Daniel Thomason's Essays
I write about anything that interests me, for two purposes:
1. To help myself understand the topic more deeply
2. To spread knowledge and ideas
I've highlighted some of my favourites just below, plus at the bottom you can find a list of my categories and tags.
My Favourite Essays
Which TV shows should I show my toddler?
Daniel's opinionated list of children's shows: what I'm going to let my daughter watch, and why. Possibly helpful for other parents!
The Core Questions of Product Management
Product management is a complex discipline, with a lot of moving parts and no shortage of things to think about. Luckily, breaking out of this is actually fairly easy. There is a set of core questions at the heart of product management, and if you simply return to those regularly you can't go wrong, and you'll be able to cut through the noise.
Product managers should straddle utopia and reality
Product management is a hard job. Some of the reasons for this are mundane: long hours, lots of responsibility, isolation. But one big reason for why the job is difficult is not related to the execution factors (i.e. what you might call work/life balance), but rather the fundamental nature of the job itself: the need to live in two worlds simultaneously.
All Essays
The Grasshopper and the Widget
A short economic fable, in the style of Aesop, about a grasshopper who discovers that the value of his work depends on countless hands he never sees.
Which TV shows should I show my toddler?
Daniel's opinionated list of children's shows: what I'm going to let my daughter watch, and why. Possibly helpful for other parents!
You can’t buy layoff insurance (but you can build it)
We insure our cars against crashes, our homes against fires, and our bodies against illness. But we can't insure against one of the biggest risks we face as employees: suddenly getting laid off!
Do many happy communities add up to a better world?
The question I’m pondering is: can we truly get to a better world by all of us tending to our tiny corner of it? Or would a truly better world require all those micro actions to be complemented by some grand-scale work?
The Core Questions of Product Management
Product management is a complex discipline, with a lot of moving parts and no shortage of things to think about. Luckily, breaking out of this is actually fairly easy. There is a set of core questions at the heart of product management, and if you simply return to those regularly you can't go wrong, and you'll be able to cut through the noise.
Thoughts on education
My thoughts on educating children and teenagers; an evolving document as I think more.
Don't play 3D chess, play fractal chess
3D chess is a tired metaphor that will lead you in the wrong direction. Instead, you want to play fractal chess: increase the layers of game that you're playing, not simply the complexity.
Product managers should straddle utopia and reality
Product management is a hard job. Some of the reasons for this are mundane: long hours, lots of responsibility, isolation. But one big reason for why the job is difficult is not related to the execution factors (i.e. what you might call work/life balance), but rather the fundamental nature of the job itself: the need to live in two worlds simultaneously.
How should a Product Manager spend their time?
For Product Managers, the core dilemma – one I see many fresh PMs struggle with – is how to allocate your time. You only have 40 (ha!) hours in a working week, so what should you do with them?