I started my career probably 25 years ago in the computer industry. Right out of college, I went to work for a company called Word Perfect. You probably none of you have ever heard of. Um they were basically the predecessor to what you have with Microsoft Word and Excel today. I worked there for a short time, and then I moved over to a company called Novell's. And Novell was kind of a pioneer in the networking space back in the early nineties where it was, you know, the big thing then was actually call these computers together. We could talk and share files in applications and things like that. And I started my crooner, um, from there in i t and maybe just a little bit more about myself. I for those of you may know something about Utah. I grew up in a town called Moab, Utah now, and so it's Ah, I didn't know anything about technology, and I was fortunate enough Teoh College and be able Teoh start toe about technology. And while I was going to college now down in Saint George, if Dixie College at the time, I, um I got this I was working construction trying to pay my way through college. So I was doing concrete screaming, you know, working outside. And I had this a neighbor of mine asked me if I wanted to apply for this job. This company called ever X and ever exit the time was a company that was building computers, and they're out of California. And they had built a computer circuit board, um, manufacturing plant in ST George, Utah, because the owner CEO at the time of ever X had a friend that lived in ST George at a restaurant there used to like to come and visit him. So he decided, put a, uh, a manufacturing plant there. So, long story. Sure. I took that job. Um, it was actually kind of tough for me because at the time, I had to take a 50% cut paid as a college student. You know what that means? But what? There? I started to work in the industry where we built out printed circuit boards or for many computers, and I had this amazing opportunity there to build prototypes. We're coming a like a prototype that they want to build to try something out, and it was my job to actually build a thing from the start. And so while I was going to college, I learned how to build for inserted boards. In fact, I have one right here I'll show.so back in the day tomorrow, if you can see this or not. But I built that for uncertain board from start to finish, and that was a very unique opportunity that got me into the computer industry when I would finish whatever work I was doing in the many processes of building those boards. I would do my homework and work on stuff for school, and at that time there was a person who was responsible for the manufacturing processes and he was doing all the networking in the computers and he needed some help. So he asked me if I would help him, so I started. That's kind of how I got into the software industry is. I started helping him again, helping him network all these computers, automating the correction systems out on or manufacturing facilities. And then from there, I just I kind of I started liking what I was doing, and I and I kind of start taking some classes of computers. I started learning more about how they operate, and and that's kind of what got me in the industry At that time that I started, I finished my degree at Southern Utah University I used to drive every day from ST George up there for about 50 miles and lead early in the morning and go to school. And then I come back and work it ever excellent. Once I finished my degree and I ended up getting a green business information systems and also a specialty and networking. So that's how I got into information technology sector. I guess you could say and I started my career and that's when I moved up North, moved up into Utah Valley, began working there in like a seven Novell and was responsible for their I t infrastructure for a number of years, totally. And I worked a Nobel for 14 years. Um, about nine years into that, I started to work with the product human, and today I actually that's what I do is product management. But I made the jump from I T to product management because we were building a product for my team to implement throughout the globe. The time it was basically a branch office appliance that you could configure send out to an office, plug it into the Internet and everything just worked, and everyone the applications they need locally, and I became an expert in the product. And, um, when that happened, I began Teoh travel around with some of the product managers, talked to some customers about it, and then we implemented it. They asked me to become a product manager for because I become the expert. That's what kind of launch my career, um, into product management, and that's kind of one of the incidents that happened. The first one was, is I made from construction to computers, which is kind of crazy. Next one was I made the jump from I T and Product Management, and that's kind of what started shaped my career. Um, from there I worked for about five more years Nobel, where I was over the director product for not only the Branch Office Solutions, but we're building software time to manage for machines, being able to orchestrate the environment around and, um, and, uh, about a year before I left our chief technologist there, no well, he decided to go out and started a company called Move Networks Move Networks WASA Company, that our main goal was to take television and put it on the Internet and then help broadcasters these television broadcasters and publishers be able to monetize. So I thought that was pretty interesting and they had a job open up over there for somebody coming around product management. And so I went over there over a product management for not only the player that played the videos with but the coding systems being able to process. He had to go through to actually take the files from your broadcast channel or a movie, as you and I would know today, and he code that it on the Internet. So I ran. A team of product managers did that. That was a fan. That was a really fun business at the work, with companies like ESPN, even Oprah. We get a live event with Oprah back then, and it was one of the world's largest, um, live event on the Internet, where we were able to connect 625,000 people before he melted, optimized network down and no one was able to watch. So that was That was a defining experience that kind of shaped my career on, and then I was there for a couple of years, and then I