Forem: Godson Njoku

Code of Conduct for the Collective

Godson Njoku — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 12:22:09 +0000

Code of Conduct. Source - Google

Last updated: 5/09/2020

Diversity is one of our huge strengths, but it can also lead to communication issues and unhappiness. To that end, we have a few ground rules that we ask people to adhere to.   This code of conduct applies equally to organizers, speakers representatives, and participants all the same.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of things that you can’t do but rather, a guide to make it easier to enrich all of us and the technical and creative communities in which we participate. This code of conduct applies to all activities and virtual spaces organized by the Collective.

This includes the mailing lists, the questions asked, supports given from and to fellow learners, and any other forums created by the organizing team which the community uses for communication. In addition, violations of this code outside these spaces may affect a person's ability to participate within them.

Code of Conduct

Be welcoming.  We are striving to be a community the welcomes and supports each other. This includes and is not limited to ethnicity, gender, economic class, educational level, etc.
Introductions.  When starting a new direct message with someone, it is of good etiquette to always introduce yourself, say what you do. It helps smoothen the conversation and serves as an Icebreaker.   Be patient and friendly - Don’t be a “know it all”.  A great number of us are here to learn from one another, try to be patient and welcoming to everyone as you know your words have more impact than you think especially those who are trying to carve a path towards a new career.
Careful in the words that you choose.  We are a community of professionals, and we conduct ourselves professionally. Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other participants. Harassment and other exclusionary behaviour aren't acceptable. This includes, but is not limited to:
a. Violent threats or language directed against another person.
b. Discriminatory jokes and language.
Posting sexually explicit or violent material.
c. Posting (or threatening to post) other people's personally identifying information ("doxing").
d. Personal insults, especially those using racist, tribalistic/(xenophobic), exclusionary jokes or sexist terms.
e. Unwelcome sexual attention and repeated harassment of others.
f Advocating for, or encouraging, any of the above behaviours.

Virtual Spaces.  Please adhere to the purpose of the virtual spaces. No posting of irrelevant content or ads.

Reporting Bad Behavior

If you feel uncomfortable or think there may be a potential violation of the code of conduct, please report it immediately using one of the following methods. All reporters have the right to remain anonymous. All complaints will be reviewed and investigated and will result in a response appropriate to the circumstances. By sending information to the general reporting line, your report will go to a representative from the Collective who will ensure that the issue is resolved. Contact channel information is listed below.

General Helpline: unn.dsc@gmail.com

Enforcement

Adherence to and acceptance of this Code of Conduct is a condition of entry to all events organized by the Collective. Participants asked to stop any harassing behaviour are expected to comply immediately. This includes all attendees, sponsors, speakers, organizers, volunteers, and venue or vendor staff.

If a participant engages in behaviour that violates the Code of Conduct, Organizers retain the right to take any actions to keep the event a welcoming environment for all participants. This includes, but is not limited to, warning the offender, expulsion from the event and a ban on attending future events.

Who is a Product Manager

Godson Njoku — Wed, 08 Jul 2020 19:20:46 +0000

Highway in the nighttime. Photo credits - The Frank Effect

I began my journey into the world of product management over the last couple of months and it been a fun learning process. So I decided to do this article as an explainer to try to help answer the question "Who is a product manager?" or "What is product management?" in a simple manner for folks who may be curious or fascinated about the path and want to learn more about it.

Key Takeaways

Define what a product is
Explain who a Product Manager is

Introduction

Product Management is one of the seldomly talked about careers in the industry, but it's gradually getting its time in the sunlight with a lot of organizations opening up roles for Product Managers to help make their products more awesome.

Individuals are also starting to share their ideas and thought process on what it is all about. It is an ever-changing landscape just like business, design, engineering and other career paths.

So let's begin with defining the very basic building blocks of this career discipline - Product.

What is a Product?

There is a whole lot of definitions out on the internet and in your trusty dictionary about what a product is, but I for one like to define a Product as an experience you deliver to a user/customer to bring value to them, for a price.

These experiences could either be a product or a service, physical or non-physical.

Who is a Product Manager?

Just like the definition of a product, there is also a whole lot of definitions about the concept of what the role of a product manager is, and who they are.

