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Hey Reader,

As you all know, I’ve been heads down working on my sold out course, Product Strategy for Designers. Geared towards individuals who want to level up their careers, but are looking for a framework on how to get there.

Missed out? Sign up for the waitlist.​

In design communities (including our own!) there’s been a lot of discussion around North Stars, collaboration, and the many different ways to approach an ambiguous problem.

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Which is why when I came across this article, “Make it easier is not a product strategy by Pawel Samsonov, a problem designer at AWS, I had to share!

He talks about a hypothesis-driven approach to product strategy:

• A problem needs to be clearly framed in order to identify the capabilities that we want to provide users.
• In this step, Pawel proposes that as a company, you aim to understand the user’s end goal, the friction experienced, the missing opportunities that your company could provide, and the proposed solution.

It’s easy for leaders to write “just make it easier” into the PRD. But this is where you have the opportunity to showcase your curiosity and problem-solving abilities to your team and influence product roadmap decisions - and ultimately get a seat at the table to level up your career.

This is what my course is all about and I’m so excited to kick off in April! Interested in my course creation process? Check out my new video here.​

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In this issue:

• 🔥 Energize your career with the best designers
• 🫶 VanUX awards
• 👀 A sneak peek of course slides
• ✍️ A guest blog feature
• 🎤 Design life is back!
• 💎 Gems of the week

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Energize Your Career With The Best Designers

Are you looking to take your career to the next level?

Coho's fellowships offer access to a highly curated program designed to help you build confidence, learn from industry leaders, and cultivate a personal advisory board. As current fellow and Designer at IKEA, Alexis Oh, says, "If you're moving into management, building the design wing from scratch or steering your career beyond senior IC roles, then this community will be invaluable for your professional growth."

Join forces with Alexis and other top designers from leading companies such as Netflix, Spotify, Apple, and Shopify, and energize your career with Coho.

✅ Advanced courses to upskill your career

My course, Product Strategy for Designers is sold out but there are many more Dive courses in our ecosystem for you to check out! From Design systems to becoming advanced in Figma, these are advanced courses taught by the top designers to propel you in your career. Use code FEMKE10 for 10% off.

✨ VanUX Awards 2023

I’ll be speaking at the Vancouver UX Awards on March 29, 2023

Known as Vancouver’s largest UX Design event, there will be opportunities for user-centric organizations, agencies, start-ups, freelancers, and students to be recognized for their work over the past year. Interested in submitting your work? Submit here.​

👀 A sneak peek at course slides

A sneak peek at module 2, developing a product strategy. In this lesson, we'll work towards increasing confidence in contributing to product strategy. I'll also share how to influence product strategy through design, and the difference between outcomes and output.

Join the Talent Collective ✨

Looking to move up in your career, or perhaps looking for something new? Search through our collection of curated product design job opportunities.

• Launchpad— Senior Product Designer | New York
• Collctiv (backed by Techstarts)— Senior Product Designer | Remote.
• Linea Labs—Senior Product Design | SF/Bay Area, United States.
• Stelo Labs (backed by A16Z)— Mid-Senior Product Designer | New York, Remote, North America
• Budgie Health (backed by Correlation Ventures)— Senior-Expert Product Designer | New York

New jobs are added every Friday! Join the talent collective here.​

🧑‍💻 Design Life is back!

Episode 274: Are you inexperienced if you don't name your layers?

In our first episode of 2023, we discuss this question and why gatekeeping like this within the industry holds designers back.

✍️ Design community and lessons learned guest feature on Rosieland

I met with Sara Saunders of Rosieland to talk about how I found myself in the community, what it takes to run the community, and lessons learned. Read more here.​

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Gems of the week 💎

Carly Ayres @carlyayres Calling all people who make things and talk about them: Our speaker call for Config 2023 is officially open! Submit your bangers and mark those calendars, friends. ✨ twitter.com/figma/status/1… Figma @figma Save the date for Config 2023. Join us live in San Francisco or virtually from around the world June 21 - 22. Registration opens April 4. config.figma.com pic.twitter.com/Ul6PaDwfN4 March 1st 2023 2 Retweets 23 Likes

🙌 Speaker call for Config 2023 is officially open!

juan @juanbuis wife: oh my god i think the baby’s coming me: don’t worry i have the uber app pic.twitter.com/p9solgTsMG March 1st 2023 4 Retweets 83 Likes

A funny joke on Uber’s new app UI updates 😆

femke @femkesvs 2 modules filmed – 4 to go. Here's how it's going for those of you interested 😅 share.descript.com/view/UJBEY0ZZL… femke @femkesvs maven.com/dive/product-s… February 28th 2023 0 Retweets 16 Likes

Working on my course has been fun and fulfilling, but not all a smooth ride - for example, this chaotic moment captured on camera, haha!

Have a topic you'd like us to chat about? Reply to this email and let me know!

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