You can use the training course in Portland as a stepping stone towards your international career and teaching English as a foreign language. The city is filled with interesting sites, including the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Pittock Mansion, the Pioneer Courthouse Square Oregon Zoo and Washington Park. Providence Park hosts some of the best soccer and baseball games in the region. Oregon has a wide range of natural scenery to offer. You will find splendid beaches, lush forests and tall mountains across the state. Many people visit Oregon to go surfing, whale watching, hiking and biking. Throughout the entire year, Oregon is the perfect vacation destination. TESOL Orlando When you come to Orlando for your TEFL TESOL course, you will have plenty of opportunities to explore all that the city has to offer. There is a lot to do in your free time in Orlando and you will not get bored. As our center is located in the center of the city, you can easily get to anywhere in a short amount of time. You can also get advice on how to get around and what to see from our center's teacher trainers. We are working hard to provide you the best service possible and make sure that you have the best time during your stay. Orlando is especially famous for its many theme parks. Combined with the year-round excellent weather, millions of people come to Orlando to visit parks such as the Magic Kingdom, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Universal Studios Orlando or the Animal Kingdom. Water parks are also very popular, including Disney's Typhoon Lagoon, Wet N Wild Water Park and Sea World Orlando. TESOL Salt Lake City As the capital and the most populous city in the state of Utah, Salt Lake City has much to offer those choosing to take their TEFL TESOL course here. The city is well known as a hub for a range of outdoor pursuits in the region and this is well demonstrated by its election as the host of the 2002 Winter Olympics. Since the games put Salt Lake City on the world, stage it has seen a dramatic increase in the number of visitors seeking to enjoy the superb winter sports facilities, not to mention the stunning natural beauty of the area. The city was first settled by Mormons in the middle of the 19th century and steadily grew with the arrival of converts to the Church of the Latter-day Saints and people looking to make their fortune prospecting for gold. However, it was the coming of the 20th century. As part of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1870, that really caused the population to grow with mass migration of various groups to the city. Since its founding by the early Mormon settlers, Salt Lake City's population has gradually diversified and the city is now home to a variety of people with different religious and ethnic backgrounds, making it an ever popular city in which to live, work and study. Located in the heart of the western half of the country, Salt Lake City serves as a fantastic base from which to explore the wider region and is known as the crossroads of the west. Surrounded by the wassach and aqua mountain ranges and the Great Salt Lake itself, the city is nestled amongst some of the most outstanding scenery in the United States. The mountains and lake provide visitors with a large number of outdoor activities to pursue throughout the year. However, skiing, hiking and rock climbing are not the only things Salt Lake City has to offer. There are also a number of other attractions including the Lagoon Amusement Park and the Clark Planetarium. RTEF El Tezal course in Salt Lake City is the perfect choice for anyone with an interest in outdoor activities, whether it is skiing in the winter or hiking in the summer, there is plenty to do all year round. Although you do not need to be a thrill seeker to choose Salt Lake City for your courses this friendly city has something for everyone. The combination of stunning surroundings, well equipped training facilities and professional dedicated teacher trainers mean that, no matter what your interests you are bound to have an entertaining and educational experience in the heart of Utah. Tezal Ann Arbor The charming town of Ann Arbor lures in tourists from across the United States and abroad due to the mix of small town feel and big city vibe. Its diverse neighborhoods are home to people of many different cultures making it a unique destination in Michigan. John Allen and Alicia Walker Rumsey established the city on the Huron River in 1824 and the famous University of Michigan opened soon after. With the high quality of the university, people from around the nation flocked to Ann Arbor and the city experienced an economic boom. Still today, the city is a major center for education as well as high tech innovation. Therefore, Ann Arbor is the ideal place to start your ESL journey and to take a TEFL Tezal training course. Ann Arbor has a lot of entertainment opportunities to offer. In Ann Arbor town, you can explore culture and art at some of the finest exhibitions, galleries and museums. The University of Michigan Museum of Art is among the most popular tourist destinations and home to a beautiful collection of local and international art. On top of the vast cultural offerings, Ann Arbor is also a culinary wonderland. The city features over 300 eateries in and around town, from authentic Italian bistros to American diners, everyone will find something delicious to try in Ann Arbor. Many restaurants also offer outdoor dining during music festivals and art exhibitions, transforming the city into an exciting hotspot. Sports fans will have a blast during football season in Ann Arbor. Every football Saturday, thousands of people come to the city to watch the local team compete in a stadium called the Big House. If you want to engage in physical activity yourself, some of the best hiking and biking trails are waiting for you here. On top of that you can go kayaking, swimming and fishing in the Huron River or even try out skiing in the winter months. Throughout the year, the city holds a variety of fairs and festivals, including the Ann Arbor Art Fair. Hundreds of international and local artists meet in the city to showcase their artworks and crafts in the downtown area. As you can see, Ann Arbor is a great destination year-round offering some of the finest leisure activities in the country. The staff at our training center in Ann Arbor will guide you from step one. They are always there when you have questions and will provide helpful feedback to guarantee the best results possible. Our training center is located right in the heart of the city and offers easy access to entertainment facilities and restaurants. The modern center is equipped with everything you will need during your course. Once you hold your internationally recognized TEFL Tezal certification in hand, you will be ready to start an English teaching career right across the world. Tezal Atlanta If you sign up for our TEFL Tezal course in Atlanta, you will have plenty of opportunities to explore the city and its surroundings. In your free time, you can visit the many sites and attractions during your month-long training course. After you graduate from our course, you will not only hold in hand an internationally recognized teaching qualification, but have also made many wonderful memories. Atlanta is a premier tourist destination in the USA, offering attractions for all preferences and age groups. Some of the best sites in the city include the Georgia Aquarium, World of Coca-Cola and CNN Center. Tezal Columbus Columbus is the capital of Ohio and is the state's largest city. It is also home to one of the biggest universities in the United States and is therefore a city that caters to a large student population with all the resources and services associated with a vibrant center of education. The city also regularly scores favorably on a number of polls and surveys regarding quality of life, economic growth and crime rates. For anyone starting out on their TEFL Tezal career, earning a teaching certificate with us in the wonderful city of Columbus is a great first step. Since its founding as the purpose-built capital of Ohio 200 years ago, Columbus has grown out of dense forested hunting land into a thriving modern capital that is a bustling center of business, finance, education, science and more recently tourism. This economic diversity means that Columbus managed to avoid much of the fallout from the economic crisis that has affected many other cities around the country over the last few years. Columbus's continued economic prosperity has seen it emerge from the shadow of its more famous neighbors Cleveland and Cincinnati to become known as an increasingly interesting and pleasant city to live in and visit. Columbus is home to a plethora of museums and galleries including the fascinating center of science and industry which is popular with adults and children alike and the Columbus Museum of Art which is home to many interesting collections of European and American art. The city's numerous parks and gardens are a great place to unwind after a busy day and wet stone park is well known for its beautiful rose gardens. Of course, as with any big city, Columbus has a thriving nightlife with nightclubs, comedy clubs and a number of bars and restaurants as well as an exciting theater scene. Columbus is a great choice for earning your TEFL TESOL certificate as its university town atmosphere, clean and safe environment and many attractions all combined to make for a truly rewarding experience. In addition, our top quality training center and dedicated professional teacher trainers are here to ensure that you get the most out of your time with us and that you leave well prepared for the start of your English teaching career. TEZOL FLORIDA The state of Florida is a unique destination in the southern part of the east coast in the United States. In fact, its unique shape and location make it a premier vacation spot for millions of people each year. The land of flowers, as it was named by the Spanish who arrived in 1513, who offer year round sunny weather and high temperatures, as well as some of the finest beaches in the country. No other state has a coast on both the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Due to Florida being a peninsula, the state also has the longest coastline in continental America. The state is also famous for its many theme parks, natural landscapes and exciting cities. As you can see, Florida is a great choice for taking your TEFL TESOL certificate. Florida is a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts as it has white beaches with clear waters, exciting parks and rivers. Due to the favorable climate, visitors can engage in different outdoor activities throughout the entire year. In Florida, you can try anything from mountain biking and water skiing to bird watching and surfing. One of the major tourist destinations in Florida is the Everglades National Park. As it is the largest subtropical national park in the USA, visitors will get a unique experience of the flora and fauna in this kind of climate. On top of that, you have the opportunity to spot the American crocodile or the woodstork in the wild. You can explore the park in different ways. Many like to take a boat out to see birds and even dolphins, while others prefer the convenient tram leading to Premier Alligator in the waiting bird spots. What draws most tourists to Florida are its