From Logic Engine To Machine Learning — Part 1
One of the delights of a “product guy” is the ongoing opportunity to learn and create cool stuff. Building products which clients embrace is both satisfying and exciting! Getting it right though — whether it be a new feature or entirely new offering — is neither easy nor common. It involves brainstorming, lots of listening to salespersons, clients and each other, tons of inspired teamwork across various disciplines, and luck of course. So, it is always a thrill and a privilege when the marketplace validates the output.
One of my many product exploits entailed developing an API based market information product. To ready this offering for “shipping” to customers, we designed and built a Logic Engine to perform millions of real-time computations. I will not bore you by wading into the weeds here but we completed development and rolled it into production after many meetings filled with debates, much testing, many iterations and demoing, and the great work of our Software Engineering/QA teams. I oversaw this effort as product owner of the project and congratulated the teams on a successful release of our product, buttressed by our “Little Engine.” I was even more pleased when we began signing lucrative commercial deals.
Over the years I have been asked what was the difference between that Little Engine and one rooted in machine learning? I think the way I thought about the difference then (albeit over a decade and more ago) can help — if I may say so humbly — today’s non-coders yet aspiring product owners / managers approach incorporating machine learning into their products and service offerings. In Part 2, the fun stuff, I will share more about our Little Engine and outline how it crossed into the realm of machine learning. Your ideas and products can too! See you in Part 2.
*Fair Disclosure: I am a “product guy” not a coder but I have enjoyed contributing to software development and leading marketplace innovation efforts of various sizes and all sorts. Thank you for reading Part 1.
