A few people have asked me recently how to cast a wider net on their product knowledge, or simply how to get started with it.
It can be daunting when there are so many sources and people purporting to be ‘experts’ (glances awkwardly at the mirror), so I thought I’d start with the source I use the most often — Medium.
At $5 a month for unlimited content, it’s an absolute steal as a tool to expand your product knowledge. If you read 2 posts to start every workday, that’s 40 posts a month — 12.5 cents (10 pence) per article. $5 / 40 = 12.5 cents , that’s quick maths.
If you’re looking to improve your product management knowledge and progress your career in the industry, then keep reading!
Here’s an outline of 25 product people you should follow on Medium to start consuming more relevant and useful product content.
I’ve grouped them into 5 broad categories, but as is often the caveat, they’re not mutually exclusive.
Big dogs
These are the super-credible, hyper-experienced guys that have been there, done that and got all the t-shirts.
Roman Pichler
Roman has his own website which is well known within the product and agile development communities, but he still has a decent amount of content on Medium.
On face value, many of his posts seem pretty similar to the other people that I’ll suggest that you follow. The main difference is that Roman is considered a thought-leader and an expert in the field, and this gives his views added credibility.
Rich Mironov
Rich’s content is primarily focussed on product leadership and how to set up your teams to be successful. With 3.8k followers, he has almost as many followers as Roman Pichler.
Nir Eyal
Author of the best-seller ‘Hooked’, Nir is a don when it comes to behavioural psychology and how it applies to product development. Just check out some interviews with him — the man knows his stuff. He has his own website (www.nirandfar.com) so Medium isn’t his main, er, medium, but he posts a helpful list of weekly ‘must-reads’.
And if you haven’t already, buy his book.
Noah Weiss
Noah hasn’t posted on Medium for almost 2 years, but it’s well worth checking out the content he has already produced as it’s still highly relevant today.
For regular, relevant product content
The name of this category is underselling those in it a bit. It’s not a catch-all, it’s more that these lot post high-quality content on a wide range of topics. Don’t believe me? Check them out for yourself!
Jens-Fabian Goetzmann
Jens-Fabian is a top writer in the ‘leadership’ and ‘Startup’ categories for good reason. He posts regular content that goes into much greater depth on each topic than most of his contemporaries. That does mean that his articles tend to be on the long side (many are over a 10-minute read) so make sure you’ve got a cup of coffee or a snack if you’re going to dig into one of his posts, but he’s well worth a follow.
Anthony Murphy
I can’t quite get my head around the pace with which Anthony produces content — he’s rapid. He clearly does a lot of research to complement his own experiences, and this shows in his writing. High quality and high quantity, a rare thing.
Scott Middleton
Bite-sized, easy to digest but not lacking depth is how I’d describe Scott’s writing. He’s the CEO of Australia’s fastest growing Product Development firm, so he knows what he’s talking about!
Product Dave ?
I don’t just follow Dave just for his simple but genius handle, but because of his consistently interesting content. He’s the Ronseal of Medium bloggers.
Carlos G de Villaumbrosia
Probably the most regular poster of the lot, Carlos is the CEO of Product School and editor of their publication on Medium. Many of his posts are write-ups of interviews or AMA sessions with those in the product community, so it’s worth following to digest these if you don’t attend to the sessions.
Rob Calvert
Rob has experience within product, engineering and design and this shows in the roundedness of his writing. A great all-rounder to follow.
Shaping your career
Because we all need help on the way up.
Lilly M. Dobreva
Lilly’s content is particularly useful if you’re relatively new to product, as it will help you to get started, shape your role and grow your career.
Jackie Bavaro
Jackie co-authored ‘cracking the PM interview’ and much of her content on Medium is around this theme. She also looks at hiring from the side of a product team leader, so it’s useful if you’re looking for a move yourself or trying to build out your team. Bravo Bavaro, you might say.
