Otter Advisory Newsletter #1 March 2021

Hello

I’ve been threatening to do a newsletter for some time. I spend a lot of time reading stuff, and I’ve experimented with a variety of tools to track interesting posts and links, so now it is time to post a few of these. I’ve a new website, so I can more easily publish now. 

The newsletter will be a miscellany of what I’ve read, written, watched or heard over the last little while. This may interest people who work in the world of HRTECH, SaaS, work tech etc, either as users, builders or investors.  I’ll do this once a month or so at first, and see how it develops.  Let me know what you would like to see here. Eventually I might even do some fancy formatting. Or not. 

Things I’ve written recently

What enterprise product managers can learn from SME

On International Women's Day. 

Strategy in nascent markets.

My take on the Workday Peakon deal.

How the job advert tells you so much about the employer.

My guest lecture at the FAU (with video) about Product Management.

My Haufe column (in German)

My Unleash column 

A quick thought on being open about your technology.

Things I’ve read 

Besssemer's state of the cloud. A US VC's research. VC research is getting a lot better. I don't agree with all of this, but then if I did, I would be a successful VC I guess. 

What happens when your UX is really complicated. You loose money. Serious money. 

Workers now organising to use data for themselves. Lots going on in the gig economy with the recent UK Supreme Court judgement. 

Venero's report on M&A in HRTECH.

Excellent series of posts on product management by  John Cutler

Anshu on being determined when things get tough.

The future of Work Index from Acadian Ventures. 

HR TECH VC investment, from George la Rocque.

A lovely accessibility story from Diginomica. 

James Governor on technical debt.

Oxford Saïd Business School research on scenario planning. 

A roadmap on digital ethics.  Dr Caitlin McDonald.

The space of developer productivity.This is important research by Dr Nicole Forsgren

Someone to follow on Twitter

Ethics in Bricks. This makes me smile every day. 

A blog to subscribe to

Dave Kellogg Leading expert on SaaS marketing. I don’t think he has ever written a bad blog post. 

A book to read

Avoiding the Build Trap. By Melissa Perri. Follow her too. 

Something to listen to

My dear friend Paul on the piano.  One for the Bowie fans.

Something to watch

My octopus teacher. 

Come and talk Enterprise Product Management

Dave Kellogg and I are doing a Clubhouse Session on Product Management. Thursday mornings at 8 am pacific for what we’re hoping will become a series of Enterprise SaaS Product Power Breakfasts where we will talk among ourselves, with invited guests, and with the audience about all things product.: Details here.  Join here. 

If you would like to get in touch, click here to schedule a call or drop me a note.  If you were forwarded this, and would like to subscribe, you can do so via the website.