all right. I started learning computer science after, um, realizing that I don't wanna be a physicist because it involved way too much month. I started work while I was still in unions. Q A. And I think one of the things that shaped a lot of my career was actually, um, while I was studying and working towards becoming a software engineer actually got the opportunity to be a resource engineer for a few months for the company I was working on, um, they shipped me to the United States to their Silicon Valley office because the guy they had their left and told me, Okay, you need to take care of our clients now. And I think that really exposed me to the business and let me see a lot more than just software engineering. So when I got back, I got into software engineering, spent a few is there and then decided that I actually missed that client interaction, and I want to become more and more so. I spent a few years doing, uh, what you might call technical crm. So somewhere between technical support and customer relations management, um, and then move to becoming a product manager, which is where I am today, which I love very much because I get to do a lot of everything. I get to talk to engineers about code and algorithms and designing software, and I get to talk to sales and marketing about, uh, how to actually position the product in the market and how to sell it and what product problem it solves to the and users and how it makes your life easier. And I get to talk to the actual end users and customers about the problems that we're facing and, um, how their interaction and experiences on how to make their life better.

all right, Um, product managers, like I said, have a bit of a mixed bag on sometimes. And there are a lot of different kinds of product managers. But in general, um, you look at the market and you look at the product that you're delivering to the market to solve a solution and your charting your road map of how to best addressed it. Some are focused more on the marketing side. Some are focused more on the technical side, Um, sometimes the distinction between product marketing manager and versus product owner in the terminology. But it all all comes under this product management umbrella, and the idea is again that I see a problem now. Then I see a problem coming, and I see problems that the customers are telling me about and problems that they're not telling me about. And I see what resources and technologies are available and what we can do about it and how we think we can address the problem for the largest customer segments or largest market segments, and I try to resolve it both in a tactical short term. For example, you know we have a key customer that needs this problem fixed right now, eh? So the company can get the deal and keep going. And we have, ah, three year map going out to features that, uh, we know that we want to address, even though the customers may not know that this solution is going to be good for them. But we wanna work long term on good things. So balancing all those forces balancing the resources have with what I need to deliver both short and long term. I guess that's the That's the thing that's crucial and the most exciting about this job.like us. Um, I Okay, I'll start with this one. I live in Australia. Ah, companies, Australian. Half our, uh, but 20% of our customers. Australians 40% in the European Union and 40% in the U. S. A lot, of course, yes. So I have conference calls with our customers and sales people in regional offices anywhere from 7 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m. Um, on. That was before the whole working from home became the norm. So, uh, for me, working from home was like, Yeah, that's I'm been doing it anyway, So because, you know, going to the office in the middle of the day was often a useless waste of travel time, So, uh, that's it. I do make sure that, you know, I I balance work in life. It's it's quite good in Australia. So sometimes, you know, if I start really earlier, finish early or if I have a late night I said starts a bit later in the morning after or, you know, take a break in the middle of the day to go to the gym or not. So companies are quite flexible here, which is good. Um so my point is that I work the hours that I need to communicate with people because this job is about 90% communication. So it's I communicate with our customers with our cell original says people, and with our engineers spread across time zones here in in Australia as well. Um, but companies think my company understands that, and they're quite flexible. You know, if I need Thio, take a pause in the middle of the afternoon to spend some time with the kids and whatnot. So that's that's all quite well, as for top three priorities, um, I'd say I need to keep a mhm short term roadmap. So I need to understand what my developers are working on right now and making sure that they are working on something that's best utilizes that time. So delivering the solutions of managing the current springs if you work in a agile scrum environment. Um, so we do have a scrum master that does them all day to day things. I look it more from, uh, s about a bit more, uh, strategic. Like what we're trying to deliver in this release and making sure they're on track um, the next is I manage that expertise to manage all the communication, uh, externally authority. So working with marketing and sales just to make sure that they understand what we're building so they can communicate it effectively to the markets on the last 30 is too negotiate with senior management. Um, because obviously that the company has deadlines and bottom lines, and they want everything done yesterday so they could start selling it already. And we need to negotiate. Well, you want those three features done yesterday, but we could do one next week, so you need to decide what's going on. So this constant negotiation and and realignment off what people are working on the events.

