Today we celebrate International Women's Day! I thought there could be no better way to celebrate than to go find some smart women around PTC. We have so many but I targeted our ThingWorx Navigate product organization as the latest ThingWorx Navigate release is just around the corner!
It was a pleasure to sit down with Emily Hartman, Director of Product Management for our ThingWorx Navigate Product. Please listen in our our discussion together.
Jaime Lee: Thank you for taking time to meet with me today! It is so nice for the PTC Community members to get to know the faces behind our customer's favorite PTC products. Please tell me a little about yourself. How long have you worked for PTC?
Emily: I have been with PTC almost four years.
Jaime Lee: Yes, I actually remember our first conversation together. I believe we were setting up a ThingWorx Navigate working group to get some early feedback on an upcoming release.
Emily: Yes, that's right. I had just come from GE for four years as a Senior Consultant (in addition to many progressive roles) I was responsible for business strategy and technology risk management. Now I lead the ThingWorx Product Managemet Team, partnering with our Technical Product Managers (TPMs) and R&D Leads across Development, QA, DevOps, and more to drive priorities.
Jaime Lee: What is the day to day of activities in your role like?
Emily: While every day is different, my role consists of working with our global Navigate ecosystem to talk to customers, set product strategy, prioritize features for releases, enable our sales teams, and monitor adoption with customer success.
Jaime Lee: Here we are celebrating Women's History Month at PTC. What can you tell me about your experience being a women in product at PTC?
Emily: I think most women in technology can relate that it’s an adjustment entering a predominantly male industry. Layer on top of that key domains of PTC customers – Engineering and Manufacturing – that are also predominantly male. It makes for a bit of a larger personal adjustment. To get through my own adjustment period, support from colleagues was critical! I’ve always felt this support at PTC.
As it’s Women’s History Month, I’d like to give a special shout out to the ThingWorx Navigate R&D Team as we have a lot of incredible, talented women on our team that are working hard every day to build high quality software for our customers! It’s a pleasure to work with this team and I’m proud of all we’ve accomplished and all that is to come!
Jaime Lee: I know your ThingWorx Navigate Team reputation is highly regarded across PTC. What are some stories you can share with me?
Emily: With a global team I have to say I love the personal aspect of learning about each other, connecting over shared interests/experiences, and laughing on calls together that energizes me. Our team consistently puts ourselves into the shoes of the end user when designing and building Navigate Apps-it shows the passion of each on of our team members!
Jaime Lee: What is your favorite thing about ThingWorx Navigate?
Emily: My favorite thing about ThingWorx Navigate (aside from the great people that work on the product!) is seeing that our product is helping solve real challenges for our customers. Easy-to-use role and task-based apps that provide valuable PLM data, to break down collaboration barriers and extend the Digital Thread from Engineering to roles across the rest of the company. It’s extremely gratifying hearing from customers firsthand how ThingWorx Navigate is helping their end users improve productivity, reduce cost due to rework, or improving product time to value.
You can find more stories on how customers are finding success our ThingWorx Navigate page on ptc.com. We are always looking for more stories. Let us know if you're interested in sharing your story with us!
Jaime Lee: I always love hearing feedback on PTC Community impressions! What do you think of your experience involved in the PTC Community?
Emily: It's nice to see the engagement that takes place between members of the TWX Navigate Community to either answer questions or weigh in on a topic that another community member has posted. Along similar lines of engagement, it's extremely helpful and encouraging for Product Management when we post a "What's New" for a release or a release preview of what's coming that gets a lot of kudos or comments. It indicates to us that there's excitement around a release and we can share that with our broader team!
Jaime Lee: Okay, I always like to wrap up these interviews with something more personal...what do you do when you aren't engaging on our community or leading the ThingWorx Product Management Team? Any hobbies or anything you would like to share with our PTC Community members?
Emily: I enjoy traveling (to new destinations and old favorites), checking out new restaurants, and cooking with my husband. In the Winter, you'll find me cheering on the UNC Tar Heels (my alma mater) in basketball and in the Summer, reading at the beach!
Jaime Lee: Emily, Thank you for your time, and all the community members stopping by to learn more about ThingWorx Navigate and Emily!