This article will skip the heavy lifting for a Google search, and just do a basic definition to serve as a primer, then go on to use an analogy to paint a better picture for you to see.

Moving along the lines of the definition shared above of what a product is, a Product Manager is a custodian of the product (experience) vision. They decide what experience an organization should build when to build, and also whom to build for.

They achieve this by working in cross-functional teams to ensure that these experiences are delivered to the right audience properly.

They are popularly referred to as the CEO of the Product by most people in the industry and I think it is right because a great deal of their leadership is by influence, rather than authority, contrary to logic or traditional hierarchy in organizations and this is a major thing that actually helps them get their job done better.

So here comes the analogy to help with storytelling in this article. A product manager can be likened to those operators in the military referred to as 'Forward Observers'. They are those highly skilled commando figures who go into combat carrying a radio strapped to their backs and radio in commands and artillery support of all kinds, depending on the mission. They help ensure that the mission is successful.

I will be making a direct comparison on how these folks are similar (relatively of course) to Product Managers and I will also refer to a Forward Observer as 'FOs' and Product Manager as 'PM' as we go forward in the article.

A military operator. Source- HD Game wallpapers

FOs can be likened to PMs because they are a critical piece of personnel in today's world of military defence as opposed to when they first became available in WW1 where generals didn't see the need for them. But as modern warfare evolved, the need for them gradually became so obvious. This is quite similar for PMs as the history of Product Management shows that it wasn't originally a traditional role which you could ideally obtain as a university discipline. It was rather created out of necessity by folks in the marketing sphere to help drive their AD campaigns better.

In 1931, Neil McElroy wrote a memo to Proctor & Gamble. The young advertising executive proposed the idea of a "brand man" — a role with specific responsibilities to manage the complete product brand and be accountable for its success.

So you can see just how important this has become to big businesses who want to manage resources efficiently, sell to a wider range of audience and also don't want their products to fail.

A coordinated military breach. Source- HD Game wallpapers

The same thing arose for military chiefs who wanted better sync between platoon leadership and the platoon sergeant, as well as better artillery support, which is very important as those armaments didn't come cheap and were limited. Everything had to be done with pin-point accuracy, as often as possible.

This meant that this individual was highly skilled to be able to hold their own down in combat, make quick decisions, coordinate with platoon leadership and the platoon sergeant, and still play a very functional role in the team apart from the medic.

So what does that tell you about the PMs? It means that they are able to understand the underlying details and goals of a product from the leadership/management (the CEO and the board), narrow it down and work with cross-functional teams - engineering, design, marketing, legal etc, while making sure there is information sync. They also decide what amount and kind of resources will be funnelled towards a particular product and if need be, whether to discontinue a product also.

The Intersection. Source - Atlassian

A lot of resources out there put a Product Manager as someone who lies at the intersection of management, engineering and design. But on the fine print, it's a whole lot more. The fundamentals remain quite the same; to ship the right experience at the right time and to the right people with just about the right team of people.

Sources:

Who is a Product Manager - #Thread by Nnamdi Azodo @simplyazodo-

Introduction to Product Management

How Forward Observers Operate in the Military to Coordinate Artillery

New Origins - The Journey

Godson Njoku — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 21:26:19 +0000

Train Tracks Into the Distance. Photo credits - The Frank Effect

I have always been drawn to technology, very much fascinated from a young age. My parents saw this, every relative who came around knew this. My dad being a forward-thinking person from the start, set up a desktop in our home by the time I was age 8-9 and got it connected to the internet. It was interesting to surf the web and play internet games and just read up on nerd stuff such as the Instructables, makeusof and others.

But my venture into the world of technology and product development itself will begin very much later when I was in my first year at the University of Nigeria. I returned to my off-campus apartment from a long day of lectures and found my neighbour, who was an Engineering grad working on a side project of his. I found him building an android app to allow him to control a circuit wirelessly over Bluetooth and that was it.

I got hooked and I started googling and reading up on everything I could find to help me get started. So, I managed to get Android Studio on my underpowered Lenovo PC, which took a lot of beating for this.

