Christian Crumlish

Summary

I leap tall buildings when given a running start. At work that translates into rallying people to focus on outcome-focused, human-centered, evidence-informed iteration, and to look for ways to constantly improve. I also help leaders grow product people and build empowered product teams. Right now I lead the Product chapter at 18F, part of GSA in the US federal government. I recently wrote a book called Product Management for UX People and curated several Design in Product conferences on the same topic. I also host a product/UX community by the same name. I lead product teams with an approach rooted in IA and UX and storytelling and getting my hands dirty. I recruit top talent and set them up to try, fail, learn, and succeed. I like improving complex service journeys, and while I've never seen data design or invent anything, I love data-informed product ideation (and rapid iteration based on empirical feedback) for getting beyond primitive, brute-force approaches to digital product design. I am not actively seeking consulting opportunities at this time. As VP Product for 7 Cups I took a sprawling community-driven service with no revenue through experimentation, collaboration, and grit to a digital-therapeutic behavioral-health platform grossing seven figures annually and poised for further greatness. I directed the product team at CloudOn, a tablet-first mobile productivity startup. There I recruited, hired, led, and mentored the design team. We built a gesture-first productivity tool with document editing and social collaboration workflows and then sold the company to Dropbox. At AOL I helped build a consumer experience practice and directed a strategic projects team that roamed the company doing good and avoiding evil. I launched user blogging on (and developed a social strategy for) Patch, assisted in the design of a next-generation mail product, and as senior director of product at AIM I drove the product roadmap and fostered a creative approach to ideation, design, and development. Some of my other writing credits include co-author of Designing Social Interfaces (O'Reilly, '09, '15), The Power of Many (Wiley, '04), and the bestselling Internet for Busy People (McGraw-Hill, '95). I've written, edited, agented, and published bestselling technical books. I can write sparkling copy ... or if you don't want it to sparkle, hey, it won't. Specialties: Product, writing, product design, UX, information architecture, digital media, content strategy, social experience design, additional buzzwords available on demand.