Introducing: Strategic Pivotery

Learning to thrive while opting out of tech bro and consumerist culture as best I can.

Mar 05, 2024

Hi, I’m Meg and this is my little corner of the internet where I share tales and observations across the tech and parenting “industries,” with the Goliaths of consumerism and individualism dominating my cultural zeitgeist.

I advise and consult with startups as a fractional product marketing leader, primarily for B2B SaaS companies. Check out my post about why I went fractional here.

Message me with feedback, stories you want me to tell, or a good knock-knock joke (I’ve got a kindergartener) at strategicpivotery@gmail.com

A 20-year old blog

I am a story-teller, and unless I’m less socially aware than I think, most people like hearing my stories. I help companies tell their stories for a living, and I love helping others figure out how to best tell the story of their expertise so they can market themselves to the world.

For many years, I’ve only shared my tales to friends, trusted colleagues, and family. Last year I (finally!) noticed that folks connected with certain observations I had about tech, parenting, and consumer culture. Could, should I share these with a wider audience?

The thought of starting a Substack is daunting to me because I prefer sharing and engaging in private spaces I’ve built and vetted. I like seeing someone crack up at a crack I make about my son’s public school library having a biography on Elon Musk sit next to MLK’s. To be very online today is to be trolled and harassed these days, as I witnessed while working with online creators (née influencers) at a branded content company.

In the ~6 years since I’ve had my son, I haven’t been active in online discourse except for occasional LinkedIn updates and a contributing member of my local Buy Nothing group on Facebook (I will elaborate and evangelize on this in a future post). I follow the creator economy, but rarely create publicly myself.

Twenty years ago, I was less hesitant. I wrote a blog (RIP Xanga) about working in New York City Mayor Bloomberg’s first administration. Think “slice of life” vignettes of a recent college grad getting to work in City Hall, with no mention of salient or sensitive information. I averaged 3 comments per post, and I was thrilled - until a senior staffer asked me to take it down.

I took it down.

I went back to writing in my journal on the subway → notes on my Blackberry → emails to friends → Evernotes and Google docs → texts to friend groups or an anecdote at happy hour. These past years, I barely write down my personal observations anymore, as I get paid to observe and interpret customer behavior for B2B companies.

As a product marketer, I understand the value of a beta launch. I beta tested my Substack via a Google doc shared with a few friends and former colleagues, and the feedback was that they wanted to hear more. I put on my “voice of the customer” hat and realized I was more excited than nervous to launch my not-Substack-Substack.

What to expect

As a parent and business strategist, I’ve learned the value of setting expectations when embarking on a new endeavor. Having an awkward pre-conversation is exponentially better than being stuck in an endless awkward situation (I am sure Larry David disagrees).

Sometimes expectations can feel limiting, though. I struggled with Substack’s pre-canned categorizations in the settings for too long before realizing that my differentiation is a sum of varied experiences and roles, from working for New York City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (you can thank me every time you pay with a credit card in a taxi) to diving headfirst into the toxic finance industry, to being a recovering product manager, to my current iteration as go-to-market expert.

My observations will come from the perspective and experiences of a woman / mom / civilian mired in the tech industry, with the behemoths of consumerism and individualism dominating my zeitgeist. These tales will come from a place of curiosity, humor, and social activism, and hopefully shed some light on these issues in a productive way.

There will be no cadence to these posts, as enough of my life is already structured and scheduled.

I hope to keep this Substack free for everyone, but I reserve the right to change this model if market signals tell me otherwise (LOL).

Who doesn’t love a good blurb

Lastly, here’s a quick intro on me: I’m Meg. I work as a fractional product marketing leader, primarily for B2B SaaS companies. Before falling in love with PMM work, I was a full time product manager at startups big and small, and before that I worked as a technical project manager for New York City and Los Angeles citywide agencies.

I’ve spent 20+ years in the tech industry, and 5+ years as a mom, and have finally jumped on the micro-publishing bandwagon (yes, several years after everyone already did this) where I will share cultural commentary on my experiences and trends I’m seeing.

Ways you can support Strategic Pivotery

🙊 Book a strategy (or vent) session

Want to discuss how to launch or expand your consultancy? Need help getting unstuck and back on the right track? Pay to pic my brain / book a strategy session with me. Share an agenda, and we problem-solve for the most helpful and actionable next steps per minute.

☕️ Buy me a chai latte

Not ready for a virtual coffee chat but still want to support me? Strategic Pivotery is free (and I’d like to keep it that way, at least for now!). If you find it helpful, it made you smile, or I got a belly laugh — buy me a coffee (well, chai latte - I don’t drink coffee). I prefer monetary validation to another mediocre white dude telling me “you’re actually really good at this.” Thanks, bro!

Buy me a chai latte

I love the ❤️ too - like, comment, share, restack this post so it gets discovered by the dark internet.

☎️ Tell me!

What stories do you want me to tell?