I struggled for quite a bit with Gradle and decided that I wasn't making enough progress because of the limitations I faced; my hardware wasn't solid enough so I switched over to web development - frontend precisely, which my machine could cater for properly.

One of many gathering with Awesome People in the community at UNN

I also began helping to coordinate the tech community on my campus. Helping people get started and navigating their path in tech became a thing for me and boy, did I enjoy the human interactions from this. Things were starting to look a bit clearer than before, I met a bunch of very interesting people and built a really good circle of friendship with some talented folks. I was driven by my will to get better and make a living out of working in the tech sphere in the coming future.

Now, my journey into tech was not a bed of roses and didn't come without its own hassles and downtimes. I found it quite difficult at the beginning to balance school with it and later on, I learnt how to hedge my bets with every decision I made concerning finding the balance.

Given that I was a community leader, I put together a lot of activities for the different audiences, and paths to help people find their way around. This allowed me to play across very different paths, learn how they work, read stuff up on them and understand them so I could build these activities properly.

This brought along anxiety; with me trying to figure out where I was, desperate to figure out where I truly fit into within the broad spectrum of careers in the tech scene. While I was acing community engagements, I was somewhat stuck on deciding where I wanted to go because I was conflicted as I found many areas in tech interesting.

What kept me together was a mantra, I don't really know if I was the one who came up with it or if I heard it from somewhere and it was "Trust in the process and the Milestones will fall into place" and it still sits in my psyche till date.

Trust in the process and the Milestones will fall into place. Photo credits - The Frank Effect

Then with my regular reading trips on the internet, I stumbled upon the career path - Product Management. It showed promise of having the best of all worlds in tech literally and I was like "let's give it a shot" and I started consuming literature on it, then I invested time and resources in getting a structured course on it.

I learnt quite a lot during the time frame. Along the lines, I discovered that if I was going get a break into the PM Industry, I was going to need experience working in a formal space and possibly make myself a more interesting fit by layering my PM career on top of a path and so I decided on Product Design because somehow, they complimented each other.

Then came the 'Codename Learnable Internship' from Genesys Tech hub in Enugu. I got to know about the internship first from Vitalis - a member of the community in UNN who had ties to Genesys (I can't really remember how). He dropped a flier in our virtual space in 2018 and asked people to take a shot at it. I was in my third year in Economics and my discipline didn't have provisions for folks to have an industrial training or internship as it was a four-year course.

Then I met Obinna who was a former intern/employee at Genesys, who was also leading communities in his own campus, as well as other colleagues of his who often came around with him. He had a couple of engagements in activities I organized on my campus. He was a spectacular person with his presentations.

So the next time I came across the Learnable programme in 2019, I was in my finals and I had a friend - Jerry who was part of the 2019 cohort during his IT/SIWES period. I happened to visit Genesys tech Hub when I was trying to put together a tech activity in Enugu city and I was looking for an enabler to help out. My friend Godsent helped make introductions between me and the program manager at Genesys Tech Hub.

This visit gave me the chance to tour the facility and see what people were doing. This visit sold me on the idea of what they were trying to achieve. I decided to put applying for the internship on my checklist.

So in 2020, applications came through. This year's iteration of the internship had both a physical and virtual internship to accommodate the application numbers and increase the impact of the internship which other iterations couldn't cater for previously.

I applied for the physical internship, and it was a three-stage process with learning curriculum included, helping everyone have a good headstart. The process was a voice call first and an aptitude test if you scaled through the first stage, and finally the selection process. I went through all the stages. The current COVID 19 pandemic made things a bit fuzzy because of the uncertainties that came along with it.

A few days back, I received an email from Genesys and it said that I had been selected to become an Intern in the Learnable 2020 programme. I was ecstatic that a milestone was finally falling into place.

New Origins

Just like the photo of the mural at Genesys I took during my visit last year at the hub and captioned "New Origins", I have begun a new journey...

Explain Inheritance in JavaScript Classes Like I'm Five

Godson Njoku — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 11:42:25 +0000

I am currently learning JavaScript with the aid of Codecademy Interactive JavaScript course and I find inheritance a bit confusing in JavaScript Classes especially in the case of a parent class with say two subclasses and how to implement them