December 2015 Summaries

Building a developer economy around Intercom is similar to creating a new country, requiring infrastructure, laws, citizens, trade, and branding. A vibrant ecosystem for developers can lead to a larger and more valuable economy, as seen with Facebook's platform effect, which has created an estimated $227 billion economic impact globally. Intercom aims to build its customer communication ecosystem by providing flexibility through APIs, developer guidelines that focus on innovation opportunities, and a growing number of integrations between Intercom and other products and services. The company is exploring ways to connect developers with customers, creating a vibrant marketplace, and considers itself still in the early stages of its mission.

Notifications have remained largely unchanged since the late 1990s, despite advances in technology over the past two decades. The author argues that notifications can be improved to provide a more personalized and relevant experience for users. With the increasing availability of data from various sources such as social media, behavioral patterns, and ecosystem interactions, it is possible to create intelligent predictive algorithms that analyze this data to determine when and how to send notifications. This could include features like smart timing, location-based targeting, grouping, and reactions that adapt to individual user behavior. The author suggests that a more conversational tone in notifications, similar to messaging apps, could also enhance their effectiveness. Ultimately, the goal is to create truly smart notifications that are both helpful and unobtrusive, leveraging feedback loops to refine their performance over time.

A great product manager must strike a balance between empathy and stubbornness, adapting their approach as the project progresses from initial customer understanding to later stages where compromise is necessary. Empathy is crucial in early stages, but being too sensitive to feedback can hinder progress, while stubbornness is required in later stages to make tough decisions and stand by them. The ideal product manager is a chameleon who seamlessly shifts between these opposing traits, timing their approach to optimize the role reversal for maximum impact.