djing
I bought a Pioneer DDJ-SB2 Controller a few years ago. Although I sold the controller in the end and had fun on Trading 212 (somewhat), it was eye-opening.
My first exposure to DJing was my uncle. He had a massive vinyl collection and loved Ghanaian Highlife mixed with some 70’s Funk. In my teens, it was the likes of DJ Ironman. I remember seeing his vinyls from Big Apple Records as he helped MCs thrive during his sets. Today, it's a close friend of mine, Ronnie Loko. A specialist on the decks, and also a talented producer.
All three characters demonstrated three common traits — curiosity, experimentation, and empathy. If you don’t have these three traits as a DJ, you’ll struggle. Whilst in my case, I would struggle to be a proficient Product Manager. Let’s delve into those three traits, and see how Djing and Product Management compare.
1) Curiosity
DJs are super curious about music. Traditionally, they would visit record shops and look through the newest vinyls. Today, DJs use that same curiosity but prefer platforms like Soundcloud and Spotify to find the newest mixes. Their curiosity is purposeful — to find the latest songs and make sure their sets are relevant at all times.
Product Management is the same, but we are curious about users. It is our mission to understand how customers use our products through qualitative and quantitative data. If we are not gaining insight about our users from the data, then it could fail — just like a DJ playing Rick James instead of Rick Ross at a sweet 16’s party. We must stay curious, be relevant to users, and continuously seek to understand how users can interact with our product even more.
2) Experimentation
The best DJs are experimentalists. They can crossfade, build and drop, or mix up the tempo of two opposing genres to make a new melody. However, the uncertainty of not knowing whether the audience will like your mixing is a beautiful mix of anxiety and challenge. If the audience doesn't buy into it, the DJ tries something else. If the audience does, the DJ stores that in the chamber for the next set and receives compliments with a badge of honour.
Experimentation is artillery for Product Managers as well. We can spend hours thinking about what A/B experiments could help our products, causing us to feel that same level of uncertainty. Will our experiments confirm our ideas on optimizing the product? Or, will it fail and compel us to rethink the strategy? Either can happen. The most important part is being comfortably uncomfortable about it, noting down the learnings, then experimenting again and again.
3) Empathy
DJs tap into empathy to win the audience. It takes a certain amount of emotional intelligence to know when the audience doesn’t like a particular track you put on your setlist, or when you have got the crowd so excited that you have to start the track from the beginning (aka a “Reload” or “Wheel-Up”). DJs usually understand which tracks work best during a particular time in their set — this ability to put themselves in the audience's shoes is a win.
The empathetic Product Manager seeks ways to understand various stakeholders (i.e. Engineers & Designers) too. Understanding how they work allows us to contextualise our planning. So, it is key to value their roles and not make assumptions about their input to the product. Just like a DJ reading their crowd, we should work in response to the team and ensure we consider their approaches to building the best product.
Until next time, here’s a masterpiece in DJing.
