How long have you worked for Brightspot? What brought you here?
I’ve worked at Brightspot since October 2021. I worked in product for a little bit — I had been working on maintaining websites for a company and I worked across a bunch of their different websites, so I had a lot of experience working in CMS platforms and doing content migrations and redesigns. So, when I was looking around for jobs, I saw Brightspot and it seemed like a great match. Luckily, Brightspot agreed! I came on board with a pretty similar match for the kind of work that I do now.
Can you tell me about the current project you are working on and your role on the team?
I’m currently working on two projects, but the one I have been spending the most time on is the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). They’re working in Brightspot but headless, so we don’t do their front end at all. They are looking for a way to replace a bunch of old systems and they have put together a lot of content that’s really long. Their articles tend to be like 10, 15 and 20 sort of mini articles rolled into one, so we created a custom content type that rolls up a bunch of different pieces into one for them.
They’re also using Brightspot to manage their taxonomy and we are the system of record for taxonomy. This meant we had to do some work around custom tag types and making sure that all of their hierarchies for their tags would be intact and would feed correctly into the system that they’re then using for their front-end development. We had to do a lot of custom work on it, but it was all pretty interesting.
My role on the project is the product manager since I’m a Principal Product Manager here at Brightspot, and it's really interesting coming on board because a different product manager had done all of the discovery and then handed that off to me. Then, I got to work with her notes and work with the customer on refining what they really wanted and getting it built for them. We’re nearing the end of that project but it’s been really interesting and cool to work on.
You've worked on lots of interesting projects over the past three years. Is there a particular one that stands out to you? If so, why?
I would say the AP News website relaunch stands out the most. It was really interesting and was completed at breakneck speed. We started doing work at the end of January, then started with the actual code in early February, and then finally launched it at the end of June. It was a very fast turnaround time and there was a lot of work for it because we had the complete front end, the whole design process, and building out the theme for the CMS and a lot of custom modules and pieces like that. We also had to customize the CMS to work with their newswire service, which is what AP is so known for, to make sure that we could get all of their stories off the wire and into the right places on their website. This all needed to happen automatically and very quickly. I think it was one of the coolest things I’ve worked on at Brightspot, and I think the website turned out really well. I was excited to see it when it was finished, and very proud to have worked on it.
How have you grown professionally since starting at Brightspot?
I think I have grown a ton just from working on many different projects. You always get different experiences and learn something new with every project. I think I have got better about having difficult conversations with customers, which happens on the rare occasions when it's needed. It can be tough to have these conversations when things are not going as expected because it can be very stressful. I'm at a place where I'm able to have those conversations; to be transparent with the customer about where we are in the process, discuss why there are issues, figure out what our next steps are and how we’re going to get back on track. That’s not something that comes easily to me because I hate disappointing people and I'm very conflict averse. It’s easy when everything is going great — I love talking to customers when everything is going smoothly! So, I’ve definitely grown a bit and learned how to have some of those more difficult conversations.
What is your biggest strength as a product manager and why?
I'm somebody who, in my opinion, does a really good job of understanding what customers need. They’ll ask a question, but it may be that they don’t fully know what they’re asking for, or they don’t know how to ask for something. I’m very good at understanding what it is that they’re actually trying to accomplish when they ask those questions and at getting some of those underlying pieces that they might not know how to express. I also think I’m very good at understanding what a lot of their concerns are, which is helpful so that I can make sure that those are addressed and all questions are answered. I do a lot of customer trainings, demos and other things that I genuinely enjoy. Generally working with our customers and stakeholders is probably my biggest strength.
Do you have any piece of advice for college students or those who are starting their careers in product management?
I would say honestly, especially if you’re at Brightspot or a company like Brightspot, sit in on meetings and client conversations on different projects if you can. This will help you get a sense of all of the different pieces of what the company works on. Plus, this gives you a good birds-eye view of everything that you might get to work on so that you can have an idea of what it is that you’re interested in and start to figure out if there is somewhere you want to focus. Find out if there's there a part that you’re really drawn to and try and get a lot of overall experience so that you can narrow that down and figure out what it is that you enjoy working on.
Besides the people, what is your favorite part about working at Brightspot?
I really like our product and I really like the CMS! At my previous job, I had worked on a handful of different content management systems and editorial groups. I had come to it with a very editorial perspective and there are always things you run into where you’re like, “I wish I could just do this," or "I wish that thing was a little bit easier," or even "I wish I could customize this.” There are just common frustrations that I'd always run into. However, when I was first training at Brightspot and learning how to use the platform, I just kept thinking this would have been so great at my last job, and wished we had this when I was working there. I really do feel like Brightspot is really well built, thoughtful and useful in a way that I understand why customers really like working with it because, given my choice, it’s what I would use to make my website.
What are your favorite activities or hobbies to do outside of the office?
I am a writer! I’ve written a couple of novels outside of work. That's where I spend a lot of time. I spend of a lot of time writing and thinking about hopefully writing another book someday, but you never know — nothing has been sold yet! This summer, just because I thought it would be fun to try a new hobby, I’m gonna be taking some pottery classes, which I’ve never done before. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at it, but I'm excited to try it. I think it’ll be fun to do something new.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
This is really hard! I don’t know, I went on a big trip to Japan last spring which was amazing. It was great because my sister planned all of it so I didn’t have to figure out where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do. I really like going places, but I hate planning the trips. I think it would be fun to visit India. I really want to have really good mangoes, which I feel is harder in North America. I’d love to visit Australia and New Zealand as well someday — basically places that are really far away I guess is what I’m getting at. I don’t have a bucket list but I should put one together because I do like traveling a lot. I just hate planning.
What is your favorite movie of all time?
I would probably say Newsies. It’s a kid’s movie and musical. I probably watched it a hundred times when I was a kid and I have probably watched it a hundred times since then. It’s just very charming and I never get tired of it.
