The Future of CitiesThe moment I fell in love with Product Management was during my time at Strålfors, one of Europe's largest print houses.
I had sold my company MAILA.com, a digital communication company, to them. The Strålfors CEO, Per Samuelsson, brought me into a room and said: "Magnus, I want you to guide this beautiful company into the digital age!" I was honored, Strålfos was a giant in communication and had an impressive digital portfolio already.
I took on the quest. We started developing phenomenal products, but that was not enough. We needed a new way of working. Product Management had to be completely redesigned.
We started working with the concept of Driving Forces in my product team. Driving forces is a methodology to predict significant changes in the market. We launched a new product called Gateway Direct, and the success was imminent. We had built a bridge between the existing offering and the future.
It became obvious. Product management is about solving today's problems and building a bridge to the future. We, as Product Managers, are future tellers. What a fantastic job we have.
Bas Boorsma is planning and creating the future of cities. He is a professor at Thunderbird School of Management and a former director for smart cities and innovation at Cisco.
The cities are a vital part of our future. The exchange of goods, services, and knowledge has always happened in the cities. Today the Internet is challenging the cities. Professor Boorsma shared the key ingredients for the future of cities:
Adaptive, Resilient, Digitalized, Regenerative, and Sharing Cities
Understand the future and build the bridge; that is your awesome job!