Tom Comerford
Tom writes predominantly about two things — developing yourself as a product manager, and Milan. A Product Milan-ager, if you will.
Product leadership
Transitioning from a product manager to a product leader takes some doing, and these people can help.
Noa Ganot
As an executive product coach, Noa’s content is aimed at those looking to become a leader in the field of product management. Helpful, given that no amount of Scrum training will prepare you for leading teams and creating strategies.
Curtis Savage
Curtis’s posts focus on the challenges product leaders will face and how you can overcome them. If you don’t think that sounds really useful, I don’t know what to tell you.
Shari Harrison
Shari is another that has her own website, which is arguably her main focus but still has a lot of useful and engaging content on Medium. In fact, Shari was the first author I ever reached out to on the platform to praise their work! That was a real milestone for Shari too, I’m sure.
Alex Mitchell
Following Alex will definitely expand your product vision. If you were a horse, I’d liken his content to removing your [product knowledge]blinkers. You’re probably not a horse though, so I’ll move on (if you do happen to be a horse, and you’re reading this, DM me, I have a business proposal for you).
Joe Van Os
Measured completely arbitrarily by the metric of ‘my perception’, Joe is one of my favourite writers-per-post in terms of the quality of the content. He doesn’t post huge amounts, but what he does post is always thought-provoking.
Dave Bailey
Dave is all about coaching leaders to become better. He posts around once a week but as it’s highly targeted on leadership, team management and career development, he sits best in this category. The only downside is that his Medium tag is ‘Dave Superman’. I’m more a fan of
Captain Dave.Dave Bailey – MediumRead writing from Dave Bailey on Medium. I help venture-backed founders become great CEOs-serial founder, coach…medium.com
Maarten Dalmijn
Maarten loves agile, but hates all the misconceptions around it, particularly with Scrum. He’s a great person to follow to increase your knowledge of agile delivery methodologies or challenge your existing views on it.
Monica Viggars
Monica’s content is a mix between things that will help you as a product manager and things that will help you as a product leader. Both, I find, are incredibly useful. In her own words, she writes about the ‘human side of product management’. Frankly it was news to me that product manager’s are real people…
To become more user-centric
As product sits at the intersection of the user, the business and technology, it’s going to help you a hell of a lot to beef up your UX knowledge.
Jared M. Spool
Jared has 50k followers on Medium, making him the most popular on this list. In fact, he probably has more followers than the rest combined (but I haven’t checked…). The only reason he’s not in the ‘Big Dogs’ section is that his focus is design and not product, but following him is a no-brainer, I’ve referenced his content a lot over the past few years.
Jennifer Clinehens
If Jared is the first person you should follow in this category, Jennifer is a close second. Focussing more on CX and behavioural science than design, her content is brilliant.
András Juhász
Although András is a product manager, he has an eye for user experience and has posted multiple times about suggested UX improvements. He’s a good person to follow to better understand that link between product and design, and getting started with both.
Steve Bromley
Steve is a user researcher whose work I first became aware of when I co-interviewed him as part of the P24 event in March 2020. I was fascinated by his knowledge and deep understanding of human psychology and user behaviour. The downside is, he’s only posted 3 articles to date. Hey Steve, give us more content!
Concluding thoughts
So there you have it, 25 big-hitters to follow to get relevant, regular, riveting content related to product management.
Here’s how to go about it if you’re totally new to Medium:
- Sign up to Medium for $5 a month
- Follow the publications and people I’ve listed above
- Read a couple of articles from your ‘daily read’ which you will receive via an app push notification and email
- Save any other articles you like the look of (they’re saved on a reading list that you can access at any time)
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 and your recommendations will get smarter and more tailored to your interests
Let me know how you get on, and anyone else you think should be added to the list.
Happy Medium-ing.
This article was originally posted on Chris’s blog @ https://chrismiles.co/top-25-product-people-to-follow-on-medium/
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