Master of change

Last night marked an inflection point in what’s been my busiest start to a year ever. I was among 218 other graduates in my Quantic School of Business and Technology MBA Class of February 2024 to be conferred with an Executive Masters in Business Administration.

After spending most of my evenings and weekends in January working on my capstone dissertation and presentation, it’s time to wrap up the journey I’ve been on for the past 15 months. Happy times.

Coincidentally, yesterday also marked 3 years since my father went to be with the Lord. He would have been proud. I imagine he’s looking on now and saying “good for you, my boy.”

I embarked on this journey for 2 main reasons: to prove to myself that I could do it, after mulling it over in my head for a decade. My second reason aligns with why, I imagine, most people get MBAs — to get a formal business education and degree. I’ve been working professionally for 11 years now, built competencies in content, product, and UX, and I’ve done valuable work across multiple industries. It’s time to start growing deeper roots and reaching further into the ether.

My Quantic dashboard status update on graduation day.

If I could add another reason, it’d be because I want to push my UNIBEN degree as far down the stack as possible.

Some of my friends have asked if I’ll be going on to get a PhD. My answer is the same as the one before this Masters: I’m not keen on it. If the conditions are right, perhaps. It’d have to be fully funded, for starters. And it’d have to be my full time job for the duration, unlike it was for the MBA. I’m not keen on it, but you never know.

I’m relieved to be at the finish line. To have a new degree. Thank you to everyone who played a part to get me here. Special thanks to my capstone group members, Princely and Feji, for being excellent to work with.

I don’t know what comes next, but I’ll be ready when it does.

“There’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait.”

— Lin-Manuel Miranda

All the glory to God.

This one’s for you, dad.

Dad

I saw my dad again today. His eyes were closed, as if asleep, and unlike when I last saw him in December, he was sporting a rather fine, grey stubble, like he was trying for a cute grandad look. His brows furrowed like he was grinning or musing about something in his sleep. He looked majestic.

I have some lucid memories from very long ago. Life and the passing of time have not greyed them out, and I know I’m not making them up. There’s one from around when I’d just figured out how to walk. I could only take a few steps at a time before plopping down on all fours again. On one of those days, while I sat on the pavement that linked our balcony onto the sandy streets of Benin, my dad was returning home from an outing. I did the thing — got up on my two feet, walked a few steps, and staggered in his direction, into his waiting arms, as they lifted me off the ground.

That’s probably my earliest memory of him. I still recall the rides, aloft his shoulder, when we crossed makeshift bridges over streams or moved along uneven terrain on the way to the farm on Saturdays. As it turns out, the discography of our shared memories all through my life until he left is all I have now. It’s the only thing that will remain. My dad passed away on February 23rd and I’ve been unmoored on every front.

Nothing really prepares you for the death of a parent or a loved one. As humans, we understand death as a concept, even one not due to natural causes (which I think is an odd term, because nothing about death is remotely natural), so you sort of expect it to happen at some point, hoping that it gets delayed for as long as possible. But you’re never ready.

Watching my father gradually succumb to the illness that eventually took him was a most harrowing mental ordeal. The last throes of pain have coincided with events, over the last couple of months, that would otherwise have filled me — and him, especially — with tremendous joy. Regardless of the occasion, I’ve been unable to deeply enjoy anything since the Fall of 2018 when his health took a downturn. I contemplated therapy at some point but never could will myself to show up for the sessions.

Every time I shut my eyes I see him. I hear his voice as he greets the neighbours before walking in through the front door. He asks for water, and I get him some in his special stainless steel cup on the dining table. He did not like cold water. I still see him nodding off in front of the TV after the evening news, with the volume set too loud. I asked him to turn down the volume sometimes when we spoke on the phone, just so we could hear each other better. I remember showing him how to navigate the functions of his new smartphone. I remember calling him from the Uniben engineering car park to ask for money to buy a recommended textbook as I sneak in my pocket money requests. I recall how he shrieked excitedly on the phone when I notified him that I was getting married (the news about my acquiring a car on the same call didn’t even seem to register in comparison to the marriage one, smh). I remember calling to wish him a happy new year when I got back from church on the times I was away from Benin on January 1. I remember texting him on his birthdays, 1 week after mine. My “Call Dad” calendar entry from 2015 still pops up by 7 pm on Saturdays.