um, the challenges and pains point is that I manage a product. I don't manage people. Which means, um I know what needs to get done for the product of what I believe needs to get done for the product, for the best outcome. But I don't officially have the saying. Okay, you people start working on this, right? They do have, ah, development line manager that the report to the marketing people have their own managers. So, um, um, an influencer right. I get to hear everybody, especially when they have complaints. People are very open about, you know, complaints. Um, and I need to negotiate and influence them and direct people. Uh, then it's a constant process. It's ah, we set the road up, say, in January for the next three years, um, and and decide what's gonna happen. You know, more specifically the next 3 to 6 months. And by the time those three months of rolled out, we need to reject that and reduce some things and re evaluate other things. So it's a constant process off negotiation and talking out. I don't I have to find compromises quite a lot. Um, and make people, um satisfied or not satisfied and communicate and why we cannot satisfy their requests because, you know, we're started siding. Other requests which, uh, I or the company deems deem are more important than than what they requested. Um, because sometimes, you know, you have people requesting one thing and you saying yes, I consoled it. And yes, it's a big customer, but it will actually change it to a way that will make it worse for a lot of other customers. So in aggregate, Yes, you win one deal, but you will annoy a lot of other customers. So you have to sort of always balance that. And you have to be a very open about communicating it, um, and open, but gentle in in communicated. So I think that's that's the main challenge in pain point, where you have something that, um, you know, is right. But you can't do it because they are complete forces or you get something that you know is wrong. But you still have to do it because you it's a key customers. You absolutely have to close the deal this quarter because, you know, company funds and all that. So I think those are the main challenges, um, approaches effective, you know, becoming them. Uh, after I think of it, like 10 times already. Uh, effective negotiations. This job is 90% communication. Um, and communication is not just talking to people. It's finding multiple ways off delivering the message. So for me to deliver a roadmap like, uh, I dio I do graphs that sort of, you know, just illustrate the program. I do documents that explains those what those pictures on the graph means in details. And I do technical specifications that further and break down into, um into task the developers can build. I had to build presentations based on them that are, and that's marketing and or rather aimed at salespeople delivering them to to end customers I work with with our marketing department to build those I deliver presentations that deliver those documents or anything. I talked to people constantly over teams of a chatter or anything. So being an effective communicator, not just it's not just about having good English, but having the capacity to both understand what someone is saying and being able to validate that you understand them, understood them correctly, and then being able to deliver back a message that you want them to hear effectively. Um, because finding the way people will hear the message well, actually into actually take it on is different to just, you know, checking a blob of Texas them. So, um, then, uh, if you want a specific example, um, right now, like I said, we're doing a We took, uh, let me put it this way. We I started the product. That and building on that everything about eight years ago, it went through three major generational lips. We're now doing that. The third one, which involves taking on artificial intelligence, kept up capabilities into the product. Um so quite quite a big thing for for them for a thing, for product product, family. And to do that effectively, it's It's a big thing. It expands the problem that product addresses and how it addresses is giving a lot more tools, which means we need a lot more components. These are very complex components, and they need to build delivered in an efficient way that can be, uh, sold. We can't just, you know, take three years, close ourselves in this track and build something we have to keep selling while we're doing it. So we have to break it down into things that we can settle on the way. Um, nothing. So, um, I started with drawing a graph that it sort of explains the relationship between the we have a desktop, the server product, the integrates with the champion, a couple of other server products that assist everything. So but, um, Plus, we have a couple of other associate products within within the same family. Um, So I decided to do a graph that says, Okay, these are the components. This is which one talks to each other one and how they interact. And then I draw Ah, sort off dependency graft. A sort of a swim Landgraf that says, this is what we can deliver each quarter roughly. Andi, this is what you will be able to start selling around that time. So you need to prepare for that. And then I wrote a document that explains it. This'll just finished that this week on it goes into detail. This release that we just deliver now does that next with um supporting it in in Citrix environments will do that. And with connecting server um, to that capability that will be next. So these are the steps, and you have to build them in a certain order because you need this component in order to deliver that component etcetera. After that, I'll have been working with my developers post explaining that vision, um, and getting architectural proposals from them and giving feedback to the on those architectural proposals and making sure that, you know, they don't go down a rabbit hole off building a glorious thing. That looks great, but nobody needs, um And then I will work with marketing about, um, sort of building up those presentation to customers that they can deliver both, uh, because when customers buy, they don't just by what's available now they're also buying to the vision that the company provides them. They know that if they sign you know something and going to all the trouble of implementing your product, you will be there, you know, three years from now, addressing their needs. So ah, sales guys, when they sell, they need to explain that road markets explain where we're going. So I need to, uh, explain to them what's coming when it's coming so they can have a chat with those customers and convince them that we know what we're doing. We know what we're building on, so I guess that's that's a good example off what I'm doing right now.