many beaches. In fact, there are over 660 miles of pure white sand on the 1300 mile long coast. St. Joseph Peninsula State Park offers some of the most beautiful beaches in the state. On the peninsula, bleach white sandy beaches stretch along the coast 4 over 10 miles. The area also has the largest sand dunes in the state, making for the perfect place for turtles and shorebirds to nest. St. George Island State Park is another prestigious beach area in Florida. Most people with the island park are shelling and surfing as you can catch high waves here. The Florida Keys are probably the state's most visited vacation destination. The Keys are in fact made up of a coral archipelago offering the only coral barrier reef in the continental USA. Located very close to the Caribbean, the Keys are a dream vacation destination for many. The city of Orlando is one of the most exciting in the state. It is home to several well-known amusement parks, including Disney World and Universal Studios. The city also offers a great culinary scene, shopping and entertainment facilities in beautiful green areas. Every year, thousands of students from all over the nation, as well as many international students, come to Florida to enroll in one of the many prestigious schools. In your TEFL Tezal training course in Florida, we'll open doors to exciting job placements and teaching ESL around the globe. Tezal, Georgia Georgia is among the US states with the most exciting attractions including history, nature and urban adventures. That's why Georgia is a great location to take your TEFL Tezal course. Georgia offers a great selection of historic attractions, as it was among the original 13 colonies. Moreover, the state boasts over 60 major parks from the northern Blue Ridge Mountains all the way to its splendid Atlantic coast. Some say Georgia is a paradise for outdoor enthusiasts with countless unique opportunities to engage in leisure activities in nature. To sign up for our TEFL Tezal training course in Georgia, you will not only earn one of the most valuable teaching qualifications out there, but also spend a month in an exciting US state. Go out and about in Georgia and you will find plenty of things to see and do. Whether you fancy national and state parks, adventurous trails or hidden paths, Georgia gives you plenty of options for outdoor fun. No matter where you are, you will find that Georgia is blessed with exceptional flora and fauna with tall pine trees, wildflower meadows, colorful foliage and exotic wildlife. The Appalachian trails are a popular destination for many nature lovers seeking untouched landscapes. The trail leads to Georgia all the way from Maine, covering more than 2,000 miles of trails. In Georgia alone, you will have the chance to explore around 80 miles of thrilling hiking trails of the Appalachians. If you are looking for water sports, head to Chattahoochee River and its surrounding areas. Many choose to stay a few days at the many Premier camping grounds to fully explore the area. Head down to the southern tip of Georgia's Atlantic coast and you will find serene beaches, dunes and marshes at Cumberland Island National Seashore, the best sunset location in the state. History lovers will love Georgia and its many historic sites and landmarks, including history and heritage museums, historic homes, civil war attractions and fascinating trails and tours. One of Georgia's proudest sites is Old Fort Jackson. The brick fortification was constructed in 1808 and is the oldest one of its kind in the state. Located on the banks of the Savannah River, Old Fort Jackson was used to protect Georgia from any enemy vessel coming into the region. Another interesting site is the old governor's mansion that was home to several governors from 1839 to 1868. The building is of significance due to the many historic events held there and its fascinating Greek revival architecture. Georgia cities are filled with a unique culinary scene influenced by southern ingredients and recipes. If you are in Georgia, be sure to eat your heart out at the many local restaurants, bars, diners and bakeries offering local specialties. Whether you are looking for casual or fine dining options, you will find it in Georgia. RTEFL Tezal Center is located in downtown Atlanta, the capital of Georgia. Our local staff works hard to offer you the best training course in the field and to provide guidance towards your international career of teaching English as a foreign language. Tezal, Indiana If you are looking for a US state offering the perfect combination of nature and city life, Indiana is a great destination. Located at the Great Lakes Indiana is one of only eight cities with a border to the lakes in the Midwest. In the south, the Ohio River makes up the border between Indiana and Kentucky. These natural features make Indiana a great destination for outdoor fun. Indiana is also home to several national and state parks that you shouldn't miss during a visit. The parks also feature man-made artifacts dating back to 8000 B.C., when Native American tribes lived in the area. Join our in-class course in Indiana and you will have a month to fully explore the state. Besides the natural scenery, Indiana's cities also feature first-class museums, historic landmarks and homes, parks and great zoos. Throughout the entire year, there are several exciting sports events and festivals you can take part in. Indiana is also popular for its extensive shopping facilities including large malls, outlets and small craft shops in the cities. In Indiana's winemaking region, you can even stay for a relaxing getaway and wine experience tour. Lake Wawasee is one of Indiana's most popular destinations for outdoor enthusiasts seeking to spend a weekend or longer in pure nature. Surrounding the lake, you can choose between several modern camping locations to set up your tent or you rent a wooden cabin by the lake. People visit Lake Wawasee to take advantage of the wide selection of activities offered, such as boating, water skiing, lazy paddling, fishing or swimming. Many bring their own boats and visit the free boat ramps around the lake. Others rent a fishing or pontoon boat and explore the area. If you are looking for something more relaxed, head to the sandbar, a part of the lake only three feet deep and perfect for sunbathing. While you can visit Lake Wawasee throughout the entire year and have a great time, one of the busiest periods is the 4th of July weekend as there is a large fireworks display held at the lake. Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore is a unique nature preserve area with 15 miles of bleach white beach covered in fascinating sand dunes. The main attraction in the area is Mount Baldy, a 120 feet tall sand dune. If you are looking for lush forests, head over to Hoosier National Forest and you can explore 200-00 acres of different woodlands. To keep you safe while exploring, you better follow the 260 miles of designated trails through the National Forest Park. Most people come here to take out their mountain bikes, hike or even set up camp. RTEFL Tezal Training Center in Indiana is the perfect location to become a certified teacher. Our local staff has worked as teachers and trainers in the field of ESL in various locations around the globe and is ready to coach you. Upon completion of the program, you will hold in hand a valuable teaching qualification and set out on your exciting adventure of teaching English as a foreign language. Tezal, Massachusetts Massachusetts is the state with the largest population in New England, the northeast of the United States. Its convenient geographic gave it the name the Bay State as it bordered the Atlantic Ocean in the east. Due to this exciting coastline, Massachusetts is a wonderful destination for outdoor lovers with tall mountains, deep valleys and the best beaches in the region. Add to that, Massachusetts' rich history is it was the place where the pilgrims landed and the Revolutionary War started. As you can see, Massachusetts truly is a wonderful place to explore. In fact, visitors can enjoy the beautiful natural landscapes of Massachusetts during all four seasons. The mild weather in spring is perfect for camping, hiking, biking and even fishing. On top of that, people love to start of the new season by cheering for the Red Sox at a game at Fenway Park in Boston. Soaking up the sun is one of the best ways to unwind in the summer. The many beaches also invite visitors to surfing and even whale watching. One of the most exciting times of the year is fall in Massachusetts. The famous Indian summer allows for leaf peeping at the foliage when the trees shine in hues of red, orange and yellow. In fact, people come from all over the world to experience this famous natural spectacle. Even in wintertime, there's a lot to do in Massachusetts. The state has 12 premier ski areas, making it possible to engage in all kinds of different winter sports. Besides skiing, many also love tubing and riding down the slopes while others, seeking more adventure, try out dog sledding or ice fishing. No matter what your heart desires, you will find it in Massachusetts. It is true that Massachusetts is among the most popular destinations for summer vacations in the country. This is mostly due to the spectacular 1,500 miles of beautiful coastline on the Atlantic Ocean. The families especially enjoy Coast Guard Beach and Chatham Lighthouse Beach, where you can watch and even feed wild seals. The annual sand sculpting festival is held at Revere Beach Atmatic at Beach is said to be the best place for sunsets in the state. Upscale vacationing takes place in Martha's Vineyard in Nantucket with countless relaxing hotels for any budget. Ever since the pilgrims landed here in 1620, Massachusetts has been of tremendous importance in US history. The locals are keeping the history alive by providing state-of-the-art museums and exhibition halls throughout the state. Plymouth Plantation, for instance, is a perfect example. Here, visitors can explore what life was like for the pilgrims when they first arrived. The famous Freedom Trail in Boston perfectly showcases the Revolutionary War, Lexington Green marks the beginning of this war, and the abolitionist movement is displayed in the African American House. Massachusetts offers beautiful natural landscapes, outdoor fun and history, but there is more. Some of the best schools and universities were founded right here in Massachusetts and are amongst the best in the country today, such as Harvard, MIT, Boston College and Berkeley. Therefore, you can be sure that our TEFL TESOL courses in Massachusetts will get you far in the ESL world. Upon graduating from our training course, you will find international job positions in the field of English education. TESOL, MISSHAGON The most breathtaking trails in the country. Visitors also have the option to rent off-road vehicles to check out the natural wonders on four wheels. Whatever you are looking for, you will find it in Michigan. The state of Michigan has six state forests, four national parks and almost 100 state parks, so a stunning natural scenery is never far away. Whichever area you choose to visit, keep a lookout for hares, deer and other forest animals. As well as wildlife, the parks contain a wide array of interesting sculptures, landmarks and museums that you might want to visit. The parks are also the ideal spot for watching the sunset or stargazing after dark. Michigan