Communications for the win!

7 min readMay 1, 2022

With a strong assist from soft skills …

I was fortunate to meet virtually with Diana (Thomas) Hart, to discuss her roles as a Product Manager, and how her communications and marketing background have contributed to her career growth. Coming from a similar background, I was intrigued to learn more about her experiences as I pivot my own career path to one in Product Management.

Diana’s career has evolved from marketing and communications roles in Calgary, including at Encana, to a number of roles in the telecom industry in the United States, most recently at Spectrum Mobile in Denver, Colorado.

She credits her communications background with getting her foot in the door for her first Product Manager role with DISH Network in the sales operation group, where she was at the forefront of product launches. From there she moved to crafting messaging for call centre employees at Century Link (now Lumen) and was also tasked with more project than product management.

When the call centre closed, she moved to DataBank Ltd, providing Product Management support for their Colocation Data Centre, which experienced an unexpected surge in growth when the pandemic hit (more so than their main revenue division Network), with companies like google, Charter, Spectrum, and Zoom all needing more robust platforms to support most or all their employees working from home. The technology was all new to her, but she credits her soft skills and nearly six years experience in the telecom sector for being considered to join the team.

As Diana says, “even though I’m moving around telecom as an industry, I’m still using all these soft skills. And in the meantime, I’m also learning all the technical stuff. But I don’t think it was the technical stuff that helped me be effective. It was more those soft skills like communications, and bringing people together — collaboration, teamwork. These are my favourite things, plus I also like to research and write.”

In her current role at Spectrum Mobile, which she refers to as more of a “Marketing” Product Manager role, Diana and the members of her Launch Management team break down silos to ensure correct, consistent and relevant product information is being distilled (and translated) from the technical product information provided by OEM’s (original equipment manufacturer) —including Samsung, Apple and Orbic — to a user-friendly format referred to as ‘launch artifacts’, which are provided to all teams to help them create their own customer training materials and intranet posts. Artifacts for sales teams are also set up with categories such as display features and battery performance to make a more conversational resource when walking customers through the various options.

This launch content supports a literal cast of thousands, including the marketing, sales (sales agents — in stores, outbound or inbound sales calls, reaching out to business customers, retention agents), technical product managers, IT, project managers and customer experience team as well as the Public Relations newsroom for parent company Charter Communications.

Diana again credits her soft skills and communications experience with being able to be a ‘bridge’ between her launch team and her internal clients to help them be successful.

And while all groups contribute to the success of Spectrum, Diana highlighted two, when asked how her role helps the company save and make money. She said retention agents work hard to keep customers engaged and retain those thinking about leaving the company — successful retention saves the company money and builds brand loyalty and retention. On the sales side, bringing in new customers — while more expensive at the outset — grows Spectrum’s customer base and revenue. Says Diana, “I like to think that it is how my materials and what I do help the company save and make money.”

This is especially important as the company has successfully launched ten new devices so far this year, with two more in May and another two in June. This wouldn’t be possible without the combined efforts of all teams, and an incredibly involved code testing process that has resulted in two launch delays this year, to ensure everything is working properly with Spectrum’s systems and network for the end user, their customers.

With her experiences so far, what does the future of Product Management look like to Diana?

She doesn’t see a slowdown in consumer appetite for technology, especially in the telecom sector, which is one of the few industries that grew during the pandemic and shows no signs of slowing down. She also thinks there are so many paths you can choose from now — you could take the Product Marketing Management route that she has, or a more intensive technical route — or a hybrid of the two. That’s one of the things she loves about this particular career path. The sky’s the limit!

There’s also the variety that’s come with the evolution of her duties over time, depending on the company and role — which can be quite different, even in the same industry. Reaffirming how difficult it is to define what a product manager is as well as the path to become one.

So, what would Diana recommend for those of us looking to move to a future career/role as a Product Manager?

First, she thinks our EDGE 2.0 program for Product Management, specializing in Digital Marketing, is a wonderful way to learn about this field, including this assignment of an Informational Interview, which she recommends continuing throughout this program and during our job search. And if possible, setting up job shadowing opportunities and internships with companies or industries you are drawn to, will also provide great learning about where you want to be.

She is a fan of LinkedIn, and the free courses (like a Product Manager Bootcamp she’s seen in the past — even if you aren’t a Premium member), searching LinkedIn for product managers and following ones at companies and industries you are interested in — they might even lead you to a workshop or session that is helpful to your job search. Also, companies you are interested that may be based outside your geographical location, with the continuing growth of remote work opportunities.

Within and outside of LinkedIn, she also recommends focusing on how you position yourself — your ‘marketing package,’ which ties in nicely with the advice and content one of our instructors provided us with to create our personal brand strategy.

As part of positioning yourself, Diana also recommends showcasing your soft skills, while acknowledging this can be difficult when you come from a communications background, like myself.

It is something that Spectrum is doing, by quantifying and celebrating the successes of all teams on a quarterly basis, including the announcement that they are about to reach their 4 millionth customer.

Talk about a milestone achievement!

As we wind up our chat, Diana offers common themes with her current role that help her succeed. Essentially: good product, team effort, getting the word out and knowing they are on the right track.

On a personal note, she adds, “I am lucky because I just get to collaborate — I always say in my career and my research I get to be nosy and ask questions so I can write really good copy.”

And while she is happy to be in the mobile world, and all the excitement and advances in technology it provides, she sometimes misses her lavender pink Moto Razr, with colour-coordinated accessories, when she was at Encana.

I couldn’t resist looking online for a picture of the phone and discovered that the original celebrity fan-base included Paris Hilton and, in 2020, Motorola relaunched the phone as a hybrid flip/smart phone for a mere $1500 USD!

Maybe Diana is on to something here? Stay tuned.

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