Last updated March 20, 2021.
Welcome to Product Talk!
I strongly believe that service providers have a responsibility to collect, manage, and use data in a responsible way. Read on to learn about Product Talk’s data policies.
For Product Talk Blog Readers
If you read Product Talk on the web or via an RSS reader, know that I use Google Analytics to track usage data. However, I do not collect any personally identifying information. All of my Google Analytics data is anonymized.
If you aren’t familiar with Google Analytics, all this means is that I know how many people visited each page, I get some navigational cues (e.g. a visitor visited this page and then this page), and I can see what terms people searched for. I don’t know who you are, what you individually read, or what you searched for. I only get anonymized numbers (e.g. 50 people visited this article, a person visited this page and then this page).
I use this data as feedback on how well my writing resonates with you. If an article gets a ton of pageviews, then I consider it helpful. That’s it.
For Product Talk Blog Subscribers
If you choose to subscribe to Product Talk via email, then I store your name (if you provide it) and your email address in MailChimp. MailChimp also keeps an activity record for you. This means that MailChimp logs every time an email is sent to you, whether or not you opened it, and whether or not you clicked on it. I use this activity data to understand how well an email performed. I occasionally use this information to troubleshoot email deliverability problems. For example, if you email me and tell me you didn’t receive my last newsletter, the first thing I’m going to do is look up your MailChimp profile and see if the email was sent to you.
I also use groups in MailChimp to segment my readers. For example, I have a group for Product Talk subscribers who are also coaching clients or Product Talk readers who are also course students. I use these segments to try to minimize the number of emails that I send to everyone. I have a full inbox and I suspect you do, too. So this is an easy way for me to get the most relevant content to the right people.
I also use MailChimp groups to track experiments that I run. For example, on this blog post, I offered an experiment design template in exchange for subscribing to Product Talk. If you subscribed from that blog post, I track that on your MailChimp profile. I use this data to track how effective that offer was at growing my mailing list.
If you subscribe to my list, I send three categories of emails:
- An email containing the full copy of each blog post.
- A monthly newsletter that includes product-related resources that I enjoyed that month.
- Occasionally (< 1 / month), I send an email promoting a new course or workshop that I am teaching.
You can subscribe or unsubscribe from any of these categories at any time by updating your email preferences. There is a link to do so in every email that I send. There is also a link that allows you to unsubscribe from all emails included in every email that I send.
Product Talk Webinar Registrants
If you register for one of my webinars and you opt in to receive offers about learning opportunities related to the webinar topic, I’ll add you to that webinar mailing list. That mailing list is used to promote courses and workshops related to that webinar. You can unsubscribe from this mailing list at any time.
I use MailChimp to manage this list. I store your name (if you provide it) and your email address and MailChimp tracks your email sends, opens, and clicks.
I use Zoom to host my webinars. Zoom tracks your registration details, how long you participated in the webinar, any questions, comments, or poll responses you submitted during the webinar, and how engaged you were during the webinar. Zoom tracks engagement by measuring whether the Zoom app window is in focus while the webinar is playing. I use this information to gauge how successful the webinar was.
Product Talk Academy Course Students
Our course live sessions are conducted via Zoom Meetings. Zoom tracks names (as entered by the student when joining the meeting), when a student joins a meeting, and if they are engaged (if the meeting window is in focus). Zoom makes these details available via an attendee report after the fact. Throughout the meeting, students have the option of participating in the course chat. This chat is saved by Zoom and is also available for my team to download. We sometimes reference the chat history to make sure we are answering all students questions, but we don’t keep these histories beyond the duration of the course.
We use Teachable to deliver course content. When you enroll in one of our courses, we create a Teachable account using your full name and email address. Teachable tracks your logins and your progress through the course content.
We use Slack for course announcements and to answer students questions about the course content. We send students a Slack invitation to the email addressed used when enrolling in the course. These Slack accounts are deactivated 3 months after the course start date. Slack keeps a record of deactivated accounts (an email address and any user entered name) indefinitely.
We use AirTable as our CRM. For course students, we store a first name, last name, email address, past known email addresses, enrollments (course and cohort start date), coupon usage, and any notes that we need to preserve to operate our business. Notes usually include things like requests to defer or transfer an enrollment. We are happy to share any details we have on file for a student with that student.
Product Talk Coaching Clients
If you are a coaching prospect or client, I may keep notes on our conversations in my contact management system.
Once you become a coaching client, I collect the names and roles of all team members and the name(s) of the team’s manager(s). Throughout the coaching engagement, I collect the following information:
- I keep notes on the progress of each team in Google Drive.
- I record the coaching sessions and recordings are stored in a private Dropbox folder.
- The team may share their work with me via Slack, email, or through a variety of tools such as Google Drive, Miro, Mural, etc. These tools are determined by the team and they choose what to share and when.
I keep the personal notes (1) and the Dropbox recordings (2) for up to 90 days after the end of my engagement with the company, unless otherwise specified by our service agreement. These files are confidential between me and the team being coached and will never be shared with anybody else (including other members of the client organization). If team members choose to share these files with other members of the organization, they are free to do so.
Coaching recordings are only used in two instances:
- A member of the team misses a session and wants to catch up by watching the recording.
- As a coach, I sometimes review sessions to improve my own coaching skills.
Any work that is shared by the team (3) will be confidential indefinitely. If the team requests that I delete specific data, I am happy to do so. However, I do not systematically remove emails or Slack messages from the team.
For Members of the Product Talk Slack Community:
All Slack messages are intended for the community benefit and will be available to anyone who joins the respective Slack community. For example, if you participate in a course Slack channel, your messages will be viewable by all students in that channel. If you participate in the Continuous Discovery Habits Slack community, your comments will be viewable by anyone who joins that community. Slack allows members to search all messages (past and present) in paid communities. I reserve the right to switch any Product Talk Slack community from paid to unpaid and visa versa. Please do not share anything in Slack that you do not wish to be viewable by future members of that Slack community.
On occasion, I may summarize a Slack conversation to share outside of the Slack community. If I do so, I will inform the community and let people opt out of their content being shared. I will never use a person’s name, email address, or any other identifying information outside the Slack community without their permission. For example, I may write a blog post to be published on Product Talk that summarizes several of the tips or best practices shared in the Slack community.
For Everyone:
I will never sell your data to a third party. I believe you own your data and thus are the only person who should be able to decide who gets access to it.
I believe strongly in the “right to be forgotten” as outlined in the European Union’s GDPR. At any time, you may email me at teresa@producttalk.org and ask that all information about you be deleted. I will delete everything that I can barring any limitations of the tools that I use.
For coaching clients, I may not be able to delete your information if I am still engaging with your parent company (my client) and they want to keep the information. In this instance, the company owns the data, not the individual. However, I will do my best to satisfy both parties.
That’s it. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to email me at teresa@producttalk.org.
Cheers,
Teresa Torres
Product Discovery Coach
Product Talk