is also the perfect location for winter activities. The state is famous for having over 6,500 trails, ideal for snowmobiling, cross-country skiing and winter hikes. Downhill skiing and snowboarding is possible at over 50 unique ski areas, where you will find 260 lifts and over 1,000 slopes for beginners and advanced skiers. More than 3,000 miles of special trails also make it possible to enjoy cross-country skiing, while thousands of lakes freeze over, ensuring that ice skating and ice hockey are available. As you can see, Michigan is worth the visit during all four seasons. Spending some quality time outdoors, there is always something new to see. However Michigan is also home to many historical attractions, as well as water parks, wineries, zoos and lighthouses on the Great Lakes. Mackinac Island is one of those interesting places you should visit when in Michigan. Here, horses replace cars and time seems to go by slower. Most businesses and restaurants on the famous island are family-owned adding to the unique charm. Mackinac Island is also popular due to the many sights and detractions from the revolutionary era. While millions of people come to Michigan for its as beautiful natural scenery, many others are lured to the state because of its as high quality educational institutions. When you come to Michigan for your TEFL Tezal course, you will graduate with an internationally recognized certification, enabling you to start a successful career in teaching English as a foreign language. Tezal, Oregon The state of Oregon is an exciting destination on the Pacific Coast. Often nicknamed the Beaver State, Oregon is blessed with unique natural scenery, including a relaxing coastline, abundant bodies of water, volcanic mountain ranges and lush forests. Oregon has a history of millions of years and was populated by various tribes of Native American before the first explorers arrived in the area. Today, Oregon is America's ninth largest state and one of three to have a Pacific Coast on mainland USA. Visitors especially enjoy the many historic and natural wonders the state has to offer year-round. You will have to get out and about to fully explore all that Oregon has to offer. Get out of the car and hike the hidden paths to embrace the beauty and tranquility of the region. Mount Hood is Oregon's landmark and the perfect destination for a getaway in all four seasons. The peak is covered in snow year-round with 11 individual glaciers crowned on top of the mountain. Here, you will also find six exciting ski resorts with slopes operating throughout the entire year. If you want to take a break from skiing or snowboarding, simply come to one of the many mountain lodges to relax at the fireplace while enjoying splendid views of the snowy peak. In the spring, the valleys and forests around Mount Hood are transformed into a bed of colorful lavender and wildflowers. Summer and fall see an abundant amount of apples, pear and berries growing in the wild. Even though Oregon is blessed with a Pacific Coast of 363 miles, the beaches are very different from the ones you will find further down south. In Oregon, people do not visit beaches to bake in the sun but rather to engage in physical activities. Surfing is one of the most popular, as you can catch some of the highest waves in this part of the country. While you can definitely find some serene tide pools to relax in, many people also love to hike around the many coastal trails passing lighthouses and combays. Oregon is also a great place for whale watching. You get to see some of the largest whales on earth, including the famous gray whales. Oregon's history goes millions of years back, which is evident when visiting the painted hills, a collection of claystones formed over millions of years. The various colored layers of the stones mark different eras in Oregon's history and also change their hue according to time of the day and weather. Oregon also has a collection of exciting urban metropolises, the most famous one being Portland. The gem in the Pacific Northwest is a vibrant destination with a diverse culinary scene. Most visitors enjoy the great selection of restaurants, bars and coffee shops the city has to offer. On top of that, Portland features some of the best entertainment options in the region, including live music venues, art galleries, vintage arcades, city gardens, small boutiques and bookstores. You don't even have to venture far out of the city to escape the urban jungle. Forest Park is one of America's largest urban parks features over 40 miles of hiking trails. Oregon is also a prestigious destination for high quality educational facilities. Some of the best universities in the region include the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Portland State University. If you join Haran Class TEFL Tessal course in Portland, you will not only be rewarded with an internationally recognized teaching certificate, but will also have access to countless exciting job opportunities in the field of ESL around the world. Tessal, Wisconsin Located in the Midwest of the United States, Wisconsin is a state blessed with breathtaking nature. The state is often referred to as America's Darieland due to the booming farming industry that produces some of the finest products in the country. As well as being famous for producing high quality cheese, Wisconsin is also a premier vacation destination due to its as beautiful location in the Great Lakes region. You can always find the cozy cabin in the woods where you can take a hike around forests, lakes and waterfalls. Wisconsin is a true outdoor paradise. The shoreline of Lake Superior offers spectacular options for outdoor fun. In the Chippewa Valley area you will find some of the finest biking and hiking trails in the country while the Apostle Islands make for the perfect place for kayaking and fishing. The northeastern region of Wisconsin is truly a wonderland for water sports enthusiasts. Whether it is boating, whitewater paddling, swimming or even water skiing, you will find a place to do it here. At the end of the day, you can watch the sunset at the lake while having a BBQ or bonfire. Wisconsin makes everything possible. South Wisconsin leaves nobody's wishes unfulfilled either. Here, you will find some of the most beautiful valleys in the country. The Mississippi River also runs through this part of the state, creating spectacular landscapes and thriving wildlife. Small towns along the Mississippi are especially charming and always a great place to visit. This part of the state is also influenced by nautical themes and you can find some of the finest seafood restaurants as well. Lake Winnebaco is the perfect place to take in all that Wisconsin's natural beauty has to offer. Relax at one of the many spa resorts, have fun at the racetrack or try some golf on one of the many courses. Wisconsin's south central region also offers some great attractions. At Wisconsin Dells, you can experience a collection of water-themed amusement parks that gave Wisconsin the title water park capital of the world. Besides the water parks, you should also visit some historical sites, including the iconic state capital building. Other interesting attractions in the area include Sylvanna's Wade House, Madeleine Island Museum, Stonefield and Old World Wisconsin. Not only does Wisconsin welcome millions of tourists each year, it is also a popular destination for thousands of national and international students. They are drawn here by renowned universities, such as Concordia University, Marquette University and the University of Wisconsin. When you complete our in-class TEFL Tezal course in Wisconsin, you will graduate with an internationally recognized teaching qualification that enables you to work right across the globe. Tezal, Utah. The state of Utah features unique natural scenery that is unlike anywhere else in the country. Red canyons make up much of the state and are a major tourist magnet. While Utah is famous for its numerous sandstone formations, the state is also home to many scenic rivers and creeks. In ancient times, the Navajos and Utah's tech settled in this part of the country and lived in peace with nature. Still today, this land holds something deeply spiritual which is another reason why it is so popular with national and international visitors. There is plenty to do in Utah as it has seven national monuments, five national parks, three national historic trails, two recreation areas and one national historic site. As you can see, you will not get bored in Utah. Nature lovers are able to explore the breathtaking surroundings by bike, on foot or on horseback. While doing so, visitors can also take a deeper look into millions of years of history as countless fossils have been found amongst the canyons. Each of the five national parks is unique and offers a different view of the region. Canyon Lands Park is the best place to start your day by watching the sun rise over the red and orange sandstone. History enthusiasts will especially appreciate the many fossils found at Capitol Reef National Park. Beautiful hoodoos glowing in shades of red and orange can be found at Bryce Canyon National Park. Take a mountain bike or explore Zion National Park by foot on some of the most stunning trails in the area. You can also go whitewater rafting or even mule riding here. Many people decide to end their day watching the sun set through the iconic arches at Arches National Park. As mentioned, Utah is a deeply spiritual region. This is not only true because of the ancient Native Americans who declared the region holy. In 1847, Mormon pioneers settled in Salt Lake City and built the world's largest Mormon temple. Today, Salt Lake Temple is the city's most majestic landmark and it is visited by millions of tourists each year. However, there is also another side to this city. You can find great shopping malls and a variety of entertainment facilities in the downtown area. You can also stop by 9th and 9th District to grab a bite, to eat at the hippest bakeries and try some coffee at the city's coolest cafes. There is always something new to explore in Salt Lake City. While it is true that Utah is a perfect example of the uniqueness and beauty of North America, the state is also a big draw to students from around the world. Many thousands come to Utah to pursue their undergraduate and graduate degrees. This unique atmosphere is yet another reason why taking a TEFL TESOL course in Utah is a great idea. Once complete, you will have limitless opportunities for teaching English abroad. TESOL Boston Boston is a unique and exciting location and TEFL International in Boston merges the historic city with the high quality courses we are offering at our IT professional training center. Our training center is located in the center of the city with enclosed proximity to all the major attractions. Our experienced staff works hard to make sure you received the best training in the industry. Boston is a city rich in historic sights and exciting entertainment facilities. Choose from the Freedom Trail, the Fanuel Hall, New England Aquarium, the Museum of Fine Arts, Paul Revere House, Boston Harbor and the List continues. If you love sports, stop by Fenway Park. If you are interested in history, be sure to check out the USS Constitution Museum and the Museum of Science. As you can see, Boston has something for everyone and you will not get bored when visiting this beautiful city.


