In my introduction I left you on a bit of a cliffhanger. Well, truth is, I’m sort of left on a cliffhanger myself. What I can tell you is some vague, abstract, idealized, fragment of an idea of what might be next. This could also be completely off-base so future readers I make no guarantees as to the accuracy of these statements.

Product Management. If you’ve started out a software company or have never worked in the software industry this term might not mean a whole lot to you. It definitely mean much to me when I first started in a software company. We have Product Engineering, Software Development, and Product Management – so what’s the difference? I’m not too sure. What I can tell you is that Product Management, to me, marries the business and legal side of the house with the creative value-add of the development work. You set the general tone of the product suite, you figure out how best to position your product in the market, you figure out how to sell and license, you figure out how to protect revenue, and all other sorts of things besides just programming. To summarize, albeit probably inaccurate, it’s a bit of software development with an emphasis on high-level strategy. The big picture, if you will.

Why the interest in Product Management you ask? As someone who currently works in the Contracts & Legal Services Department my entire role is protecting the company’s interests while enabling business development. Product Management would allow me to flex my technical skills while utilizing 5+ years of experience with contracts and licensing. I’d say this could give me a fairly unique skillset in the industry. Stay tuned to find out.