About me

Every experience is a story. Sometimes we’re quiet about our stories, and sometimes it seems no one is listening. Dynamics like this—which keep stories from being told or from being heard—rob the world of vital insights, and keep people from making connections that matter.

I learned how to write stories when I studied poetry and worked as a volunteer journalist, but I learned to hold stories and care for them when I worked for a global non-profit. As my design career progressed I came to see products and organizations as containers for stories—not just “user stories” but experiences of impact at the intersection of humanity and technology.

Brand strategist John Simmons wrote:

“Stories are at the heart of any culture, every system of belief. They are the way we share what we have in common. They are the way we understand another person’s philosophy, to embrace it or reject it. They create links between people and they build bridges between different minds and different worlds.”

In my work as a product and design leader who understands the power of stories I’ve pursued creative challenges that provide ways for people to have an authentic voice.

In brand and identity design I focused on understanding the “why” behind the person or organization in order to connect my creative work to the heart of a story that matters.
In communication design for non-profits I built digital platforms and communication channels for transformational stories and pursued strategies that elevated the voices of storytellers while awakening and inspiring those who listened to them.
In product design for consumer software reviews, I made it easier and more powerful for people to share the stories of their software experiences so they had an amplified voice to influence change in the products they used.
In organizational design and systems design I’ve shaped design systems, environments, practices, and cultures so that people can work at their highest potential to attain the best results possible.
As a design leader and as a product manager I’ve established, shaped, and guided teams to trust each other deeply in order to share and create a better future together.

My story is one of pursuing excellence and multiplying and amplifying the efforts of those around me. I’m a teacher, mentor, and coach who celebrates when those around me improve and win. I learn from every person I work with and I never want to stop learning. I believe the best ideas often come from unexpected places, so I hold space for diverse voices and perspectives. As a father, I learn so much from my children.

I thrive in complex environments with loads of ambiguity. I have a bias for action as a way to discover new insights and turn unknowns into strategic advantages.

This often follows a path of discovery, assessment, prioritization, and action in a continual learning loop. Based on what we know and what we assume, we try things, learn, and iterate. I’ve written about this process on Medium in 4 Iterative Practices for Navigating Product Management and Life.

In my experience, teams are the best context for the best stories. I excel at collaboration and alignment to vision and outcomes, solving problems and unblocking teams so we can take action, achieve outcomes, and improve continuously. I‘ve learned to be excellent at remote work as well as face to face work. I’m comfortable and competent at both.

As a poet, designer, and product leader I build and collaborate with creative, empowered, high-performing teams who solve problems and innovate solutions at the intersection of humanity and technology.

For more than 15 years I’ve intentionally pursued collaborative creativity from various angles and roles across multiple industries.

I’m inspired by people who overcome impossible odds to change the course of the future. Empowered product teams pursue data-driven insights to understand problems and iterate solutions—often within complex environments with a lot of unknowns—to create the future.

Today that has a lot to do with AI and the confluence of written and verbal communication in conversational design.

I’m also an endurance athlete with a love for trail running. I’m volunteering some of my time to support the TrailRunning2032 campaign to get trail running into the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2032 in Brisbane, Australia. I’m working to create a way for people to share their trail running stories from around the world.

Some notable strengths:

Cross-functional collaboration and execution. Connecting diverse people and ideas and collaboratively building a strategic story is one of my poetic superpowers. I focus on building trust with great communication.

Versatility and what’s next. I have a strong growth mindset, always ready to learn. As a result I’ve honed my own strategic exploration practices that make it possible for me to learn quickly and constantly as we navigate complexity together. This allows me to be successful across many different industries.

Actionable insights. I see how the same principles that make great companies apply to products—strong principles and values, observable data, trusted and actionable insights, strong foundations and infrastructure for empowered decision-making, high performance, and value.

Agile Methodologies. I’ve excelled at implementing and executing Agile (and particularly Scrum) methodologies at multiple fast-paced companies. I’ve performed functions of Product Owner and Scrum Master and am comfortable operating at a high level across those practices and collaborating with others to leverage each other's strengths.

Epic poets craft songs that inspire others to live a bigger story. Designers create possibility where none existed. Product leaders head into the unknown and turn ambiguity into pathways. I integrate all of these holistically.

Find me on LinkedIn, Medium, Strava and Bluesky. I also serve as a mentor with ADPList.

About the site

This site is an independent publication relaunched in October 2024 by Jase Miller, poet and product/design leader. You can find additional writing on Medium and follow me on Bluesky.

The previous site, focused on a very selected abstract of an otherwise wide-ranging portfolio, was hand-coded. This site is now running Ghost as its platform. Learn more at http://ghost.org.