The reality in our community in particular is one that makes it clear the narrative has been very one-sided for a very long time. Oprah is a very good example of that. Her movies like Color Purple, Waiting to Exhale, Stella got her groove back. Then when you consider the fact that we're also matriarchal because a lot of our men have been locked away by the white power structure or been castrated emotionally, mentally, sometimes physically. Our community is one that is run and managed by women. And then you consider the fact that because of capitalism, the largest consumer base is women across every demographic. It makes sense that media propaganda would cater to the female delegation. So the narratives have been in support of, in reference to, and in deference to the female delegation. Black boy, tell me how you really feel, because I just want to build with you.


Today my guest is Rich Edwards. He is a Product Manager at IBM. Welcome Rich. Tell us a little more about the products that you're working on at IBM. Well first of all thanks Felix. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you. So I've been with IBM for 10 years and I'm currently working on the IBM Watson Group around the developer cloud offering and these are the services that we're making available to individual developers you know in a platform as a service offering around some of the componentized technology that we have around the IBM Watson system. So you may have seen some of the things you know on the TV commercials are certainly the Jeopardy Challenge a couple years ago. We're trying to enable largely independent software vendors and startups and other people who are just generally want to tinker around with it the ability to use some of those individual component technologies and build on top of it. Yes some very cool stuff I think that there's a lot of innovation in that space so it's really awesome to see Eric to have you on and to talk about that. So you know I was looking at I was looking at your LinkedIn and you know the different jobs you've had in the past and you weren't always working as a product manager you kind of did different things at different companies. You know can you tell us a little more about your past and you know what drove you towards product management? Sure so going all the way back to undergrad I had an engineering undergraduate degree and I went to school on a army scholarship. So I did ROTC when I was in college and then I went in the army as an engineer officer after that and did that for four years and decided I was going to get married to my then girlfriend and she was in graduate school and so we said okay time to show her to leave graduate school and me to leave the army and we ended up moving to North Carolina and I started working for Alcatel for a subsidiary of Alcatel called Birk Tech and making fiber optic cable which is a rather large industry specific to North Carolina and worked there for a couple years and very much like operationally focused it was manufacturing and I really wanted to get into either a marketing or sales role and one of the opportunities to do that was to go back to school and so I went and got my MBA from UNC Chapel Hill from their executive MBA program and kind of did that at nights and weekends while I was still working in the plant and when I was done with that was really you know that was the impetus for me to make this change into you know more marketing role and I ended up going to work for IBM actually hired by a classmate of mine from grad school and I worked in a role that was kind of half finance half marketing in services and this was in a business that was selling hardware and we had a services practice so this was kind of like the last mile of configuration and installation work and it was largely around some of the new technology that was coming out at the time and it was really interesting and really got my interest particularly in product management because I worked with a lot of product managers because we were trying to figure out how do we have you know this new technology that's coming out that there isn't a lot of knowledge around particularly how to use it or how to get the most out of it in the market and trying to close that gap and really turning the experience we were getting working with customers and seeing how they were using it and turning that into requirements that were showing up in the in the product roadmap and I thought that was really interesting and so I started looking for a role to go do that and I got the opportunity to move over to IBM software group and I worked in the data center automation group for a while doing general strategy doing a lot of analyst work a lot of allocation from from an investment standpoint some things around M&A it was really really interesting work and then had the chance to go into a business unit and actually get involved in owning a product and moving it you know dealing with shipping a product and taking it all the way from concept through development you know into what was then a adoption of agile development in IBM and particularly in the software business and delivering that and it was that was really really interesting work and after a couple of years of doing that I had an opportunity to go work for this brand new business unit that IBM was considering forming and it was specifically around the Watson technology and the work that had come out of IBM research after the Jeopardy grand challenge and they began to think about how do we commercialize that and they had spent a lot of time just fielding as you could imagine a lot of rather interesting proposals and ideas from the market and the preponderance of them came from the healthcare market so that kind of led the initial strategy and the the initial work around developing Watson based solutions in healthcare the the one that gets the most attention is Watson for oncology and that was through a partnership with several hospitals and institutions and it's really pretty impressive is this kind of idea about taking things based on some existing technology and machine learning and natural language processing and and really advancing the state of the art where you know you can think of some of the solutions as like the world's greatest research assistant that that kind of follows you around all day and doesn't really make decisions for you but makes really really good recommendations and things that you might have thought of and certainly in a domain like medicine where the volume of research even within a fairly narrow specialization is so large that no one person can consume it all it's it's really really impressive to see some of the things that could be done and certainly an area that has such a big impact on it so you know I jumped at that that that was just a great opportunity to jump over there and and work on that and so I've been doing that for the the past year just about since we launched the the Watson business unit as a kind of an independent business unit within IBM and started working on the developer cloud and this was a you know very different market from where I had been before where I previously been working largely in the enterprise space working with very large data centers particularly high volume transaction business and shifting over into you know a space that was largely servicing independent developers so the the persona the individual users we were working with very different it was a very different business model where it had been you know the delivery of traditional software into now cloud services trying to figure out how are we going to do that with you know rather unique piece of technology and being able to break that down in a way that made sense both for how we were building you know these larger solutions that we would build privately or with IBM's brand name on them but also individually for customers that were interested in building individual applications yes you know so as you're talking about this it sounds like a lot of your job has been finding the finding technology that already exists or has already been developed and looking for business use for it and you know giving your background in both having engineering undergrad and then getting an MBA do you find that product management can be highly technical where you do need to come up with a tech or is it more of like a marketing kind of a marketing like operation or marketing role where you're going out and looking for these like markets or finding business cases or business uses for existing technology yeah that's a that's an interesting question and you know the way I would answer that is it very much depends on the type of organization you're in and not only like big business small business but also where are they in the life cycle is it early on is it later on and you know one of the best ways to figure out like what type of role you're in is to look at ratios of things like how many product managers are there per engineer because that's pretty descriptive about what the scope of the role is I want to say it was Ian McAllister from Amazon had a pretty good breakdown on this and had some interesting benchmarks so one of the on the lower end if I if I remember you know very technical very close to what's going on much more feature function related would be Microsoft from an enterprise standpoint and I want to say the ratio was something around three or four engineers per product manager so you kind of see the you know the reach of you know how far you're going from people who are actually writing code you know what's your relationship to those how close are you and you can look on the higher end around where the role is going to be much more strategic is going to be something over 10 and that's the type of role where you're one step back and you're not looking at things from say an individual sprint standpoint or an individual feature standpoint it's going to be more let me think of the high level strategy of really more at the individual problem that we're solving for customers and to use the the agile terminology you know you live at the epic level you know in that type of environment so it's a lot about the type of the type of company where you are in your life cycle and certainly how the what your organization looks like yeah that that makes a lot of sense you know and it seems like you know when you were trying to get your not that maybe you weren't necessarily trying to get a product manager role but once you got to one and you're looking back on your career path it seems like you're inching closer and closer to product by doing things or you know being involved in more projects or working with more departments that were more and more related to product management do you find that that is a typical career path for somebody that wants to get into product is that they you know see kind of maybe have this kind of drive towards being more hands-on and being more involved in the development of the product and then just kind of trying to find more roles that move them closer and closer to to that role so you know a lot of questions I get sometimes you know being a you know a manager of product managers where I'm you know part of the role is hiring product managers is what's the career path that gets you there and I never have one straight answer for that and the reason is that you know you look at the domain of everything that you need to do as a discipline of product management and it's it's fairly broad enough that you never see one person totally cover it they may be able to cover it for a while or they may be able to cover it during a certain life stage but when you think of it as you know there's an element of technical expertise and really under this understanding the technology of what you're doing plus understanding the market that you work in and the individual customers you're dealing with and then understanding maybe the specific domain of within that market that you're serving you know that's a pretty broad diverse set of skills set of understanding set of experience that that type of role demands and so you know I look at it as you're usually building a team of two or three people that are overlapping sometimes in what they're doing if not individual products then certainly responsibilities for the entire business and to that end you end up hiring people with different backgrounds so if I look at you know my team now and the teams that I've managed in the past it's a pretty diverse group you have people who have come in from you know very technical roles either developers or architects or product service or support standpoint people who come in from you know a more straight marketing background you know who would not be comfortable doing things from a command line or writing code but