had a company called amateur. He was recruiting me at the time. And, um, armature was Web analytics. Company was transforming into digital marketing company through various acquisitions. And so I went over there to run product management four other analytics businesses so that included Advance Analytics, Web analytics Mobile, Um, allow analytics, video analytics that we also started a social analytics business time. And and there were a couple of things that we're able to do, you know, in that business, one is that we were able to capture the transactions of all these websites across the Internet and be able to help them monetizing meal. The target and my video experiences move Network kind of help this because video became popular at that time and and just one story around move networks. We were trying to help monetize content. And so we were figuring out ways to actually do what they call live at insertion. I mean, video stream. That helped me with what I was doing. You need to do in all mature because we were trying to track invasion me a job. And so we were focused on video man video major, and we also at the time everyone wanted to know how people were using prices and what was You know, how many people were using their applications. But what was traffic like Swiping left, right, All the interactions removal device. And so we built a mobile STK. It allows us to track all that the more mature and now Adobe uses today because we required by Adobe by nine months after. And so I spent probably a total of nine years of adobe and an amateur, um, working on their analytic solutions. It allowed me to travel the world, meet with customers all over the world and provide scalable systems that allow them to not only understand all the traffic that was going to always websites and mobile app. So how do we take that and turn around and personalize that experience through content and using things like testing and targeting and deliver personalized experiences based on people? But then I I, uh I was there, like I said for about nine years. Um then what happened was I had the opportunity a couple of my friends who I worked with at Adobe left and went to a company. Um, this company is called a moment the moment is company in South Jordan where there a customer experience company and they get feedback from from experiences, whether it's on a browser mobile device, call center center right? And I think that we were trying to solve their WAAS. How do we take all this feedback that's coming in? Specifically not just been net promoter scores, but the non structured feedback. And how do we make sense out of that? How do we take non structured comments and audio and be able to categorize it and then use it to find insights of in that data? And then how do we drive action, you know, with with you? And so I was there for about three years running a product management user experience design data science with a team that was under be at that time. And then I left after we sold the company about a year ago, May and burned a smaller star about or exercise during the smaller start up with a friend of mine who left Adobe to start a company called Client Success. And that's where I met and pointed Successes, a company where we build software service customer success managers to manage all of their customers and the book of business from what we call new to renew. So he gave us that they have with the customers major that advantage, that we help them understand. You know what the pulse of that looks like? Are they helping that customers? It is red, green, yellow. Um, what are some of success factors that they have that they want to be able to be successful with? And then how do we make sure that we have enough signal from those customers along the way to know if they're going to get if they're going to renew the contract with contracts? So that's kind of a very fast way to talk about my career and some of the incidents or experiences that shape.

my current job. My responsibility is to make sure that we build products in solutions for our customers and help them be successful, whether it's safe time or make money. Um, and so I'm responsible for building the products. My job is to work with the customer to understand what their problems are. Challenges are and then be able to normally is kind of take for face value what they say but really be able to understand what they're trying to do and then come back to our developing product and development teams and be able to articulate what we need to build in order to solve that problem. So my, um, my responsibility is really working with customers working with our product team, working with development, to define what gets built, being able to work with the design team, to mark those experiences up and be able to test them with a customer. One of the things that I try to do is we try not to develop code until we prove it out the experience in the workflow of the customers so we don't waste time and money, so there's a lot of design work that goes into it, Um, And then we test that with customers. I don't know if you're familiar with suffer programs like marble or envisioned, but you can literally build working semi working prototype of a product which is Screenshots. Be able to help customers understand what does that look like? And then how they would interact with it and then get the feedback along the way through that process to be able to say, Okay, this is what we need to develop in a software that we build a prop plane. I also board, Um, you haven't got much about this question, but I get to work with our marketing department. I get to work with our support organization because I am responsible for the problem. And so I worked with them directly to help them understand not only what we built for marketing, what the value that is so they can message it and send it out of marketing materials, but also with our support organization that would something goes wrong. It's my responsibility to make sure that it's right. It's fixed and gets that you get back out to customers. Um, work hours I work hours are interesting. Uh, we work a lot, and I think a lot of it depends on maybe how big the organizations were. But even in larger corporations, where I work you know, though, was 15,000 people versus startup I'm at right now is 25 people. Um, my weekly hours start fairly early in the morning and go till late afternoon early in the evening is a product manager. There's a lot of coordination