- Led multi-year project with Google and Harman to launch Alexa and Google Assistant on smart speakers, resulting in 130+ articles highlighting this product as part of Amazon’s efforts to improve customer choice- Built consensus among Google, Harman, and Amazon stakeholders to address critical customer experience gaps, leveraging data-driven insights to secure resource prioritization. - Defined and executed a beta program with 90 users to gather user survey data, using the insights to inform product launch, roadmap, and marketing strategy.

- Managed 8 external partners which delivered 20 Alexa-enabled products and 350K Alexa endpoints annually - Implemented a partner improvement plan, helping low-performing partners to unblock 7 critical projects.- Took on additional responsibilities to resolve 200+ support tickets in 12 months, and implemented improvements in partner training and policy to reduce escalations by 85% and justify additional headcount

Digimarc is the most research-oriented company I have worked at so far. The intensity of ramping up on vision and color science, printing technology, statistical modeling, and how to apply all that research to Mac, Windows, and Adobe Illustrator apps makes most of my other onboarding experiences seem like a walk in the park.It has been so engaging and rewarding to talk to and learn from everyone, many of whom have PhD’s in their fields. I have also learned valuable if painful lessons about what tradeoffs are required to productize cutting-edge research. A lot of consumer or B2B products have similar components like registration, login, user permissions, instant message, etc. My contribution in these cases is to research the specific market and target users, cross reference with best design practices, and update the standard workflows to meet their unique needs. Products built on evolving research means inventing ways to translate those concepts and accurately present the data to users. My products’ workflows are relatively simple - import a file, click a button to start some analysis, and output a report with the results. The apps originated from Engineering so there are a lot of usability improvements I could make, but what difference would that make if the results are not accurate? My valuable but painful lesson is that sometimes, usability is not king...Definitely on the roadmap for next quarter though!

Fun return into the product management side of the job. The first 100 days is important for any job, and I am getting better and better at quickly ramping up on new teams and projects. Here were some of my deliverables in the first 100 days:- Market requirements document- User and buyer journey storyboards- Engineering and executive roadmapsI am working on both B2B and B2C products, it's been an interesting challenge to tackle designing iOS apps and web portals from the consumer headspace. Stay tuned for results!

A foray into working on internal software products. While I did not have to deal with any more "we can close this deal if only we had Feature X" type of requests from Sales, I encountered new kinds of challenges such as keeping the project sponsors happy, and aligning the project to operational metrics to justify continued development. Some work that I enjoyed and contributed the most value to the project:- Collecting all the ideas floating around into a prioritized roadmap and expanding it into a release plan that gives everyone visibility of our target deliverables over the next 2 quarters. The developers and designers like it because they know where we're heading so they can make informed design decisions. The stakeholders like it because they can see the plan and they know their input is being heard and implemented. - Thoroughly cleaning up the backlog to break down stories that are too big for a sprint, adding understandable acceptance criteria, and actually using the "epic" feature in Jira.- Taking advantage of the direct access to target users by running usability research and testing, and bringing the results back to design a user-oriented workflow with the team.

After bidding a fond farewell to my colleagues at VTech, I dove headfirst into the software side of product development. Now this is my world:- Daily standups- Writing, grooming, and prioritizing user stories- Getting buy-in from developers and stakeholders for my backlog and roadmap- Acceptance testing when my stories are delivered- Sitting in the same room as developers- Strategically eavesdropping on developer conversations to forward my product agenda- Running cross-functional meetings (that part hasn’t changed)With occasional trips into the field for user interviews, product launches, Hackathons, and mentoring high school kids.Again I’m fortunate and thankful to work with a great team of developers, fellow product owners, and supportive managers who’ve set me on the right path to be a good software and agile product owner. I’ve learned a lot so far and I have a long ways to go. Onward!

First and foremost, I need to think long term and set a product roadmap. Most problems that float up to executive levels have no quick fixes, and customers understand that. My roadmap syncs up the engineering development plan with what the customer needs. Then as we continue to finetune the solution, I drive regular status updates to get customer feedback, and make adjustments according to the customer's requirements. The adage "Do your homework upfront" is as true in product management as in anywhere else, and especially on a multicultural, multilingual development team like VTech.What's secondary? Everything else that is product-related and can drive more business. Random sampling of day-to-day activities:- Create market awareness campaigns for my new products spanning ads, email blasts, landing pages, and mailers- Validate market size by analyzing hotel construction reports, and extrapolating to sales and manufacturing forecasts in units and dollars- Propose action plans to drive sales on excess inventory by creating pricing promotions or bundlesMy secondary role of product manager is a facilitator, to find the right resources to solve the problem. I am often the person who has an understanding of the market problem and VTech's capabilities, so I can estimate how to solve it. I advocate for the project to justify the resources and make sure it doesn't fall through the cracks.Every part of a business plan from marketing to distribution to channels to support involves product in some way, so product managers can really expand their secondary role as far as they want in areas that best utilizes their skill set. I am fortunate to work with a great Sales, Operations, and Development team at VTech and mentors who encourage me to explore new ideas and paths. Makes it easy to get up in the morning and go to work!