really understand the market and maybe how we go to market and can talk to the talk to the to the individual customers and then you have people who are actually customers done that once or twice with with some pretty good success of people who have been users of your product and have come in that way each one of them had their own strengths and certainly came at it from a different way so you know that's that that's one of those angles of you know you should never feel well you know I only have technical experience I don't have any sales experience so I can't be a product manager and it's certainly not the case it's certainly not the case the other way and that it's really a fit for what the organization needs at that time to help move the product along and keep it relevant in the market yeah and you know speaking about you know getting that job and preparing for uh or you know depending on what kind of skill sets the company's looking for what do you find is kind of the most important skills to have as a as a product manager what kind of skills you think are most in demand right now for for companies that are hiring product managers so um I mean so so the the way to answer that is to think about what product management does uh and and why product management is as a discipline is important to an organization um and when you think of product delivery there's really kind of three main disciplines um and and this goes back to kind of the the thinking around like design thinking right and you have you have technical development roles that are really geared towards feasibility can can we do what's being asked of us and can we deliver and then there's there's design and design thinking where you start thinking about it from a user experience standpoint and is the thing that we're delivering is it desirable is it a pleasurable experience working with our product and then you have product management who's really about um differentiation you know are we doing something that's important to the market and are we going to remain relevant to them not just with this release but the next release and the release after that you know are we are we staying on a path that's going to keep us uh you know essential to our customers or are we going down a path where they could probably pick from five or six different competitors and it wouldn't really matter that's really where you're going to add values of product management so to that end um really one of the most important skills you can have is uh being able to understand the market that you serve being able to understand your customers uh really having true empathy for them and the problems they deal with um because you find that a lot of times uh while you you know your day to day and what you focus on is about solving a rather well-defined technical problem uh in the eyes of the customer the problem you're solving is a lot of times more deeper than that that there's often uh a lot of uh emotional content to it right um you know you can think of some technical things that you could solve where you know given this input or given this state of where a customer is we provide this you know very well-defined fixed feature function service to them but what you find is what you're often doing for them is making them relevant and important to say they're boss in an organization and it's like not looking dumb in front of their peers you know it's like those type of things that you really do for them um and when you think of it at that level that's where you really get that relevance for what you're doing you're you're able to to uh provide for them something that they can't get anywhere else uh either at the price or in the model or in the method that you're delivering it to it and and that's when you're really keyed in on something that's important yeah that's a really good point you know because most of the time you know IBM is being a product manager IBM I think for the most part is more of a B2B kind of uh I guess a product manager role and a lot of uh other people looking to get into a product manager role uh they usually look at B2C as the company as the types of product management jobs that require you to think about the emotions of the customer but you know at the end of the day even at a B2B company or B2B um uh like software company you're still selling to a person at the end of the day and the person at the end of the day still making a purchase decision or making a decision to continue to use a product or not yeah so you know you still have to think about um their emotions and in one thing that you mentioned that I hear over and over again is the empathy being able to understand the problems that your customers have in and being able to understand what they need and want to to help them through their day like you're saying to to look good to their boss and and that I think was the the very I think it was the IBM back in the day was the the popular phrase where you don't get fired for purchasing IBM or something like that is that I think it was like you want to make sure that your customer at the end of the day is happy with their their decision regardless if it's a consumer or or a business and you know to to that end do you spend a lot of time or do you're proud of me I just spent a lot of time with the customer or what is what is there how do how do they interact with the and customer yeah yeah yeah so uh just to go back to one point uh you know you think about the difference between B2B and B2C um and I I really believe that the only difference there is in who's paying the bill um that in in B2B the only difference is you know they're trying to justify an expense or a purchase um which is sometimes about money and sometimes about personal reputation and risk but they're trying to justify it to somebody else to making their boss happy um other than that the all the emotions wrapped up into it very similar not a lot of differences there um so we can get into the difference between the user persona and the buyer persona but but you know it's not it's not like it's uh it's a completely different discipline or you're looking at it differently um but as far as uh as far as the customer interaction that's a really big part of being a product manager um not so much from say just doing straight like user testing and seeing people use your your product which which is important and a part of what you're doing but it's also understanding kind of the context around what they're doing um when they're using your product and really the problem that you're solving for them um so you know I spend a good chunk of my time I would guess somewhere between uh 20 and 25 percent would be a good guess right about a day a week it is a is a good average it's sometimes lumpy particularly when you kind of lump in going to um uh like big conferences um or or meetups you know where you'll spend an inordinate amount of time talking to a whole bunch of customers at once versus just doing like one on ones but uh that's really really key to what you're doing because really again that the value that you bring here is understanding that customer and what they're dealing with and depending on the market those things change over time um the nature of the problems will change over time what alternatives they have uh to solving those problems will change over time uh the type of market that you're addressing will change uh as time goes along and it's there's a lot of angles around how fast is that changing and that kind of dictates you know how much this researcher you're going to have to do um but like I said it it it it becomes one of those things that it it's a struggle um in that you have to do it and you can't stay relevant if you don't but if you don't manage your time and you're not able to prioritize it you can very quickly get caught up in the kind of nuts and bolts of of what you're doing and and become very inward focused right focused on your own process and your own product and your own company um and if you find yourself doing that as a product manager you're likely on the path of becoming irrelevant because you're you're not there as kind of the advocate for look this is really important to our customer um and when you look at things a lot of the methodologies and I'll I'll talk to the agile methodology because you know I'm somewhat familiar with it um the the idea of having very crisp well-defined personas you know like the first time you deal with with like a like a well thought out persona and you go in there and they have like a picture of some guy and he's got a name and they talk about where he went to school you're like well this is silly right because I this is all manufactured this isn't a real person um but you begin to think of them that way right and so when you kind of come to this decision uh that invariably you do where it's not a clear choice you know do we deliver this feature this function or do we delay it or do we take an alternate course you find yourself saying um you know well you know Joe Smith is our persona would Joe like this decision or wouldn't you know you have these like really silly debates about Joe and what Joe wants but it kind of forces you to say let's look at it from the side of our customers right and if we're making a decision that's good for us and bad for Joe then maybe we need to back up and rethink this right that's um definitely a great approach to think about just one person rather than a bunch of statistics and you know a whole massive people yeah you know when you what you're saying you spend about one day a week actually interacting and talking to customers and I think that um that's something that no doesn't happen enough and you hear that a lot now in the in the um the product manager space about how do you have to get out the office and not spend so much time you know working in the business rather than working on it and finding ways to you know grow it and and make it align with where what your customers want to need um you know but what do you actually do like you know once you go into the office I think that that's a um an experience that a lot of new product managers or aspiring product managers are not uh you know we don't get we don't get taught that we don't really learn like what kind of questions to ask how what to talk to customers about what's your goal when you go in and how do you kind of accomplish your goals this is this is talking to customers yeah talking to customers sure yeah so so there's I mean there's a couple angles on this you know if you don't know where to start one of the best ways to deal with this is uh with however you do this get involved with your support organization whether that means spending a day a week for the first couple of weeks or a month just just dealing with with customer support go answer the phones go deal with uh you know the zendesk you um go in there and solve their problems and if best meet with them you know spend time with them and understand what why why have you reached out to us what is your problem what isn't our product doing uh and talking to them and then get into the you know so why is this important to you why is this and sometimes it's obvious but sometimes it's not you know and that those are always good questions to have um but you because begin to feel that you know build that experience and understanding of what's going on um it's always good like as you said get out of the office and actually go visit customers and not just your customers but maybe competitors customers or other people that fit your market definition that uh you know haven't bought something yet or using an alternative that they built themselves or it's it's it's free or it's cobbled together right like invariably uh every software solution that that i've run into there's somebody doing some version of it in a spreadsheet somewhere and really kind of talking to that person like okay you have a problem that's so important you're essentially building your own solution around spending a lot of time doing that why what are you doing and why is this so important to you and if you can really get to the base of those problems and understand what it is that you know that's that's where the real insight in the magic comes from because then you can turn around and be able to turn that into a requirement and when you have a good list of requirements going and you can be able to go out and test those uh you can come back with some level of credibility to go into your business and whether it's you know your your product development organization or or your engineering organization or some higher level to an executive be able to come in and speak authoritatively about what's important to the market and and not do it in a way where it's it's it's debatable i mean that's one