Books I have read in 2020 — Part 3
You can read the Part 1 and Part 2 here.
Design & Content
- Creative Confidence by Tom & David Kelly
Till a few years back, I considered myself left-brained and stayed away from anything creative. It changed slowly when I started managing consumer products (web & Apps) in the last 5years as I need to constantly involved in lots of creative decisions (design, copy, etc). I started loving the entire process. Now I love involved in creative discussions more than data, tech-related.
This book solidified the notion that creativity isn’t innate but can be trained/coached, with the courage to try new ideas and fail. The worst thing for the creative process is in-action, getting stuck in the planning stage. It provides tons of case studies, ideas, and examples for individuals, organizations, and leaders to improve creativity in yourself and your teams. In the end, it even lists a handful of exercises you can do on your own or with your team to get the creative juices flowing.
2. The Non Designer’s Designer Book by Robin Williams
This year I wanted to do hands-on experiments in Design. Before doing that, I wanted to understand the fundamental elements of design. This is an excellent book for Non-designers to get a grasp of basic understanding. The author talks in detail about the 4 elements of Visual Design — Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, and Proximity with lots of good examples. Also, he explains in detail about different typography and how to decide which type is the right one based on the context. This book helped a lot when I started playing around with Photoshop and Figma (UI Design tool) this year. MUST-READ for anyone interested in visual design.
3. Microcopy by Kinneret Yifrah
One of my best reads this year. It’s a must-read book for anyone working in Design, User experience, Copywriting, Marketing, or Product Management roles.
This book is divided into 3 parts
1) how to define brand personality, voice & tone of the brand and motivations, and mental barriers of the target audience.
2)how to write microcopy which motivates action and what users will gain rather than what they need to do to benefit.
3) how to increase usability and help users to avoid friction.
MUST-READ
Product Management
- Meaningful — The Story of Ideas that Fly by Bernadette Jiwa
Meaningful is a quick read, with one key idea surrounded with just enough context to make it sink in: love your customers, then create for them something that will make them feel understood and valued. Something that answers their real problems or needs.
The author’s broader point is that customers want to be understood and helped to do the things they want to do. Successful marketing, therefore, starts with listening and becomes an open dialogue before it converts business.
“The best products and services in the world don’t simply invite people to say ‘this is awesome’; they remind people how great they themselves are.”
This is my favorite quote in this book. It reminds me of thinking of the customer’s story first before you innovate or create the products or services.
2. Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value by Melissa Peri
The build trap (i.e. adding features instead of solving problems) is probably the most common offense in the tech world. The book is short but it manages to cover a lot of important topics: experimentation, outcome vs output, product management vs project management, incentives, policies, and other important factors to become a product-led organization.
It will help you to put the focus on the “why” of the product instead of only on the “what”, “when” and “how”. Without a valid “why”, the other parts shouldn’t be even considered.
Melissa has created a highly relatable and actionable book for product managers at all levels. If you are curious to lead or create a product-centric organization and culture this is the book for you.
I have started recommending this to everyone (along with Inspired by Marty Cagan) who are aspiring PMs or anyone in the PM role. Will revisit the book soon. MUST-READ
Consumer Behaviour
- Unlocking the Customer Value Chain: How Decoupling Drives Consumer Disruption by Thales S. Teixeira, Greg Piechota
The authors beautifully explain how to look at the business model from a customers' point through a framework, Customer Value Chain. This framework splits the various steps in the customer journey and classifies them as value-creating and value-destroying. Disruption comes from breaking the link (decoupling) between activities of a customer value chain in a way that enables a new player to take over a significant market share.
For example, physical stores started to ask for money from Samsung, etc, when people visiting the store started to buy from Amazon. One has to think: what value am I giving to the client (showroom for Samsung products) that I am not yet asking money in return?
MUST-READ for anyone who is interested in knowing more about business models and how it evolves in the tech space contributing directly to disruption.
Overall, 2020 has been an enriching year in terms of reading because of the sheer width of topics which i read and learned. Hope to continue this next year.
