November 2017 Summaries

Wyatt Jenkins, a former professional DJ turned tech executive, has navigated a unique career path that emphasizes the intersection of diversity, inclusion, and innovation in product management. After transitioning from a DJ to a tech role, Jenkins became an early employee at Beatport and later served as VP of Product at Shutterstock and Hired, where he encountered the stark diversity issues prevalent in the tech industry. His experiences have led him to advocate for inclusive leadership strategies that encourage diverse perspectives and risk-taking within product teams, arguing that these elements are crucial for innovation and ethical progress. Jenkins highlights the pitfalls of traditional recruiting practices, such as pattern-matching based on school and employer brands, which perpetuate biases and hinder diversity. He stresses the importance of expanding candidate sourcing beyond conventional networks and integrating diverse viewpoints in data-driven decision-making. Jenkins also recognizes the challenges posed by tech's culture of disruption, emphasizing the need for a scalable solution to tech's intertwined ethics and diversity issues to sustain innovation. His approach underscores the necessity of a continuous commitment to diversity as an everyday priority, rather than a one-time intervention.

In-app notifications and push notifications serve distinct purposes in user engagement, with the former appearing within an app while it is open and the latter targeting users outside the app to bring them back. In-app notifications, effectively used, enhance user engagement by pushing users forward in their customer journey and marketing funnel through customized messaging based on user segmentation, behavior, and timing. They are classified into transactional notifications, which guide users, and non-transactional notifications, like promotional offers, and are crucial for maintaining user interest without overwhelming them. Best practices for in-app notifications include setting clear goals, segmenting users, testing and optimizing notifications, coordinating with other marketing efforts, avoiding over-communication, and ensuring each notification delivers value. Successful implementation often requires an app marketing platform to identify, target, and analyze user interactions, allowing for strategic and effective communication within the app environment.

Daily Active Users (DAU) is a key metric used to quantify the number of unique users engaging with an app or site daily, with its calculation varying significantly between companies due to different definitions of "user" and "action." DAU is critical for assessing product stickiness and growth potential, frequently appearing in discussions about technology IPOs, as it indicates how many people find an app useful enough to use regularly. However, relying solely on DAU can be misleading, as high numbers do not necessarily equate to valuable user engagement, making it important to consider additional metrics like Monthly Active Users (MAU) and Average Daily Active Users (ADAU) for a more comprehensive understanding of user behavior. The metric is particularly relevant in contrasting scenarios, such as comparing a B2B security software with a social media platform like Facebook, where barriers to entry and definitions of actions vary, leading to incomparable DAUs. To maximize the utility of DAU, it should be analyzed alongside indicators of value, such as in-app purchases or content engagement metrics, using robust analytics platforms to gain deeper insights into user behavior and app growth strategies.

Airbnb's Director of Data Science, Alok Gupta, has been working to quantify the abstract concept of trust, which is crucial for Airbnb's business model. His team conducted an experiment with Stanford University researchers to explore whether people trust Airbnb's rating system over their inherent biases based on demographics like age, gender, and location. The study revealed that highly rated profiles on Airbnb, even if demographically different from the user, were trusted more than those who shared attributes with the participant but had no ratings. This finding suggests that Airbnb's reputation system can overcome natural biases, highlighting the importance of measurement in data science. Gupta emphasizes measurement as the most impactful area in data science, advocating for a scientific approach to problem-solving beyond the tech industry, and believes that good measurement is key to addressing global challenges such as poverty and inequality.

Mina Radhakrishnan, a former product manager at Google and Uber, emphasizes the importance of diversity in product development, arguing that homogeneity limits innovation and the scope of viable startups, particularly in tech hubs like Silicon Valley. Her insights highlight how cognitive biases and a lack of diverse representation among founders and venture capitalists often result in products catering to affluent, familiar audiences, thereby overlooking broader market needs. Radhakrishnan advocates for diverse teams to ensure a comprehensive understanding of varied user experiences, which fosters empathy and creativity in product design. She shares her experiences of building cross-functional teams at Uber and offers strategies for product leaders to prioritize diversity, such as hiring based on a broader set of skills and backgrounds rather than traditional technical qualifications. Her venture, Different.com.au, reflects her commitment to addressing overlooked problems by providing affordable property management solutions in Australia, born from personal experiences and a desire to innovate beyond the tech bubble's constraints.