The Product Management Speaking Series

In this special event, hosted by productboard, we have Nir Eyal doing a keynote presentation on his new book, Indistractable. We also have Claire Milligan, who will talk about developing product management practices across an organization.

Speaker: Nir Eyal

Topic: Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

Brief Description

Ever get the feeling you’re bombarded with too many emails, pings, dings, and rings? You’re not alone. In an age of ever-increasing distraction, how do we control technology and make sure technology doesn’t control us?

Nir Eyal, bestselling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, wrote the book on the secret psychology of what makes Facebook, Slack, and the iPhone so potentially addictive.

However, in this talk, Nir dives into the surprising burdens many of these technologies place on employee productivity and happiness. Nir also gives actionable advice and case studies for how successful companies manage these technologies to increase customer satisfaction, team output, and employee retention. This talk is for anyone has ever struggled with distraction and wants to learn to harness the superpower of super-focus.

Speaker: Claire Milligan

Topic: Scaling Product Management by Focusing Only on What Matters (and How to Define What Matters)

Brief Description

At the end of 2017, Claire found herself at the helm of product management for a variety of competitive brands brought together through aggressive private equity mergers. Given a mandate to grow the company’s revenue through product differentiation while simultaneously becoming profitable meant that Claire needed to accomplish growth through making focused decisions on product management team efficiency, rather than growing headcount.

In this talk, Claire explains the major initiatives developed under her leadership, which contributed to the company meeting and exceeding these goals — while only hiring one person. It all boiled down to ensuring a data-driven “Yes” to the question: “Are we confident that we are working on the most important thing right now?”

Bio – Senior Vice President, General Manager of Tallie & SpringAhead, Certify Inc. & Chrome RiverAs General Manager of the Tallie and SpringAhead business units at Certify Inc. & Chrome River, Claire oversees the strategic direction and financial outcomes for those brands.Claire’s approach to the software industry is driven by her desire to make a positive impact on people by resolving deep and complicated business problems. Claire has more than 10 years’ experience in creating SaaS software products, seven of which within Certify Inc. & Chrome River-held companies. Previously, she created the Product Management organization for Certify, Inc., launching the Travel and Purchasing products, and began her career as a software designer. Claire holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in Communication from Stanford University as well as a BFA in Graphic Design from Academy of Art University.

Schedule:

5:30 – 6:00 – Check in and networking

6:00 – Doors close (no late entry due to building security restrictions)

6:00 – 6:05 – Event Kickoff

6:05 – 6:10 – Short presentation by productboard

6:10 – 6:30 – Presentation + Q&A by Claire Milligan

6:30 – 7:30 – Presentation + Q&A by Nir Eyal

7:30 – 8:30 – Networking