We love reading newsletters and blogs, but there’s a limit to how useful they can be. You end up disappearing down a link-scented rabbit hole in search of exactly the content nugget that will solve your problem.
Then not finding it.
This is where product management communities come in. Just post a question on a community and someone who has been there and done it will (hopefully) answer. Plus you can enjoy being part of a community that understands what you’re trying to do and why.
Here are 5 product management communities we enjoy, hosted on different platforms:
1. Mind the Product (Slack)
This is a big product management community with over 20,000+ members. As you’d expect, there’s a mix of experienced product managers and novices, or people moving over from other roles. For a big community it’s good at keeping discussion on topic and spam free.
We’ve asked questions and received helpful advice. So it gets the thumbs up from us.
There are multiple channels you can belong to including #freshcontent (can be overwhelming), #tools (useful) and #random (our favourite).
2. Elezea (Spectrum.chat)
If you’d like to join a few choice colleagues in detailed discussion about ideas and issues that matter to you, then you need to join this community. Elezea is a tight-knit community started by product manager Ryan van der Merwe. There are currently just over 60 members.
Unlike most other product management communities, it’s not hosted on one of the big social media and chat players like Slack or Facebook. Instead it’s hosted on Spectrum.chat, “The community platform for the future”.
A low noise, high signal community where product managers have slow, helpful conversations about the day-to-day issues we face as PMs.
3. Women in Product (Facebook)
We can get a bit jaded when it comes to Facebook groups, but this is a good one. There is a strong sense of community and most posts spark useful and honest conversations.
Women in Product encourages you to use hastags so you (and others) can find the information you need. They also run #MentorMonday, for mentoring opportunities, and #RecruitingWednesday to share product opportunities.
Women In Product is dedicated to providing women with equal access and representation in product management careers at all levels. This group seeks to provide a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for all women currently working or aspiring to work in Product Management to learn, connect, and grow.
4. Product Manager HQ (Slack)
This is another large, global community for product managers. Lifetime membership costs $25, and acts as a barrier of entry to spammers. There are over 40 channels you can take part in including #pmresources, #newtopm and #uxresearch.
5. Creative Product Managers (LinkedIn)
This group offers a dedicated place for product managers who use LinkedIn. The moderators try hard to keep discussion relevant:
Please, before you post something to the group, make sure it is directly related to Product Management.
Irrelevant content within the discussion area will get you immediately banned from the group.
With almost 75,000 people in the group it makes the Slack channels look positively tiny. As a result, there is rather a lot of ‘broadcasting’ rather than conversation, but that’s not all that unusual for a LinkedIn group.
Just in case…
If you’re a product manager looking for a simple and quick way to collect and prioritise customer or team feedback then check us out at Feature Upvote. We provide feedback boards with in-built voting functionality to companies, universities and organisations around the world.