of the hardest things right you kind of go in there and you go well i think this is the most important thing to do uh and depending on your standing in the organization that may work and it may not that may be an easy uh an easy argument to knock down but if you go in there and say okay i've talked to 200 customers and 75 percent of them say this is their most important unmet need um that they would be willing to buy a solution for today nobody are nobody argues with that right because you've done the work uh and there's there's an old adage i remember hearing from an executive that said you know he who names customer wins argument uh and it's you know when you can bring the voice of the customer into that you know the site decision process uh that carries more weight than anything else than anyone person's individual opinion yeah that's definitely the the one thing that i think has made my job as a product manager much easier is to have data and to have the person that's putting the dollars down the people that are paying for the products to have their opinions and have their thoughts and uh to just some degree you're really just a conduit for for them and for how to have them you know voice their to voice uh you know their opinions for them to back to the back to the organization so you know we've covered like you know one day i have the week for you which is you know working with and talking to and and uh understanding the customers like what else is your your week made of like what is your typical day to day look like sure so you know it's it's it's one of those those type jobs that if you like to come in and do the same thing every day this is not for you because it's so very it's so different um you know if you kind of lend yourself more to being kind of periprotetic and having to do something different all the time then this is a very interesting job uh and part of that is uh you know you're you're you're you're really solving these very complicated problems right how do we bring this market this product or this solution to market in a time that makes sense considering what our customers want what we're able to deliver in the time frame allotted to us with the amount of resources we have and also considering uh what our competitors are doing and what may be going on in the market from a technology standpoint i mean those those are a lot of different moving pieces to kind of keep keep track of um so it's it's tends to lend itself is to be very complicated problems you're solving uh and at the end of the day if you're really taking charge of the product and really fulfilling everything that you can as a product manager you're ultimately responsible for all of that even though probably most of the resources to accomplish that don't directly report to you um so there's a there's an awful lot of uh work that's done between organizations and typically product managers work you know a lot with with development and uh engineering staff a lot with sales and support um and then some with other parts of the organization marketing marketing communications if that's a separate part of the company you're tied in with PR other aspects of of your delivery process like legal like finance like pricing putting together business cases and those are not one of those things that you're constantly doing you're either coming up with new ones or coming at it from a different angle dealing with you know a new release or a new idea um and you know soliciting feedback and building consensus from the people who could potentially say no to what you're doing um I was going to ask you know so you're saying how a job as a product manager is it sounds like you're just a huge balancing act and you're not doing the same thing every day was that did you know that going in or like what is something I guess what is the thing that most surprised you about the role before you you got started that you didn't expect to run into so I I didn't um I didn't really appreciate from the outside looking in um how much influence you can potentially have as a product manager so and again my my perspective here is somewhat skewed as you know having never worked in a startup or a small business but having worked in largely enterprise most of my career um and there's you know from what I've seen certainly with our customers and everything there's this inverse correlation between uh the amount of assets and resources you have available and the amount of autonomy you have um so you know at the very high end you think of a company like IBM um we have a tremendous amount of resource available uh from a sheer manpower standpoint but also from the depth of technology and things like IBM research which is my entire product line came out of um but then when you get to that level and you know you look at your your business plan and there's a whole lot of zeros in the end of it um there's a lot more people who have to sign off on something like that there's a lot of more people who have some slice of responsibility and so you know it ends up being very much uh you're making your case uh to a pretty wide court around that so you know building building alliances and and being able to um you know negotiate through the different process elements of what you're doing becomes a a big part of the role um and you know having to build uh you know a network like that and have uh credibility in a group a fairly diverse group um yeah that was that was something I didn't appreciate coming into you know how much you kind of had to really play for lack of better term politician but not necessarily in the in the negative sense right right more you know you really have to be able to convince people from very different backgrounds who have different incentives for how they support the business um that what you're doing is the right thing to do yeah it's um it's definitely something I've heard before that's the the best product managers are also good politicians and like you're saying not in negative kind of connotations that has kind of gotten over in the recent past but it's more about how do you show people that what you want to do or where you want to be is beneficial for them or beneficial for for the business um and do you have any tips on how to how to actually you know build a case like you're saying or or working for resources and getting people aligned with the same goals that you have sure yeah um so it it's never easy and it's never straightforward and it's not the type of thing where it's step one step two step three um it always starts with having done your homework and really understanding your market so again being able to come in and say I have done the research I have talked to the market this is what's going on um and and not really just saying well I I have an opinion that you may not think is very well informed and so it's easy to say no to but coming in with the facts being able to be make very fact-based decisions um and you know make the case around things in a very unassailable way uh is a good start the other thing is much the way you have to build empathy for your customer is you have to build empathy for who you're dealing with inside and and understand that the way you see the business and the way you see the product is not the way they do um and that often for very good reasons they have different incentives um you know someone who is say um from part of the finance department um may alternately be very much incentive around us attaining a revenue amount and then conversely about containing costs to a certain level and making sure we meet goals sometimes those things align and sometimes they don't um sometimes you find people that are very much about avoiding risk and again for very good reason you need people who are looking out for that um but you know they kind of care about one angle of this but not really the other ones because of how you're organized or how you're incentive uh so being able to understand that there is a diverse set of requirements or concerns people have and being able to address those individually and and you know not have to rely on fairly weak arguments about why they should listen to you um but really addressing their core concerns right because much the way you know that idea of the difference between b2b and b2c everyone's job is ultimately to make their boss happy and if you can understand what this person's trying to do to make their boss happy and align that with what you're doing or change what you're doing in a way that it makes their boss happy but also achieves your goals that greases an awful lot of skids yeah that that's that totally makes sense I think understanding like what's the core motivation for your your end customer can really guide you in the right direction um and so once you you know have an idea of what you want to uh what your customers needs are can you walk us through the the product management process at IBM and what's the development cycle like and how the product manager fits into the process sure sure yeah so so i mean typically i mean i'll describe very cleanly you know from beginning to end but it never works like that right because you either come in midway through the process or you've got three products that you're dealing with and they're all multiple phases so it's not like you kind of get on the train at the beginning and ride it all the way through it's you jump on at some point and that always that that's difficult sometimes um but really you know it kind of starts with with a very clear articulation about what the market need is um and who you're solving it for and you kind of get to this point of being able to um build a case for you know what are the what are the jobs that we're being hired to go do um what pains are we solving for them and and what's potentially the gain that they get out of it and you always kind of gear towards them solving a pain right because um you know you have the old adage about is your product a an aspirin or a vitamin um nobody quivers over price for aspirin they may look twice for vitamins but man when you've got a headache you want that thing to go away and your price sensitivity and maybe the objections that you have around it those vanish very quickly yeah um so you kind of start at that level understanding what that is what is the thing that we need to do to go solve that and and then it's going back and looking at like what are we capable of doing um what technology do we have what skills do we have what relationships do we have in the market um so i'll i'll give you an example in this case uh specifically for watson um we have now built uh both through the watson initiative and the existing life science business in in um ibm essentially the right to sell things in the healthcare market we can sell solutions to um largely institutions but to the to the medical industry and they will buy things from ibm there are industries where ibm has no business selling anything um you can kind of think of like the consumer market right ibm would have a very hard time selling a consumer product particularly since we no longer sell uh pcs anymore um you know when was the last time you know you as an individual bought something that had the ibm logo on it but yeah probably maybe never right yeah maybe it's like that or something right exactly um so that's you know that's one of those areas where it's kind of understanding like both from not not just your channels but what is somebody actually going to go oh yeah no i know them and i would buy something from them because i probably bought something from you already um so being able to serve the market making the market addressable having you know essentially the right from the sense of the market standpoint uh the the ability to sell to them so you kind of begin to like narrow things down here um and so what once you kind of got the concept down then you start getting into the nuts and bolts of actually product product development and product delivery and as a product manager the probably the most important thing you're doing here from the you know developing the roadmap as far as these are the discrete things we're going to do with when we're going to do them is writing requirements um this is this is a hard skill for product managers um and uh it's often a difficult what it can be elusive um because if you're not a nor an organization that's very well disciplined around this um they'll let you get by with really crappy requirements um requirements that are non-specific in the language they use right non-specific language about what you know better or faster is right the onus is on you is to define that you know what is what does faster mean i got to do this in less than five minutes that you know this type of ui should have a sub second response time that that's how