After 9 books and 20 years of writing and speaking it’s time for me to come up with a new plan.
While I am working on book #10, now is a great time to ask you for your thoughts. SInce you care enough to follow my work, I want to know what I do that you value and what you’d like to see in the future. It’s basic customer research and product management I’ve never done for my own career! How silly.
Thanks for your help and I promise to report back on what I learn and what my plans are.
Yet I’ve felt over the last few years that the solitary work of writing books hasn’t been as interesting to me as it used to be. Then the pandemic hit and like everyone, I’ve felt more isolated. And now with this experience of losing and recovering my voice, my passions have shifted. I need to be part of a team again, which is why I’m looking for a job. I need to be part of a group working together, something I’ve missed for too long.
As far as what I’m looking for, looking back over my career (LinkedIn) there are two strong themes. I’m hopeful I can find an organization that needs someone to influence the direction of UX, PM, innovation or remote work, the subjects of my books, through coaching or leadership. Writing, speaking and teaching are all in my wheelhouse. Or perhaps I’ll return to something more in line with the PM roles I’ve done in the past. I’m looking first for a great culture where my skills can have value.
I plan to continue writing, teaching and tweeting, but there will be some adjustments along the way.
Please do get in touch if you have something interesting in mind for me. Thanks.
Watch this short video if you want to hear my voice – I’ve missed it and I’m so glad to have it back.
A few weeks ago I let Matt, my boss, know I was stepping down from my role at WordPress.com. It might be a surprise to some of you that I’d taken a job at all, but I’ve been there for nearly 2 years as the lead of Team Social, a team of developers and designers working on WordPress.com (We made things like Jetpack, Publicize, and dozens of features on WordPress.com). My experience there was amazing, but as my deepest passion is writing books and speaking it was time to return to what I do best. I’d planned to stay for just a year, but it was harder than I expected to leave.
The good news: Until this change I’d been dividing my time since August 2010, when I took the job, between two different careers. Its been a relief these last weeks to return to having just one set of ambitions to chase. And more importantly, have some time to do almost nothing at all. You’ll see more output from me here on the blog and in the world in general, as I’m now again focused on one goal: filling that bookshelf.
The next book I’m working on will be about my experience working at Automattic on WordPress.com. It’s a great company whose unusual culture (everyone works remotely) asks many important questions about not only how software should be made, but how all work should be done. I’ll have more for you soon about this project so stay tuned.
I hope you’ll wish me well on my return to independence.
Just for the record, I beat Oprah to it by at least a day.
Not sure how you feel, but my writing around here has gotten stale. I’m not writing as much, or as well, as I’d like. The best trick? Mix things up.
So when Katherine Bell, Senior Editor at Harvard Business Digital, offered a slot on their popular business blog, I said yes for 4 reasons.
She’s cool (never pass up a chance to work with good people).
It has been ages since I’ve been a regular columnist under someone else’s banner.
I’ll be on the same roster as business heavyweights Gary Hammel, Fast Company co-founder Bill Taylor, and many others.
And perhaps most interesting of all, is to find out how much trouble I can get into at Harvard 🙂
And you can help: What does the Harvard Business audience need to hear? What’s wrong with Harvard Business review? If you could have me write about anything over there, what would it be?
