyer:
I hope so. Something’s better than others. Somebody’s, like, ah, well, just Oh, I
Amy Vaughn:
feel your friend. I feel your friend. Well, we’re all gonna take that. Right? We’re just gonna make that promise to each other right now. It’s Friday. We’re coming into the weekend. Yes. We are all hard working overachievers who are gonna do good things in the world, but we are also all gonna take a breath.
Amy Vaughn:
We’re gonna acknowledge and celebrate our wins. If you’re a member, jump into that win channel, share a win with us this week. Katina, it’s gonna be that you are finally on the
Ksenia Boyer:
Together Digital podcast. 100%. And
Amy Vaughn:
yeah. And then we’re gonna celebrate those wins. We’re gonna prioritize. We’re gonna keep that end in sight. This was such a fantastic conversation. Thank you. I agree. Thank you so much.
Amy Vaughn:
I’m so glad we finally got to have it. There’s so much to take a look in that chat and see just how happy people are with all the amazing stuff you’ve shared. So be sure to take that in before we hop off. Everyone, thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure as always. Such a blast. Again, if you need to chat more with Katina and you wanna, you know, nerd out more, feel free to. You can find her in our Slack.
Amy Vaughn:
If you’re not a member yet, get together on digital.com. Jump on and join us. If not, we have to see you next week. Until then, everyone, keep asking, keep giving, keep growing. We’ll see you next week. Bye. Thank you.
Bye. Produced by Heart Cast Media.