specific you need to be in developing um uh requirements because you need to be able to hand hand something to your your engineers to go build right that's that specific this is what winning looks like if you do this we will win and it can't be wishy washy you really got to be able to understand what you're doing at that level of granularity so part of that discussion about you know going to customers and talking to them is is kind of smoke testing that even before you put it in the roadmap you know it kind of behooves you to go talk to you know developers and say well you know i have a i have an idea here of what we might do let me describe it to you i'm not asking you to do it but let me describe the problem to you now given that do you think you could go build it or what questions do you have right and then you start to get that well you know could we do it this way could we do it that way if we use this technology and we deliver this way is that going to solve the problem and either you'll be able to know enough about the problem to say oh yeah no here's the context and why that doesn't work or why it does work or you've just got more questions to go ask the market right and this is the indication that you don't know it well enough yet so you know it's really that's the that's the hard part and um you know there's a lot to be said about you know the nuts and bolts of individual development processes whether it's waterfall or agile or agile xp or you know all the different methodology from a product management standpoint it doesn't really matter it's can i give them requirements on the front end let them go build it and then work with them on the back end about testing you know did we actually do this for the market did we do it in you know the time in the way that it's it's going to satisfy the needs for that problem and we're doing in the concept of our overall strategy that it makes sense of how we play in the market why we win and how we're differentiated from our competition and alternatives yeah that's definitely um you know a great overview and so if someone's out there is you know looking to get their first product management job or either they're out of right out of school or maybe has worked in the technology um industry for a bit and wants to transition into a product management role what are what do you would you say are some key things that they should focus on to make them look like or to make them become a you know ideal candidate so i mean one thing you can do if you're in a company that has product managers just kind of do what you're doing here sit down and buy them a cup of coffee and say tell me your story you know what what's it what's it like what are you dealing with you know what problems are you dealing with right now what's what's your headache um and uh you know think through how could you help that scenario um because what you know for for me is as a as a you know as a hiring manager one of the one of the best interview techniques once you kind of qualify you know yes you have the knowledge yes you have the skills you have the attitude or the experience that we need um i'm going to bring you a problem that i'm dealing with right we're going to sit down and we're going to talk through something that i'm currently dealing with that i don't have a solution for and if i present you a problem and you got nothing for me yeah okay nice try but probably you know you've just disqualified yourself um if you kind of bring me a solution that the team has already come up with that that's that's a good sign right like you are you are sufficiently smart enough sufficient understanding of what's going on uh that you're you're running at pace with everyone else in the team if you bring me something new and novel that we haven't thought of before that looks like it's going to add value that no one on the team has come up with you just got pushed to the front of line on the whole thing um so you know really understanding where where that team is sitting and what they're dealing with um and what new ideas can you bring to the table because this is very much a uh you know a knowledge worker kind of see cerebral type role right you got to come in with your brain fully engaged in what you're doing because you know as i described before you're dealing with like very complex fluid problems that you're trying to solve uh they're they're not discreet um there's always multiple solutions for what you're doing um and very rarely is it is it obvious to any of us um yeah exactly yeah that's where you add the value because you've got to come in and find the solution and then not only find the right solution but that convince a fairly broad set of stakeholders both inside and outside your company that this is the right move yeah and i think one of the great things about getting a job as a product manager or applying for a job as a product manager is that it's a it's a meritocracy you know if you can prove they can do the job because there's no necessarily like a pedigree or like a a school that's there that you can go to and and you know just transition into a product manager job i think a lot of the the hiring that's done is really dependent on showing that you can do the job and i like to always say to aspiring product managers that if you want to get the job do the job before you get it and you know prove that you can do it you know and you know going along those lines i think i hear a lot of um product managers or companies are hiring product managers suggest that side projects are really important like being able to show that you can build something like what's your opinion on that like in you know how can a what should a candidate do to to in terms of a side project to really kind of wow you in you know blow your way when it comes to them to come in so i mean that's a that's a great suggestion and if you're working in a company that has product management i will tell you like any product manager that is sufficiently engaged in what they're doing has 10 or 15 things that they would love to do that they can't and if you can come in and solve that for them or help them with a side or a pet project they're working on great place to start right because you can kind of think of it as a very long interview um now if you're not in a in a company you don't have that type of relationship where you know somebody's not going to be able to bring you in on what they're doing because you're outside um actually actually building a product and shipping something is key and it doesn't matter what it is right it could be a blog as a product but being able to talk about it that way and say i understand my market and this is why i made the decisions i did and how i developed a solution to solve this specific problem for these type of people that's a great example um so i mean philix look at what you're doing right with your with your program here you know you're looking at at solving a problem for a part of the market that is not served at all um where you have you know uh relatively new in their career folks maybe just out of college or maybe just in their first job and they're looking to get into this type role and there really is no guide for them out there you know and so this is an unmet need in the market and and you're providing a service here to help them with that to bridge that gap that's an excellent example of that and and being able to understand you know why you do those things and what makes a good decision and talking about what you struggled with and the the difficult decisions you had to make that that's very much what that role is like and even if it's you know relatively simple or maybe even something that you're you're not even charging for but you have a metric for what success is and can talk about things at that level that really demonstrates a lot of the acumen that this role requires yeah and it sounds like you know as you're talking about this it sounds like a lot of product managers need to have that kind of entrepreneurial self-starter spirit in them where they can take an idea because a lot of people can come up with ideas ideas are you know really easy to come up with but then the hard part is how do you execute on how do you how do you you know figure out what's what should we should prioritize what you know you can wait on and how do you you know make it sustainable i think that there was a really all key you know kind of traits that make a really good product manager and it kind of closes out you know do you have any kind of you know someone came up to you and said that hey i want to apply for a job at IBM as a product manager you know what kind of advice would you give them what should it be focusing on let's say that if they have like a few months preparation to put in like what should they be focusing on yeah you know certainly do your homework you know that's the the base piece do do the research do the google research do the linkedin research understand who the players are but then really get into the market understand what's going on in the market who are you serving what are the problems they're dealing with that really really important what are the general trends that's going on and then take it to the next level right actually go out and do some interviews i will tell you i am floored when somebody comes in and says you know i talked to people in the market who are dealing with this problem maybe they're existing customers or potential customers but here's the insights that i've gleaned from talking to them you know i'm actually coming to the table with a head start it you know not that i know nothing about what you do but i've actually sat down and tried to figure out what the problems are and try to you know come to it with with an idea about where where we should think about going as an organization where the product should be going what are some different angles on this and really looking for that like novel thought that's in there and certainly not rehashing you know ideas that are out there but what's the next thing because again the the value of what you do is keeping your product relevant in the market you know a year 18 months from now what's going to happen in the future it's one of those funny things about product management right because you you could go to probably any organization and fire all the product managers and nothing bad would happen right away but eventually what you would find is without somebody doing that role you drive to obsolescence you drive the commoditization of what you're doing and you're just doing what everybody else is doing and there's a lot of traps there even straight up listening to your customers can lead you in that path right because if you fall into the trap of just saying well you know my job as product manager is to just take all the requirements that our customers give us and put them in order for development to go execute on you're not doing your job because you're really not understanding the market you're not understanding what's going on with competitors you're not understanding how do you reach what in most markets is a fairly broad set of opportunity that is totally unaddressed by what you're doing and if you just consider you know your existing customers as a captive market and how you're going to continue to make them happy and you know in a lot of cases just you know milk the support money you're getting from them you're not doing your job you're not staying relevant to what's going on right awesome thanks so much rich thanks for sharing your experience you know especially from like a larger product management organization if you know the folks that are listening if they want to kind of learn more about what you what you've been doing or how you're you're a career path and and you know the IBM specifically or maybe they're interested in applying for jobs what's the best way for them to stay in touch with you sure so I'm on LinkedIn rich Edwards Watson should get you there certainly take a look at if you're kind of interested in Watson and developer in particular IBM.com slash Watson and if you're you're interested in what I'm doing particularly around developer cloud it's IBM.com slash Watson developer cloud awesome thanks so much rich Joe Felix


Hi Carrie, this is Ashley with Oxfam Toyota. I wanted to send you over a quick video greeting that way you can see who you'll be working with. Thank you so much for your recent interest in our 2016 R4 Limited. I went ahead and gave the information to my manager to get a quote put together for you and I will send you over an email with all the information shortly once he gives me back everything. If you need anything in the meantime, feel free to give me a call. My number is<PHONE_NUMBER> or you can also email me back. Thanks. Bye.


