Hi, this is Jason from the TM team. Today I interviewed some of our foreign language education product managers who create light learning material. We have our English content product manager, Haley, and our foreign language content team, Sonia and Stacey.
Jason: I know everyone's busy these days😢 thank you for taking the time to participate in this interview.
Haley/Sonia/Stacey: Yes, hello.
Jason: Please introduce yourself.
Haley: Hi, I'm Lemonade's English content business team product manager Haley! 🙂 I conduct research, plan and produce English educational content. As a product manager, I am responsible for the overall work and completing the educational content.
Stacey: Hi, I'm a part of our foreign language content team, specifically I am the product manager for our Japanese products.
Sonia: Hi, I am Sonia. I am the PM for our Spanish product team. As Stacey mentioned, our team produces a variety of second language learning content, among which I produce content related to Spanish.
Jason: Yes, thank you for your introduction, can you tell us more about what you're doing?
Haley having a meeting with Andrew.
Haley: Yes, I plan a variety of content through market analysis, competitor research, customer analytics, etc. and I write textbook manuscripts for content, and I also do lecture planning and direction..
Sonia: As I said, I'm mainly responsible for creating learning content related to Spanish; most frequently I create textbooks and online lectures which are used with offline material. I write manuals, find competence authors, and write books., I also create interesting content that is uploaded to social media to motivate students to learn Spanish.
Stacey: I plan and produce content related to education in Japan, and it's about identifying market trends, finding improvements, and planning and creating new things so that more people can study foreign languages in a better way.
Jason: Tell me about a particular memory that stands out for you since working here.
Haley: I remember when I first started, I was involved in creating and opening a product. This happened shortly after joining the company. With the help of many people, I realized how much effort goes into this, it's actually really exciting that the content that I planned is formed and created, and I think I'm always trying to work with that heart in mind.
Sonia: I remember the first project I had on my own; I planned and wrote it under coaching from the team, but it was great that I was able to plan in the direction I wanted because it was my own project, and I felt proud and a bit shy when I saw that the content that started with my ideas was being positively evaluated in blog reviews, etc.
Stacey working hard
Stacey: Me too! I remember the first project I did; it was a project that I planned and produced. A book called Light Travel Japanese. I remember being asked what kind of product do you want to plan for in my interview. I remember saying that I wanted to create travel-related content that I normally liked and was interested in; I had been traveling to Japan since I was about one or two years old. I used to travel to Japan but since I wasn't good at Japanese, I remembered the difficulties and what expressions I needed. Most of all, it's hard for a lot of people to make their own products; it's probably an experience I'll never forget.
Jason: Oh, all three of you were impressed with your first project, and I think you've been helped by a lot of people.
Haley: The product manager has a lot of collaboration with other departments, and collaboration is very important.
Sonia: Yes, we work with most departments. As a PM, you go through a variety of processes to complete a project. You need to create books, create online lectures, create sales pages, collaborate with many departments, and complete projects. In order to create a book, you first have to write a manuscript; after you write a manuscript, the design team designs it neatly and makes it into a book. The team discusses it together, what parts should be emphasized, and what parts need to be modified.
In the subsequent in-lecture production, you will be photographed with PD and receive feedback. As you create textbooks and lectures, you need to have a meeting with the marketing team, who are responsible for selling, so you need to share details such as the planning intent of the content, the target audience, and the timeline and launch.
Stacey: I agree 100% that content can't be released to the world without collaboration. We are always working with various departments to create a single product, such as a design team and video team that makes the plan possible to see, a marketing team that makes the products that are made available to many people, and an operations team that makes sure that the sales are right.
In Lemonade, everyone is pulling in the same direction
Jason: Everyone is so humble! But while it's important to get help from other colleagues, it's also important to have a PM play a role - I think there are capabilities or qualities that are particularly required of the PM. Can you tell me about these?
Haley: To create educational content you need the basic language skills first, and Korean proficiency is important; many people think that only those who major in language or education can do this, but if you are a non-professional and are passionate about language and language education, majoring is not important.
Sonia: I think that knowledge of the language you're in charge of is a top priority, because I think it's your ability to plan as much variety and rich content as you know, so you have to continue to study and study without focusing on it. Next, you're planning your own content for sale, so you need to know what content is in the market in your language, what people are learning that language, and so on. The content you want to create personally and the content you want may be different, and if it doesn't match, the content you've worked with for months won't shine through. Finally, there are cases where you have to manage the whole project, so you have to deal with different things at once; it's a good thing to have MBTI's J tendency to schedule well and handle things well, without panicking when different things overlap. (I'm unfortunately P, but when it comes to work, I'm trying to be J. 😂)
Stacey: We work in the foreign language education market to communicate with learners (consumers) as a product, so I think it's important not only for foreign language skills, but also for the eye of reading the flow of the market, the mindset to create something better, and the ability to accurately understand the needs of consumers. I'm always thinking about ways to strengthen these competencies, and I'm trying to grow more every day, so I'm working with foreign language students, I think it's good if you have the ability to plan and create something.
To plan content that fits your consumer needs, it's necessary to keep an eye on the flow of the education market
Jason: What kind of skills can you train?
