Can you share a time when your storytelling didn't work as intended and what you learned from it?

The reality is, this happens more often than not. Messaging is all about how people internalize it and how they repeat it back in their own words. Over the years, I've learned that it's nearly impossible to get it 100% as you intend. As an example, a few years ago, I was working on a joint value prop exercise with an important partner (who was much bigger in the industry), and it showed in the messaging. While the initial thought was to be seen as a critical component of the larger infrastructur ...Read More

Early in my PMM career, I focused too much on technical depth and value statements while losing sight of the human element. Coming from a background as a classroom teacher and then PR, when I first moved into product marketing, I felt I needed to prove my technical credibility. I overcompensated by focusing heavily on technical details and efficiency values, trying to meet what I thought was the bar for great PMM work. In this effort, I lost sight of what matters most - what the product means fo ...Read More

I learned the hard way about the importance of understanding your audience's perspective when we misjudged game developers' reaction to AI messaging. In early 2023 at Unity, when everyone was having their generative AI moment, we were announcing new AI capabilities in our platform. However, we failed to fully appreciate how our audience - game developers - would receive this messaging. Throughout that year, several factors changed the landscape: the Hollywood writers' strike, downward pressure o ...Read More

I recently fell into the trap of using generic industry jargon when presenting to analysts instead of maintaining authentic, human-centered language. We're currently refreshing messaging for one of our hero products, and before testing it with customers, we had the opportunity to present to industry analysts. During these presentations, I found myself using exactly the kind of language I advise against - terms like "purpose-built," "AI-native," "agentic," and "unified." We went quite far with th ...Read More