Art of the Product is a blog about all the decisions, big and small, that go into creating any product or service. What makes a good product vision? How do you satisfy a market and create differentiators? What usability factors must be considered? How important are aesthetics? How will it get marketed and sold?

With each post, we explore an aspect of product or service design, pulling in real world examples and teasing out the lessons that can be learned.

Jake Levirne

email jakelevirne at artoftheproduct dot com

I’m a full time board game designer and a software product manager in my free time. Or maybe it’s the other way around. I spent the last 10 years directing the design, development, and launch of dozens of enterprise search and commerce software releases. Currently I lead product management for the Search and Discovery portfolio within IBM’s Enterprise Content Management group, delivering legal search applications to both large and small global enterprises.

The Search and Discovery development team makes heavy use of agile development methodologies (specifically Scrum). IBM’s globally distributed development organization presents unique challenges for an agile process, and I enjoy adapting agile tools and methods to work within this context.

Before IBM, I worked for a number of start-ups in the areas of search, sales data visualization, and online banking. In addition, I started and ran an online photofinishing service and real estate investment company (which luckily I no longer own).

I currently spend my free time playing and designing board games, hiking, reading, and enjoying both lazy and crazy days with my wife and baby daughter. At various times I have tried the following hobbies and activities and I may regain interest in any one at any moment:

• Skydiving (just once)
• Playing guitar
• Photography
• Golfing
• Toobing
• Living in Santa Monica, CA
• Driving across the U.S.
• Brewing beer
• Painting (both pictures and walls)
• Sinking money into my house

Sean Johnson

email seanjohnson at artoftheproduct dot com

I got a Commodore VIC-20 computer for Christmas when I was 6 (which was a long time ago) and ever since I’ve spent a portion of most everyday designing and writing software. These days I use Macintoshes, not Commodores, and I’m taller now, but one thing that has only grown stronger over the years is my passion for good user experience and simplicity in software.

I’m a software architect for IBM working in the Search and Discovery development team. I’m also a father, a husband, a hockey goalie… and I dabble in philosophy. In my free time I work with a cohort of like minded technical entrepreneurs in a little venture called Snooty Monkey that is focused on creating small software businesses in my adopted home town of Chapel Hill, NC. The first result of this effort is BubbleTimer.

Before IBM, I worked as an architect, product manager and software strategist for various start-ups in the area of collaborative computing, process automation, product data management and enterprise content management.