My love for words came from my father. Whenever I hear or read some vocabulary now, I can usually recall the first time I ever encountered them. I can recall where I was and who it was that uttered them. More often than not, it was he. When we were kids, my elder brother and I would plunder his library (something he actively encouraged), as we raced each other to finish novels he had collected from the Sixties. All his paperbacks are still in fine form to this day, with his annotations and the start and finish dates affixed. We’re no strangers to the African Writers Series collection at our home. My father and my mother (who is a teacher, too) were truly the first teachers we had.

He knew a thing or two about consistency and grit, my father. The Osadolo household was up by 5am everyday to have morning devotion. Every day. They lasted one hour and were mini church services in their own rights. I and my brothers learned to read the Bible and learned how to pray in those sessions. By the time we were adolescents, the evening sessions became a regular feature too. He ran the house like a platoon. Dinner was at 7pm, and you were at the reading table till 10pm. Lights out was anywhere from 10:30pm. For my primary and secondary school mates who always wondered why my brothers and I always pulled better grades than the lot, the answer is because my dad ensured we hit the books more than everyone else. Every day. Consistently. My body still rouses by 5am on most days.

He was rather famous for being a straightforward disciplinarian, my father. He didn’t spare the rod back in the day, and we soon learned that we didn’t have the luxury of being foolish in this world. His family, friends, and peers nicknamed him “Opposer” because he was a stickler for doing things right. That’s why our house was always full — his relatives and friends sent their kids to live with us because they trusted him to help raise them right. With a man like my father, you always knew where you stood. He was sure and true.

I think what hurts the most about it all is the feeling that he is going to miss out on a lot of the great things to come; all the benefits that aggregate from having his own children come of age and succeed in the world. He only got a glimpse of it. He won’t be here when my own children are born (thank God he got to spend time with his three granddaughters and grandson), and he won’t be on the hypothetical podium with us on all the days when we win. The quality of our conversations with him greatly improved when I and my brothers transitioned into adulthood, and I am going to miss being able to call him every week to talk about random things.

As time races forward, the pain will be easier to deal with, and his absence won’t loom over everything so much. And maybe I can learn to be deeply joyful about stuff again. Fifty years from today, if I’m ever so lucky to be alive and am able to wield my wits, still, I reckon that a lot of my father’s memories would have greyed out of my mind. Or perhaps they will remain but wouldn’t be accompanied by a deep sense of loss. Because I would be nearer to (meeting) him then than I am now.

Two weeks ago, as I carried Jordan, my one-year-old nephew in Benin, I couldn’t help but see my father in him, as I had some sort of epiphany about the cycle of life. I imagined there’d have been some grand-uncle of mine who’d have rocked my dad in his arms in 1949, while he was a baby. In the 72 years since, he’s grown, made his way in the world, raised a family, made an impact in many lives, and exited the scene. On my way to the airport, my nieces (aged 7, 6, and 4) chorus their desire to follow me to Lagos, and then it clicks in my head: I’m the uncle in Lagos now. My dad’s younger brother was (and still is) the uncle in Lagos for me and my brothers. With time, my nieces and nephews, as well as my own children, will be aunts and uncles themselves. The entire thing throws my mind in an existential spin. The cycle will go on. We’re all fading away, along with our stories. The land underneath us is the only thing that will persist. It will never forget.


What is the measure of a man’s life? What are the things that would have mattered at the end of it? I wrote a short eulogy/biography for my dad for the burial program. The last paragraph reads: 


“…[Christopher Aibuedefe Osadolo] was married to his lovely wife, Mrs. Veronica Osadolo, and together they raised four children. He led a good life. He had the trust of all who knew him, was loved by his friends, and worked hard to provide for his family and all dependent on him. He had a large heart and was always open to help others as much as he could. His death is heaven’s gain. He will be missed.”

