As a teenager, I was all ideas and no follow-through. Every week brought a new concept, a new scheme, a new startup in my head. I wore my imagination like a badge. But over time, I had to confront something uncomfortable: ideas weren't rare. They were a ten a penny, a kind of noise that kept me from actually doing the hard work.
A useful way to understand the successes—and the stagnation—of big tech is through the lens of organisational advantage. Not just what a company did, but how it was set up to win.
As I recently posted, I bought the AirPods Max and one of the nice features there was its massive 20-hour battery life. This is actually the third device I've bought in six months where battery life has been a massive part of loving it.
As a lifelong Apple user - yep my parents were designers and I've never owned a PC - I've always slightly tongue-in-cheekily said that Apple products just work. And, of course, they do work pretty well.
I absolutely love wandering around stationery shops and it's taken me a good long while to begin to resist buying absolutely unnecessary notebooks which I inevitably end up not using very much of.
A foundational part of product management, often overlooked, is understanding the nuanced difference between toys, tools, and products.