Haley: What I always feel while working is that I need to understand the rapidly changing flow of the education market; I need flexible communication skills because I need to collaborate with different teams, and I usually think about how I can do market research personally or how to communicate with flexibility.
Stacey: I'm similar to Haley, and I think it's important to keep an eye on the market by consistently accessing a lot of content. The more you know about that field, the better and worse it will be, and you'll have a more objective eye, so I started researching market trends last month. We're analyzing what products are available, what are the features and pros and cons, and analyzing why certain products are responsive in the existing market.
Sonia: Well, I'm personally focused on maintaining and strengthening my language skills; I'm constantly studying with native speakers and teachers. I speak Spanish often with my friends and teachers, and I try not to forget Spanish. I want to keep the language in my life, whether it's Spanish-speaking dramas, watching YouTube or listening to podcasts; doing so not only improves my Spanish skills, but also inspires me when I want to create new content.
Jason: Yes, so what kind of personality is better suited to this?
Haley: It helps to be creative in planning fun new content that sets it apart from the variety of content that's already created.
A PM's essential skill is being "meticulousness"
Sonia: Yes, I think being meticulous is really important; I think accountability is essential to that, and meticulous planning and content reviews are essential in providing content to learners, and it takes collaboration and effort from different departments to create a single piece of content. Many of you are working with a great responsibility to work together, depending on the PM's plans.
Stacey: I looked at it from a different perspective. I think the PM should basically be interested in creating something. If you already have content, we don't have to create it again and again, but first of all, you need to look at ready-made products from the perspective of the learner. 'I hope this improves a little bit?' If you think about it, you have to want to make something better. In that context, I think "from a learner's point of view". In order for a product to be created, you have to communicate with a lot of people, so it's important not to feel burdened with communication.
Jason: Thank you. What are the pros and cons of your roles?
Haley: The great thing about doing this is the sense of accomplishment; I always feel a big accomplishment because I can see the hard-planned and produced content being sold as textbooks, lectures, and merchandise. The downside is, well, there's so much to manage in the process of content completion.
Sonia: The advantage is that we feel great when we see reviews from customers who have learned from our content; we're most pleased with the positive reviews, and we're grateful that negative reviews can help you create content in the future, even if it's unfortunate to see negative feedback. But sometimes, when I study Spanish, which is a foreign language, it feels strange and difficult. Many people are learning with my content, so if you make a mistake, it's a huge deal!
Stacey: I think being able to create what I thought was a big plus; everyone thinks, 'I wish I could have this', and I've been able to achieve that in the Japanese language education market, of course, there's a lot of things that need to be coordinated by thinking about market flows or consumer needs, but I think that's a very attractive feature. I'm actually very satisfied with my job, so I don't think I've ever thought about the downsides. I guess, you have to constantly study? And I don't like studying.. haha.
Jason: Do you have a personal goal to make in Lemonade?
Haley: I feel motivated to always be working with great colleagues; my goal is to be a product manager who can motivate someone when it comes to work.
Sonia: I want to create more Spanish content in Lemonade. Spanish is my second language, so there are not yet many different types of content that I can learn other than English, Japanese, or Chinese. I want to create content that will satisfy the needs of more learners in Lemonade.
Stacey: I want to create content that can drive the flow of the foreign language education market. I want to create a good educational product that resonates with many learners like never before, and benchmark it against other companies.
Jason: It's a bit of a fun... If you have a new colleague, what kind of person one do you want to work with?
Content Business Team
Haley: It would be great if you could share different opinions about your content and work with someone with bright energy.
Stacey: I've never thought specifically about how I would work with someone who is good at communication, yet, because our team is a place where people of all personalities are as diverse as the diversity of languages, I don't want to set new colleagues in any particular form.
Sonia: I hope you're able to have fun and synergy when working together! PM's work is more variable than you might think, and as planned, everything doesn't work out on schedule. I hope you can look for other ways to be positive. I also believe that if you have a passion and expertise in language, you can create positive synergies. 😊
Jason: That was the last question, to finish can you say something of your choice - be short and concise!
Sonia: I want to explain to those who will be working together about the vision of this work; in the future, more and more people will be learning foreign languages. Foreign language learning has been test and certification-based learning in the past, but the motivation to learn will change more in the future. If you want to continue to follow the needs of changing learners and create new and diverse content, come to Lemonade. 🙂
Stacey: I want to share one experience that I've felt rewarding and fulfilling, even if it's not a vision, in a similar vein to Sonia, and I frequently look at our content reviews. It's really happy and rewarding when you have a good review, like it's fun or useful. Every time you feel that learners are studying with content that's been through my hands and building knowledge through it, I'm really happy. During the "Light Travel Japanese" review, there was a person who wrote, "I really needed this expression", and "it's really useful," as soon as I saw it, I was so excited and delighted that I shared it with my company messenger team room.
Haley: I personally reflect on the meaning of working in lemonade; being a part of a fast-growing lemonade feels just as much as it does; seeing a company that has not stopped growing since I joined the company makes me more passionate about my energy.
Some of the Lemonade team
Jason: Yes, thank you for your time and great answers! 🙂