He doesn't even know what's coming. Hey, it was a few guys. So on Julian's vlog channel last week as many of you guys saw We did have a little of an accident permit was chasing a squirrel and skidded on the deck part next to our pool And did fall into the pool. It was so not funny at the time Julian saved him. He was swimming He knows how to swim a little bit. It's very funny now But after that everyone was like you should try and teach them how to swim They know how to swim like out of survival But I guess I've never actually tried to teach them how to swim because they don't really enjoy the water They have shown no interest in wanting to go in like if you're floating on a raft like they'll sit with you They enjoy that but in terms of swimming, they're not really water dogs I would love to be able to teach them how to swim to like that shelf in there or the stairs like just out of pure survival Because I think it's a worthy endeavor to just try and if this were to actually happen It would probably take a very long time to teach them But there's no better time to start than now I've looked up a couple of different types of YouTube videos about people trying to teach dogs to swim and it all for the Most part just looks a little bit of a mess. You get them in there You try and teach them to swim you see how the dog responds I'm going to do my very best to make sure that they're safe that they're not too stressed out They're also like my dogs I think I can read them pretty well, and I'm not gonna do anything that's gonna stress them out too much But like I said, they don't really have any interest in going in the pool So they're not puppies It's gonna be a little difficult to get them to decide that they want to go in the pool So I'm hoping that we can teach them if they ever fell in the pool how they can get out Which is mostly my concern like they don't have to be crazy about going swimming to me I just would like it if maybe they knew how to save themselves Kermit did everything right though He kept his head above the water. He was just in there, but like we're always watching them when we're outside I'm not like genuinely fearful that they're gonna fall in pool And we also have like a pool alarm to that we can put in there. We have one of those We just haven't installed it yet, but I'd say let's try let's see how they do and unlike all the other times that they've gone Swimming with me in the past. I don't got them some life jackets You know, I feel like that's a good way to train them because I have seen dog videos where the people train them with life jackets So we'll try so this is what these life jackets look like I say we put them on we take them outside I'll get in the pool have some treats see if we can get them interested the only one I think that would go for that and their wildest dreams is the food-driven one miss wheat Do you want to try this on honey? It's for pool safety And if y'all are asking if I'm really gonna wear all these clothes in the pool the answer is yes Because most of y'all are cool, but some of y'all are body shamers.  Don't worry Hey That feel good, huh? You look great. I feel good. What are you laughing about? Hey Bobby, he's so weird and awkward Bobby. I think yours is like gonna be kind of big bud I don't mind.  I don't know. It's not really about marble He's the least of my concerns. You know, it's the other two Be out of control How can she walk in it? Richie, come on. We're getting her mad Marble, I'm going in the living room He's like, I'm used to going on the couch Come on little turtle Yes, very safety and fashion Let's see if we can get any of them interested in coming into the water So food-driven Come on, come on Good girl That's a really good girl I'm really sorry for the noise People be cutting big ones Come on bud Good boy All this wheat just sitting in the water This is honestly farther than I've ever got All it takes is some treats Come on honey Come on, let's just water Come here Good girl Oh my god, she's like walking around Rich, can you sit in the water?  Are you floating around?  Yeah, that's my necklace That I cared deeply about This one's clean Peach found the treat stash What a naughty Good girl, come on Good girl Good girl To not get in the water He is extra handsome In that life jacket I think I'm going to take him over there I'm going to just show him If he swims up to that part He can get out using that Good boy, bud This is the spot of the foul I'm so proud and amazed Why haven't we done this sooner? I don't know It makes you feel kind of dumb, honestly Marble is going to be interesting Hi, bud He's excited You can't jump off here or then you're swimming, bud Oh, you want to swim? Good job They're doing so much better than I ever thought We've already gotten them to this part where they can pull themselves out The pool is a little scary and I don't blame them because that's where the fear comes in but getting out of the pool and navigating the shallow spaces, they're getting really good at Come, come, come She needs to feel it first Come on, good girl So brave Why have we never done this before? We're really enjoying it I want to see how Marble will do that She just got in on her own Come on Ready? This way Good boy Come on, Kermit, be careful You got your feet Over the edges, bud Come on, honey Easy does it Good job, bud Good boy, come out Come on, bud That's such a good boy, Kermit That's like all it took was for us to work with him for a little bit and we would have swum straight to the shelf She just like something else She's so brave Ready? Good girl And then I think the next step after they get really comfortable with that is to take their life vests off but the amount that they've gotten comfortable with being in the water is like 0 to 100 I thought today it was just going to be a bunch of fear and they're so good and they're a Italian Grey House I don't know what kind of dog you have but they're probably a little smarter than us Speaking of intelligent animals I don't think that Bobby is going to ever willingly jump into the pool I'm kind of cool I'm cool with marbles never wanting to jump in the water He's way too chilled out for that but what I would like is for him to just get some practice swimming Where's where to go? I'm completely happy with that Do you want to treat?  He moves like in 100 miles an hour Good boy honey The life jacket is helping him float so much Try it again that was amazing He needs a little rest Kermit this is too big I'll take this off you in a little bit Right now I just want you to practice your little swims with your vest on Take him off to sea Here we go He's doing a lot Are you good? Do you want to go see mama? Alright come on call him He's easily the best swimmer He's silent and fast He's so fast He's a senior dog This is really good exercise He's keeping you nice and cool If you would accept the treat ever maybe it would be a rewarding experience for you This is all you want though huh?


And in today's GUI Challenge, we're building a switch group, and that's not a button group. This looks like a button group, but if it's a button group, each of these could be highlighted in blue. But notice how, as one is enabled, it disables all the other ones. This is a switch group. Only one of these can be activated at a time. I mean, it makes sense, right? It can't be left-aligned text and right-aligned text at the same time. So I'm excited to break this down for you. I got some great HTML to show you and some cool CSS tricks. Let's get started.


Now, I'm going to explain exactly how the ultimate plant cage works. It comes in three pieces when you get it, so that way you can pop it together real easy around existing plants if you have it. If not, if you have a plant already you're going to put in, this goes like this. Three spots, snaps together, goes in like that, so easy. Take a little dirt out, put your plant in when your plant grows up, bottom line, just put the poles on there, one, two, three, so easy, boom. When the plant grows you extend your poles, when it gets bushy, you take your plant, ultimate plant clip, hook it to your poles. If you have an existing plant like this, I'll show you how to pop it around that. Like that, put this over here, bring this piece in, two and three, push that down there. Let's say this plant's still small, that's okay, we can still support it. Put the pole on here, loosen that nut right there, move it over, tighten that down, take one of your ultimate plant clips, snap it right on, so if the wind's blowing it's not going to blow over and break. This is the way to do it. The other old cages and stuff, they're so clumsy and big, nobody likes to work with them. Besides that, these look good on a deck in your backyard for urban gardeners also. Ultimate plant cage also works great in hydroponic gardens. This is one of the hydroponic rock wool cube here, boom, like this, cut a hole out in that, your plant goes right in there. Ultimate plant cage also works great in rock pebbles like that, very secure. So across the board, the ultimate plant cage works all over in gardens all over the world and will continue to and it's the new best thing. Okay, I want to show you a little bit of something about the ultimate plant clip. It's a number one seller. It replaces twist ties, it's easy to use, pops right on like that, one-handed, reusable, non-abrasive for holding plants up. It also looks good, it's cute. What got me started with this company actually was my mom and her garden and the fact that she dragged me out to her garden all the time and had me working out there and then as I got older, I saw that her plants were falling over and they were getting damaged. So me being an entrepreneur and inventors, since I was a kid making my own toys, I decided to come up with something and fix her garden and lo and behold I did and then my friends wanted to try it out and that worked and then the light popped in my head and I said I could probably sell this anywhere and then it just went from there. So that's where it started, it's just with an idea and with the drive and ambition that I carry in my life and in my heart.


Hello, Columbia. I'm Diane with Drew Wellness Center. I'm here to talk about our senior health fair at the end of May. That'll be May 29th from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. We're going to have about 50 different vendors from everything. Free screenings, free fitness classes, lots of prizes, giveaways, lots of information to give out. All free. Bring the community. Bring your friends. 50 years and over. Everybody's welcome to join us that day. We're going to have some free screenings like prostate cancer screening, A1C diabetes, blood pressure. As you know, getting up and moving is most important once you're over 50. It's actually very important at any age, but as we get a little older we start to slow down and we really have to keep moving to keep our body in check. This health fair is going to help you really get its information on how you yourself can get better.  Drew Wellness Center is located at 2101 Walker Salmon Way. It's right off Hardin. You can't miss this. It's a beautiful building with large windows where you can see the pool. If you need information, just call the front desk<PHONE_NUMBER>.