What Product Equity really means - Glenn Block (Founder and CEO, ProdSense)
Jan 15, 2025
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Glenn Block, Founder and CEO of ProdSense, shares his journey from software developer to champion of product equity. He highlights the pressing need for fairness and inclusivity in tech, especially with AI's rapid evolution. Glenn emphasizes the value of auditing product processes to enhance equity and focuses on often-overlooked audiences to improve design. He advocates for engaging underrepresented communities through co-design and collaboration, urging the tech world to prioritize equitable practices over speed.
Product equity ensures that all users can fairly access a product's capabilities, addressing systemic biases in technology design.
Creating equitable products requires organizations to prioritize empathy and inclusivity over speed, preventing negative consequences for diverse user needs.
Deep dives
The Superhero of Product Management
Spider-Man is likened to a product manager due to his unexpected journey into heroism and the ability to balance multiple responsibilities. His guiding principle emphasizes the importance of utilizing one's power responsibly, a notion particularly significant in the rapidly evolving tech landscape shaped by AI. The discussion underscores the parallel between the increased power in the tech sector and the responsibility product managers have in creating equitable products. This metaphor sets the stage for a deeper exploration of product equity, especially in the context of addressing marginalized user experiences.
Understanding Product Equity
Product equity is defined as ensuring all users have fair and just access to a product's capabilities, emphasizing that users should not be harmed or overlooked in the process. It focuses on achieving positive outcomes for all users rather than merely including diverse voices in product development processes. The importance of addressing product equity becomes evident when considering examples of inequitable user experiences that reveal systemic biases in product design. The ultimate goal is to create products that not only serve diverse communities but also enhance overall user satisfaction and accessibility.
Launching a Purpose-Driven Business
The motivation behind starting a business focused on product equity stems from recognizing a significant lack of awareness regarding the harms caused by inequitable product design. Insights gained from academic research into technology's social justice implications highlighted the urgent need for change in product development practices. Initial challenges in communicating the concept of product equity to potential clients reveal a broader gap in understanding among many organizations. The journey involves refining the message to resonate with business leaders while emphasizing the necessity of addressing inequities in user experience.
The Need for Systematic Change
To successfully integrate equitable practices, organizations must shift their mindset and recognize the negative consequences of prioritizing speed over inclusivity in product development. Examples, such as the biased soap dispenser at Meta, highlight the catastrophic effects of overlooking diverse user needs in design processes. Encouraging a culture of empathy and curiosity within organizations plays a crucial role in preventing similar missteps, ensuring products meet the needs of all users. By engaging underrepresented communities through co-design, organizations can leverage valuable insights that drive innovation and increase market reach.
In our latest podcast episode on The Product Experience, Glenn Block, Founder and CEO of ProdSense, discusses the concept of product equity. He emphasizes the importance of creating fair and equitable products in the tech industry, especially amid advances in AI. He shares his journey from a software developer to a product leader and the motivations behind launching his own business focused on product equity.
Our Hosts Lily Smith enjoys working as a consultant product manager with early-stage and growing startups and as a mentor to other product managers. She’s currently Chief Product Officer at BBC Maestro, and has spent 13 years in the tech industry working with startups in the SaaS and mobile space. She’s worked on a diverse range of products – leading the product teams through discovery, prototyping, testing and delivery. Lily also founded ProductTank Bristol and runs ProductCamp in Bristol and Bath.
Randy Silver is a Leadership & Product Coach and Consultant. He gets teams unstuck, helping you to supercharge your results. Randy's held interim CPO and Leadership roles at scale-ups and SMEs, advised start-ups, and been Head of Product at HSBC and Sainsbury’s. He participated in Silicon Valley Product Group’s Coaching the Coaches forum, and speaks frequently at conferences and events. You can join one of communities he runs for CPOs (CPO Circles), Product Managers (Product In the {A}ether) and Product Coaches. He’s the author of What Do We Do Now? A Product Manager’s Guide to Strategy in the Time of COVID-19. A recovering music journalist and editor, Randy also launched Amazon’s music stores in the US & UK.
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