When I noticed the power of converting opinions into a vision and then into action, I started to evaluate my routines under these 3 concepts. I invented a new word, #Opispective, to push myself to refine my opinions during the week into a vision. While everybody resolves the year of 2023 nowadays, i also wanted to join this resolution trend to share some of my top opispectives from 2023.

First of all, 2023 became an eye-opening and exploration-full year for me, including 2 times winning hackathons, launching my indie project Swiper, which lets you overview your galley by swiping your images and videos to left and right, and getting a license for operating amateur radio activities, and more…

I’ll go over these titles, in this post.

  1. Techno-optimist Manifesto
  2. DHH & 37 Signals Influence
    1. Work is not war.
    2. Cloud is not the future.
    3. Disagree but Commit
  3. On power of Repeat
  4. JTBD
  5. Bonus “Ad Astra per Aspera”
  6. Bonus: China & Asia

1. Techno-optimist Manifesto

When Andreessen Horowitz shared a manifesto under techno-optimism, I excitedly started to read it because I’m also a techno-optimist. But as the manifesto progressed, Andreessen started to offer some primitive and salt-premise-driven ideas to earn more playgrounds for their investment areas. The funniest part was his blame on the ones who’ll regulate AI and cause delayed AI doctors and more deaths from the results of this delay. 😅

The most important note from the manifesto was the parts that highlight the inefficient ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and NGO approaches. This was also important because my career started under an NGO intended to build products. So, I kind of know this field, and I can confidently say that current approaches make people talk with buzzwords.

2. DHH & 37 Signals Influence 3️⃣7️⃣

Every day, I became more of a fan of the 37 Signals team’s opispectives. Here are the most touching titles from them;

  1. 🔗 Work is not war.
  2. 🔗 Cloud is not the future.
  3. 🔗 Disagree and Commit

3. On the Power of Repeat 🔄

“Repeating the message consistently” is the best advice for founders. You have to keep repeating the message till it becomes the norm. Also, they describe CEOs as CROs, Chief Repeating Officers.

I saw lots of lived experience this year on keeping the message consistent, repeating the message, and leveraging and scaling the message concisely and in a way that makes sense to internal teams and external contacts.

Imagine a scenario where a manager repeats consistent operations to the team but cannot reach the North Stars because the road is not going there.

Another B scenario, where a manager repeats altering messages by only describing altering actions, they cannot reach North Star because the team cannot walk consistently.

The most beautiful scenario of X is where the manager repeats the message consistently and scales the message when required. In this scenario, the team should willingly alter actions if they’re not serving the message.

4. JTBD

A JTBD Template

The Jobs-to-be-Done Market Discovery Template | by Tony Ulwick | JTBD + Outcome-Driven Innovation

Jobs to be Done is an essential concept for both Product Managers and Marketers, and I repeat this concept a lot.

To understand your solution’s place and know your competitor;

Don’t start from features; start from the Jobs and Purposes of your user.

You can watch this brief video, which gives a solid example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfGtw2C95Ms

5. “Ad Astra per Aspera”

a poster from the episode

I just remember one occurrence of crying this year while watching the “Star Trek Strange New Worlds” series “Ad Astra per Aspera” episode…

Star Trek has always been my favorite kind of watchable, but this episode especially caught my attention. This series displays the earliest history of the United Federation of Planets.

A rebellious and genetically altered group under the leadership of Khan Singh first claimed a need for governance under superior people and made people superior (like Nazis), then formed an attack on the Federation. The Federation has suffered a dramatic loss while fighting back Khan. The federation wins the fight after losing so much power and people and then takes some precautions not to allow something similar to happen later.

This episode starts by reminding us of the laws prohibiting genetically altering the species. Some flashbacks happen during the development of the story. The flashbacks were about the disadvantageous persons who can only live with some genetic alterations. So, this law did not prevent genetic alterations completely and made people with alterations live secretly and off the grid. In this situation, we saw a case of a Federation official with genetic alterations. According to the prohibition, this official shouldn’t continue her position, whoever she is. But in this case, the official is not ordinary; she is a brave and example person in the Star Fleet.

The episode renews our hopes on how to judge and how to rule and regulate things. Complete forbids will create victims. But exception-full rules create inapplicability. So, the episode shows an effort to approach a better judgment of humanity.

The Federation of Planets successfully includes species under the common goal of keeping a peaceful alliance, discovering and exploring better technology for all, and exploring the spaces. Let’s quote Roddenberry’s famous saying;

Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms. […] If we cannot learn to actually enjoy those small differences, to take a positive delight in those small differences between our own kind, here on this planet, then we do not deserve to go out into space and meet the diversity that is almost certainly out there.

— Gene Roddenberry

Before Finishing: Opispectives List

Late this year, I also wanted to post my opispectives each weekend from my Twitter account publicly. Here’s a list of shared opispectives.

  1. 🔗 Memos ve Demos
  2. 🔗 Techno-Optimism
  3. 🔗 Pebble and Startup Fails
  4. 🔗 On Management
  5. 🔗 Developer Relations in Essence
  6. 🔗 Inventing the Wheel Again: Thoughts on Plastic Pollution
  7. 🔗 Just Start Manifesto
  8. 🔗 When Regulations salute Product Managers with “Hello Earthling!”

Bonus: China & Asia

I started meeting and working with Asia-based manufacturers and suppliers late last year. What to expect from Asian suppliers and how to align with them took some time, as well as applying best practices from my network. I also read more about their culture and history during my activities with them. Since the USA began to shift production from China to other countries and try to localize some of the productions in the US, China focused more on developing brand power and reached a higher ratio of branded exports this year.

I don’t know how much Chinese people would behave aggressively under the “Century of Humiliation” term. Still, when I noticed that Xi Jinping established a way to stay in power by bundling the decision-making processes after a period of unbundling, China might become a stronger player globally and in its region. Western opinions don’t give much credit to China, and they underline the lack of a market in Asia. At the same time, they show some EU decisions to allow Chinese operations under EU-native brands. The majority of opinions focus on China’s efforts today.

China will earn markets and increase its soft power gradually and globally. I often see Chinese companies under some collaborations to deliver turn-key solutions. China has accelerated its position in a more value-added spot, especially in the last 2-3 years. So, I think we’ll rely on China more in hardware projects unless laws and regulations do not mandate another thing. It’s better to form better communication with Asian suppliers because we can expect more from them.