How to you keep track of industry trends and insights?

Question

As a product manager, one of the biggest challenges I have is having reliable insights about the tech industry trends, especially in the developer space.What approaches do you use to keep ahead of what's happening (other than being on HN), what the community/customers are looking for, and what emerging trends there are?

muzani · Accepted Answer

Look at what's being used in production. Job sites are great for this. Europe seems ahead of the curve because they work shorter hours, so they can't just pick technologies willy nilly. They need something that is immediately effective and saves time. Germany especially, as they have the Rocket Internet culture where they have to execute fast.I picked up things like Kotlin and MVVM from those, years before Google adopted them.

stephenr · Answer

Wait till you start seeing articles saying "Don't use X, use Y instead", and then look at what X does.At the pace of most things in this industry, it might actually be somewhat usable/mature by that point.

giantg2 · Answer

I mostly read this site.I also listen to what my company is telling us, because at the end of the day I have to listen to whatever they decide is the trend that they want to follow.

visox · Answer

Hi, something i build in the past https://insightrend.com/?page=term-trendingTry it with some keyword...I was trying to build an Google trends alternative.N&ocirc;t sure if its helpful.

joshxyz · Answer

- forums like hn- checking hiring ads every once in a while- tech on twitter- talking to users

How to you keep track of industry trends and insights?

Wait till you start seeing articles saying "Don't use X, use Y instead", and then look at what X does.
At the pace of most things in this industry, it might actually be somewhat usable/mature by that point.

I mostly read this site.
I also listen to what my company is telling us, because at the end of the day I have to listen to whatever they decide is the trend that they want to follow.

Hi, something i build in the past https://insightrend.com/?page=term-trending
Try it with some keyword...
I was trying to build an Google trends alternative.
Nôt sure if its helpful.

- forums like hn
- checking hiring ads every once in a while
- tech on twitter
- talking to users