Need someone to lead product management at your software company? I build high-craft software and the teams that build it. I'm looking for my next opportunity. Check out my resume and get in touch.

This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.

Blogging

How to Capitalize on Blogging

Freshness Warning
This blog post is over 20 years old. It's possible that the information you read below isn't current and the links no longer work.

Today I spoke at Fastlane Ventures How to Capitalize on Blogging workshop. As promised, the slides from my presentation are available in graphic and text-only formats. I’ll probably turn my speaker notes into a set of blog entries or an article when I get the time.

Being heavily involved in blogging, it’s easy for me to forget how outside the mainstream blogs really are. Most of the people I talked to today had only a vague idea what blogs are. I kept hammering the point that blogs are simply faster, easier ways of publishing content. Blogs aren’t some mystic new thing, but the ease of use and informality of the tools are breeding conversations in new ways.

When discussing RSS, someone asked Bill French if developers would blog about the changes they made to an application, could the tech writers use RSS to track what was changed? Later I pointed out to her that the developers already are blogging the changes, they just don’t know it. Every time they commit their code into the source control system and put in their comments, they are blogging it. Those comments could easily be published to the Web in the style of a blog. Those comments could be published as an RSS feed.

Recently Written

Think Systems, not Symptoms
Dec 15: Piecemeal process creation frustrates teams and slows work. Stop patching problems and start solving systems. Adopting a systems thinking approach helps you design processes that are efficient, aligned with goals, and truly add value.
Your Policies Aren’t Your Culture
Dec 13: Policies guide behavior, but culture is the lived norms and values of your team. Policies reflect culture -- they don’t define it. Netflix’s parental leave shift didn’t change its culture of freedom and responsibility. It clarified how to live it.
Lighten Your Process Burden
Dec 7: Everyone hates oppressive processes, but somehow we keep managing to create them.
Product Add-Ons Are An Expansion Myth
Dec 1: Add-ons can enhance your product’s appeal but won’t drive significant market growth. To expand your customer base, focus on developing standalone products.
Protecting your Product Soul when the Same Product meets New People.
Nov 23: Expand into new markets while preserving your product’s core value. Discover how to adapt and grow without losing your product’s soul.
Building the Next Big Thing: A Framework for Your Second Product
Nov 19: You need a first product sooner than you think. Here's a framework for helping you identify a winner.
A Framework for Scaling product teams
Oct 9: The people, processes, and systems that make up a product organization change radically as you go through the stages of a company. This framework will guide that scaling.
My Networked Webcam Setup
Sep 25: A writeup of my network-powered conference call camera setup.

Older...

What I'm Reading