My father loved and cared for his family. He was trustworthy, generous, and hard-working. He served and believed in Jesus Christ, with Whom he’ll remain until the end of time.

Live forever, dad.

Amen. 

Writing For UX: What UX Writing Teaches About Products

I purchased and read Torrey Podmajersky’s Strategic Writing For UX book for Christmas. It’s an absolutely brilliant book that I’d recommend for anyone working in UX or building products. A sentence review of the book, if one is ever needed: My highlighter was put to good use as the pages are filled with gems.

Spending most of the holiday season indoors afforded me ample time to read and do other low-energy activities. I gorged on a lot of UX Writing material in that time. This post is going to be about the things I’ve learned so far.

1. UX Writing is Not Content Marketing

Content Marketing and UX Writing are similar in the sense that a good wordsmith would excel at both. But they differ in operation. Content, as part of the Marketing function, naturally operates at the top of the funnel. Content Marketing is an Attraction & Conversion Phase endeavour. Depending on the product a company sells, Content Strategy will adapt to attract and rein in the intending user.

UX Writing, on the other hand, is not a Marketing function. UX writers sit in the Product or Design org of a company. Where Content Marketing attracts, engages and converts the user, UX Writing ensures that the user has an optimal and seamless experience while using the product. Think of confirmation messages, notifications, error messages, labels, buttons, and descriptions, etc.

Good UX Writing is sublime and intuitive. The users don’t come there (the product) to read. In Torrey’s words, our words aren’t there to be read, savoured and appreciated, but to pass unremembered while they help get somebody to the thing they want.

UX Writing helps users navigate and interact with a product without thinking or particularly noticing the words.

“Our words aren’t there to be read, savoured and appreciated, but to pass unremembered while they help get somebody to the thing they want.” — Torrey Podmajersky

2. A Product Should Deliver a Consistent, Specific Experience

Every product has a unique personality or a set of traits that define the experience for the users. There’s how it looks — which the design defines, and then there’s how it feels — defined by the words, for the most part.

Concepts like tone and voice are a huge part of what makes a product’s experience recognizable and distinct from others. The kind of experience crafted onto a product is determined by two things: the purpose of the product/company and the people who will use the product.

Words matter, and UX Writing is at the core of defining a holistic and consistent experience for the product.

Writing is Design (Too)

UX Writing is a design endeavour as well. When words have to be contextual, clear and concise, then you have to figure out how to make the most of the tiny real estates the words will sit on. In a general sense, the concept of font sizes kind of buttresses the point.

Perhaps a more functional way to explain this point is the fact that designers do a significant amount of UX Writing when designing interfaces for products. In the absense of a UX Writer on the team, designers typically input the words that define the experience of the product. For the most part, designers do a good job in this regard but a wordsmith at the helm of a Content-first design setup makes all the difference. That’s why Product teams have UX Writers.


How I Got Here

My interest in the field was sparked a year earlier, perhaps, and has been growing quietly and steadily in the background of my professional life since. As my interest in building products soared, UX Writing proving to be the compass with which I navigate the path.

Since it’s a relatively new field, there’s not a lot of places to go and learn the craft professionally. UX Writers Collective, UX Writing Hub and Content Design London are some of the more popular institutions that have UX Writing, Content Design and Microcopy programs. These programs all offer a certificate at completion, so you might want to check them out.

I decided to buy and read books instead, seeing as the programs are pretty pricy for me. In addition to Torrey’s book, I also purchased Content Strategy For The Web by Kristina Halvorson & Melissa Rach and Content Design by Sarah Richards.

Also, Medium has a ton of UX Writing content you can dive into¹. The design team at Dropbox, Adobe and Co have some good UX Writing content out there, and there are publications dedicated to the craft.

Simply put, UX Writing is hot right now in tech and, in my opinion, is the most immersive relationship a writer in technology can have with product development. In broader terms, other than the Product Owner, no other stakeholder in the Software (Product) Development Life Cycle is as involved as the UX Writer. Because they have to craft words into every pane and phase of the product and shape the entire experience. UX Writing is high stakes work, and you wouldn’t be crucified for mistaking them (UX Writers) for Product Managers.


