Mike, this is a great first Field Note!!! — and selfishly, it's basically a defense of what Sri and I have been doing on the podcast for years without quite articulating it this well.
The out-of-stock example landed hardest for me. I can't count how many times I've sat across from a brand team that just spent real money creating demand, only to watch it evaporate because supply chain and media never talked to each other. Everyone nods when you point it out. Almost nobody has fixed it. That's exactly the kind of "signal hiding in plain sight" you're describing — it's not subtle, it's just organizationally inconvenient to solve, so it gets treated as a one-off instead of the systemic thing it is.
The line that'll stick with me is "you can't design for the future exclusively from the sidelines." That's the whole case for staying close to practitioners instead of just synthesizing from the leadership deck level. It's also why I think the best product and strategy people I've worked with are the ones still doing the unglamorous work of sitting in on client calls and reading support tickets, not just the QBR.
One thing I'd add to the "what keeps you up at night" framework: I've found the *repeated* request is more useful than the *loud* one. Loud requests are often just whoever complained most recently. Repeated ones — the same friction showing up across three different clients who've never spoken to each other — that's the pattern worth building for. Sounds like that's basically what you're getting at with "patterns, not reactions," just wanted to underline it.
Excited to see where this series goes. Subscribed!
Mike, this is a great first Field Note!!! — and selfishly, it's basically a defense of what Sri and I have been doing on the podcast for years without quite articulating it this well.
The out-of-stock example landed hardest for me. I can't count how many times I've sat across from a brand team that just spent real money creating demand, only to watch it evaporate because supply chain and media never talked to each other. Everyone nods when you point it out. Almost nobody has fixed it. That's exactly the kind of "signal hiding in plain sight" you're describing — it's not subtle, it's just organizationally inconvenient to solve, so it gets treated as a one-off instead of the systemic thing it is.
The line that'll stick with me is "you can't design for the future exclusively from the sidelines." That's the whole case for staying close to practitioners instead of just synthesizing from the leadership deck level. It's also why I think the best product and strategy people I've worked with are the ones still doing the unglamorous work of sitting in on client calls and reading support tickets, not just the QBR.
One thing I'd add to the "what keeps you up at night" framework: I've found the *repeated* request is more useful than the *loud* one. Loud requests are often just whoever complained most recently. Repeated ones — the same friction showing up across three different clients who've never spoken to each other — that's the pattern worth building for. Sounds like that's basically what you're getting at with "patterns, not reactions," just wanted to underline it.
Excited to see where this series goes. Subscribed!