that happens. There's customer calls, you know, when you have a global business, there's customer calls that you need to be on that maybe with customers in India or Europe or Australian. So you need to be a little bit flexible to be able to hear the customers feedback. And so you know, I my my weekly work hours reach anywhere from seven in the morning till last night. I stopped working a night, but I try to keep a balance. You know, I have a family and and I tryto be very efficient in my work. And, uh, which is interesting about your question around traveling. Um, when I worked for Nobel and all mature and then adobe, I traveled a lot because I was meeting with customers all the time. I had product managers who were doing the product management, defining the requirements of the products to build. And I spent the majority of my time meeting with customers, making sure we understood the feedback, resolving escalated situations where the customer was happy. And so I would on average, probably fly heard and 25,000 miles a year. And I would go to anywhere from Japan. Europe. Um, you have been to India before. It's been a lot of time in Australia in a lot of time, all over the US, and so allowed me to travel in time, um, working with customers that has all now stock that you can imagine because of what's happening with code 19. And so I work in old, you know, each and every day, and I still talk to a lot of customers. We just do three sessions

was a product manager is it's never done the work. The work is never done. And and some people may have a struggle with that, Um, more words. There's always another product of field. There's always another feature fix. There's always another escalated situation. And so some of the challenges with my job is it never really is finished. It's kind of a continuation from either the last product in the last group to the next release or into the future strategy of what we're trying to build. Um, the other thing that, um, I would say, is a challenge for some people, but I really like is It's different all the time. It's never monotonous. I'm not never doing the same things over and over. I may use the same methodologies or strategies to plan out products, Um, but each product is different and has its own set of challenges. And so one of the challenges of my job is being able to quickly solve problems, make decisions and solve problems and move forward because what paralyze a lot of software companies is if you're afraid to make a decision or afraid to make a wrong decision that you don't do anything that you become paralyzed and then you don't going. And so I think another challenges is the meeting. Sometimes in the failures. You know, when you try something or you get feedback from a customer and we try to try to never build for one customer. We always build for all our customers. You never know as much as we can. But, you know, part of that challenge is if it's not working, being able to say, Okay, this isn't gonna work. We need to change our strategy. We had to do something like that, you know, when Code 19 head and I'm sure many other businesses did well, it's like humming along. We have our strategy, we're executing on it, and all of a sudden you know, our customers, they're not working. There was jobs like, Okay, how do we pay that? How do we change our approach? Oh, being flexible enough to realize that something's going are being aware that something's happening and then being flexible enough to kind of change. It's something that's very important, you know. It comes to taking approach to solving these challenges. It's like, um, you need to you need to be able to realize when things need to change and not be afraid. To change that and deal with those challenges is always something. And that's, you know, that's that kind of happens in what you try to do is you tryto work closely enough with the customer. So it's not like you deliver a product of them that they've never seen full of. You know how it works. My philosophy is I worked with customers and a partnership to build these products, and so they get to work with me along the way and my team where when the product comes out, it's not a surprise to they're excited about anyone. And, um, when you don't do that, then you run the risk. I'll give you a good example. Um, you were building a product. I'll give you an adobe example. We're building products or, um, the social media mangement. A good example. And we're trying to understand you know, how many people were talking about certain subjects on Twitter, Facebook, various channels, social media and as we were working with the customers kept asking us for all these statistics around how many people are talking about. I want to say MTV there'll be a maze, and this is when Twitter just became very popular, and what we did was instead of just trying to take the requirements and build it, we said, Look, we could capture all this data, but you guys are here having the music video works next week, Let's turn this thing on. Let's capture all the data. Let's see what we learn from it And then, you know, if we go over metrics, you ask for great. But there's some other things that weren't in, Um And so you know, the approach that I've always tried to take is instead of trying to build something and hope that someone's gonna use it, we work with them to build it much like when you're building a house. So you're seeing come together, you're seeing the problems as they arise. And when the house is finished, there is no no surprises. And so that's That's one of the approaches that I take on the challenges. I would add one other thing there, too. The other approach that I think is really important is the plan and have a strategy, Um that, you know, I mean you can't plan for everything. But if you have a strategy and gold what you're gonna try and do? Like, for instance, our goal in that example was we're in a major all of the social media activity for the MTV music video wants. And our goal was to be able to not only capture all the data, but make sure the system stayed up. And, um and so, you know, you know, we did that and we learned the time we delivered what we said we were gonna do. And that's kind of the other approach that I tried to focus on solving challenges, build a plan. Doesn't have to be a large, extensive plan. That's like, Okay, what what's our strategy? What we trying to accomplish, how we're gonna get there And they were gonna focus r o making sure we live