Additional Resources:

Why UX Writing is So Important In Product Design — UX Planet
Every Word Matters
Booking.writes: Stories from writers at Booking.com
Microcopy and UX Writing
Get To Know The Booming Field of UX Writing — Adobe XD Ideas
Dropbox Design

The ‘Tupac of Products’: My Product Manager Journey Begins

I took an Intro to Product Management course about 2 weeks ago, and, as part of the required exercise for the course, I am to pen a blog post about my journey into Product Management. This might end up being a long, winding, essay. Brew some tea.

I have, in the last few months, been fiercely contemplative about the future of my work. I suppose I have always maintained a kind of persistent contemplation about what I do and how much it matters in the world. It quickly became my goal, when I was a boy, to study and train to be an engineer. The other options – Astronaut, CIA Operative, Genetic Engineer, etc – didn’t seem plausible back then, as they never got listed in the JAMB brochure. It didn’t take very long to opt for Electrical & Electronics Engineering. 

I work as a writer in technology now. Nearly a decade after my engineering degree and not more than a year of industry work logged in since, I have been on a tangential path, doing work in fields where my degree isn’t a prerequisite. Traditional engineering and I fell out of love in 2014. Since then, I have worked as a Content Marketing and Growth professional in 3 tech companies and immersed myself in the developer ecosystem on the continent.

My interest in Product Management came from a most unlikely place: Kanye’s The Breakfast Club interview from 2013. Kanye had just released the Yeezus album and he had performed at a concert the night before the interview. Charlamagne The God’s relentless jabs at him for putting out an album he considered subpar didn’t seem to faze Ye beyond the trademark passive-aggressive grin. He seemed more inclined to talk about his then-nascent clothing and shoe brands. In an interview replete with full-blown egomania and a stern rebuke of corporations, Kanye announced at some point that he is the “Tupac of Products”. He was transitioning from being a rap superstar to being a product design superstar, too. It’s weird the things that move me. I didn’t even really listen to rap music until a few years ago. I first saw that interview in 2015 when someone tweeted it onto my timeline.

I saw it again 2 months ago.

The Technology Products team at Andela Nigeria sits on my floor, right across the aisle from my team’s table. I’d spoken to Desiree Craig, a PM on the team a few times about my interest in the field, and she was ever so eager to offer me the support I needed to kickstart the journey whenever I was ready. I finally decided I was ready last week and asked her to send me a blueprint of sorts on how to start. She sent me the link to this Udemy course on Intro to PM two weeks ago, which I promptly took and completed. My friend Omorogbe Usuomon, on learning that I had taken an interest in being a PM sent me this fine PM resource put together by the folks over at Team Infinity. It is like a Product Marketing handbook of sorts and really helps in clarifying some of the foundational concepts.

Why The Fuss With Products

First off, this feels, to me, like my typical move to do something that diminishes the degree of separation between me and actual software development. Like how procrastinating on something important that you aren’t quite ready to take on always leads you to work on something else on your priority list that isn’t that thing. As long as I do not actually have to code, like. But I can see it really isn’t when I think about it a little bit.

My work has always been about products, as a matter of fact. I have been involved in the ideation, conceptualization, and marketing of several technology products and services. I just haven’t managed these products. The Udemy course made me realize that the processes and concepts of product management – at least the foundational ones – are rather familiar. Because if you’ve been involved at a relatively senior role tech startups, you’ll realize that they are, by design, essentially run as products.

In my mind, the only tech product that I have managed is forLoop Weekly. Well, I suppose you could call it a service, but it’s as good as products get. It is a consistent, efficient service that serves a purpose for the thousands of users using it. Having built something successful like that which will continue to be relevant without me directly involved, I am setting my sights on the next big thing. Or small but relevant thing.

I’ve been told I have just the right skill set to focus on Product Management, seeing as my content experience will come in handy with things like research, user stories, and case studies, etc. I have also been hunkering down on Microcopy and UX Writing over the last one year, and it seems everything fits in together somewhat.

