Pollinator Community,

Longtime readers know that here in the Garden, we approach product work as broader than simply prioritizing features and driving to delivery. Rather, we treat it as a job of making meaning, solving problems, and building communities through the services, technology, and experiences that organizations deliver to their customers. In other words, Product and UX is human work. You may have even heard me describe a product as a vehicle for an organization to put its mission into the world.

The Pollinator and Solution Design Group (SDG) are based in an inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis, MN. Because of harrowing recent events here in our beloved Minnesota home, and in keeping with SDG's company values of Serving Selflessly and Thriving Together, SDG's Pollinator Editorial Committee has decided not to publish the typical Pollinator that we had originally prepared to send this week. The breezy 1980s New Wave reference we had designed our opening essay around can wait.

As we pause, we invite you, our garden of product practitioners, to make meaning, solve problems, and build communities. To do human work.

To that end, we've curated a selection of resources on product for meaning-makers and community-builders.

Next month, we'll return to our regularly scheduled pollinating.

On to an abbreviated Garden,

Product Resources for Meaning-Makers and Community-Builders

A curated list for the Pollinator community.

• Product communities of practice: everything you need to know, by Petra Wille

• Mission-driven product management, by Kyle Grant, in Extra Credit: A Tech Blog by Guild

• Lessons learned from six years of building a community of practice, by Scott Colfer

• Building communities that work, with Emily Webber on The Product Experience, from Mind the Product

• Finding your purpose in product management, by E.R. Burgess, on Medium

• Why communities help you build better products, by Scott Baldwin, Productboard

• Finding fulfillment, by Jason Cohen, A Smart Bear

• Building mission-driven products in regulated industries: lessons from 20 years in product management, hosts Amanda Vandiver and Adam Landis, with guest Patrick Wesonga, How I Grew This (podcast)

• How to launch and market your online community, by Carrie Melissa Jones (YouTube video)

• Empathy: how the best product managers achieve customer-centricity, Petersen Product Strategy

• One thing that has sustained me (on the power of community), by Jason Knight, on LinkedIn

Note on this issue’s title and heading image

L'Étoile du Nord is the official Minnesota state motto. It is French for “The Star of the North.” North Stars are also important to product teams.

The John James Audubon painting is the Minnesota state bird, the Common Loon. Loons are an iconic motif in SDG’s home state.

About the Pollinator

• The Pollinator is a free publication from the Product practice at Solution Design Group (SDG). Each issue features an opening reflection and a curated digest of noteworthy content and articles from across the internet’s vast product community.

• Solution Design Group (SDG) is an employee-owned digital product innovation and custom software development consultancy based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Our team of over 200 consultants and other technology and business professionals includes experienced software engineers, technical architects, user experience designers, and product and innovation strategists. We serve companies across industries to discover promising business opportunities, build high-quality technology solutions, and improve the effectiveness of digital product teams.

• The Pollinator's editor is Jason Scherschligt, SDG's Head of Product. Please direct complaints, suggestions, and especially praise to Jason at [email protected].

• Why The Pollinator? Jason often says that as he works with leaders and teams across companies and industries, he feels like a honeybee in a garden, spending time on one flower, moving to another, collecting experiences and insights, and distributing them like pollen, so an entire garden blooms. How lovely.