Vinish Garg: Bringing Product Sense to Content and Design – Episode 198

Vinish Garg Vinish Garg takes a holistic and pragmatic view of the role of content and other crafts in digital product design, using an approach he calls "product sense." Content strategy and design are just two of many practices that contribute to the success of any digital product. All digital practitioners justifiably take pride in their individual crafts, but Vinish encourages content, design, and other practitioners to favor product utility over their individual crafts. We talked about: his current work as a content and design strategist the content and design conference he organizes in Chandigarh, India, and the product thinking he brings to it his take on the concept of "product thinking" in the context of content work how he collaborates with design and product partners the reverse engineering approach he takes to facilitating cross-functional collaboration the concept of "product sense" that he has developed, a neutral, non-practice-specific approach to digital product design how craft and practice managers can create incentives to support cross-disciplinary collaboration the crucial role in his work of promoting and facilitating conversations how focusing on high-level organizational and product goals the role of systems thinking in "product sense" thinking the importance of continuously learning and evolving your professional thinking the role of foundational skills like information architecture in content, design, and product work Vinish's bio Vinish Garg is an independent products consultant who works with product teams on the intersection of UX and design leadership, content design and content strategy leadership, and sometimes product leadership and marketing roles. Vinish works with teams to establish the standards and foundational principles of how we work, and how our standards translate into customer onboarding design, the growth levers, the retention loops, and how our collective intelligence builds sustainable systems. Regardless of the role, Vinish often uses content and design as the foundation of their work. Vinish owns an international conference in Chandigarh, since 2018 — Outcome Conference. They teach content design (with shades of content strategy, and UX and design practices) as part of the masters program in content strategy, in Graz University, Austria. Vinish has been active on Product Hunt since its early days (January 2014), and has spoken to hundreds of founders worldwide on product and design strategy, onboarding, marketing, and growth. Vinish loves civic design and civic tech, and loves to explore how our navigation and information findability patterns in the physical world have parallels in how we design digital experiences. Connect with Vinish online LinkedIn VinishGarg.com (personal website) vhite (consultancy) Twitter Mastadon Medium Outcome Conference Resources and references Product Sense—and the role of content and design Modern design and content systems are flawed Learning Organizations—System Thinking How content design and content strategy can support system thinking (and the other way around) The intersections in our work Peter Senge's talk on system thinking in Aalto University The Fifth Discipline Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/z1VI0J_guB8 Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 198. A number of crafts have to come together to create any digital product. The need in this process to collaborate across functions is well known, as is the importance of being user- and customer-focused. But exactly how you manage the work is unique to every product practice. Vinish Garg brings a fresh approach to his work. His "product sense" method encourages content, design, and product practitioners to favor product utility over their individual crafts. Interview transcript Larry: Hi,