All of this feels new and old at the same time. The new concepts have a veneer of familiarity about them, which I imagine will wear off by the time I get to the deep end. Maybe I will go on to work on things outside of tech eventually, but all products will be tech products before long anyway. I am eager to see where all of this leads. Over the coming weeks and months, I will be actively studying and seeking out opportunities to temp on Product teams & projects. Maybe I will happen on a fork in the road and go off on a tangent eventually, but I will stay on the road.

The Sting of Death

I attended a funeral service for a young man today. He was 32 – not much older than me. The service was intense; palpable sorrow and grief filled the air.

As the choir did dreamy renditions of hymns, and people came up to read Bible verses, all carefully arranged to lighten the blow of the moment, the pain of his loss only heightened in the room. There was a lady in the choir, not more than 8 yards in front of me, whose tears overwhelmed the napkin she constantly held to her eyes, as she willed herself to stand with the rest of the group. She stuttered through the hymns with quivering lips. It hurt to look at her, but I couldn’t look away.

Sometime – around halfway through the service – a man came up to read from 1 Thessalonians 4. When he got to the part where we are admonished to not despair in the face of death like people who have no hope, his choking increased, but he braved it to the end. The portion he read from reads thus:

13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

Grief is impervious to knowledge. The death of a loved one, especially one so young, asks many questions of us and puts the very core of our faith to the test. And we rarely have answers that work. Having hope doesn’t prevent the pain of loss. It will sting hard. But we’re expected to respond with measured grief. Sitting there and reading along with the man on the podium, the voice in my head read a bit faster – as I am accustomed to, but when he choked, my fluency escaped me. I, too, choked. An eager tear threatened, unsuccessfully, to escape my now misty eyes. I blinked rapidly and managed to restrain the floodgates.

When I was little, while in primary school, my mother’s brother, Uncle Sam died. It is my earliest memory of death coming so close to home. I was, perhaps, too young then to grasp the scale of grief his loss inflicted on everyone, but I remember, as clear as day, how my mother mourned for him. She was inconsolable for an unending spell of time until the passing of time made things easier. Sometimes, I can recall Uncle Sam’s face, with his full beards and sideburns that brushed against my tender neck each time he carried me up in a hug. It is like a distant memory from another lifetime. I don’t recall much else about him, but I will never forget my mother’s grief at his passing.

My most recent brush with grief was in the summer of 2017, when my friend and former colleague, Mubarak, died. The world was colourless for many days after, as everyone (in Nigerian Tech who knew him) reeled in shock. He was 24. Death isn’t something you should have to grapple with at 24, but Mubarak didn’t get the memo. None of us did.

I think a lot about death lately. It is a consequence of growing up, I imagine. You start to notice that death isn’t just an idea or a theoretical concept that means the end for some person you read or heard about. Every once in a while, it strikes closer to home and claims a friend, a relative, or someone not far removed from you, and it jars your sensibilities. Each time, I relapse into an existential mode and question the meaning of everything that light touches. A consequence of growing up is the stark realization that everyone you know is hurtling towards an inevitable end, and you can only hope that their voyage takes as long as humanly possible.

While I sat in that church today, my mind traveled to the end of my life. I thought of all the people who would grieve when I’m gone, and I couldn’t think of a way to prevent them from grieving. For a moment, I wished that I’d been born alone, and with no one to be broken by grief at my passing when it finally happens. Then I realized that people only grieve because they have loved, and to exit without inflicting grief is to have lived without receiving affection. Existential thoughts are rarely rational, the mind is merely grasping at straws while failing at layering meaning onto events.

I shall carry the feeling of this moment and churn it over in my head for many days yet. He was my friend’s brother. I’d heard about him while he was alive but I never met him. I felt a tiny bit guilty for showing up late in his story – after it ended. Not more than 10 yards from my seat, his wife and daughter, and the rest of his family sat engulfed in grief. When I consider how the aching in their hearts is a hundred billion times more intense than what anyone else in the room is feeling, the tightness in my chest constricts a bit more and I have to sigh deeply to maintain airflow to my lungs.

Oh death, where is your sting?