Striking up conversations with random people is a key skill for any Product Manager.

Common knowledge is already baked into public awareness. It doesn't give a product manager any advantage when creating what's next. Insights that lead to product breakthroughs are found on the fringes, with the people that think different. Where's the best place to find these people… Bus stops.

A bus stop puts you in touch with the largest variety of people. A lot of mainstream culture and behaviours are visible on buses because it's how young people get around. Of course, what's in consumer culture emerges all over but you're more likely to find it on transit than in the back of an Uber.

Striking up a conversation

As a more reserved person, I can’t strike up conversations easily so I look for something about the person I’m genuinely curious about.

Here’s a couple examples of conversations I’ve recently started:

• I saw someone using a new Samsung S22 phone so I asked, “How do you like your phone?” knowing that they’d almost certainly be interested in talking about their new gadget. From there I found my way to asking them about the camera, and eventually “How do you share photos with friends, like when you’re on holidays?” (a topic I’m genuinely interested in).

• I saw someone with really clean sneakers so I asked, “Those shoes are really cool and clean, do you collect them?” I followed up by saying a friend of mine does and I was blown away by how deep that culture was and I found it fascinating (all true btw). They weren’t big into collecting them but knew a lot about sneaker culture, which is what I wanted to learn more about.

The nice thing about talking about things that genuinely interest you is that once the conversation is going it’s effortless. You can keep it going because you have a million questions of curiosity.

A ticket for the Insight Lottery

Every bus stop conversation is like buying a ticket to the Insight Lottery and you never know when you’ll be a winner. And the more you talk to people, the more it’s clear how many winning tickets there are because every person’s experience and thinking is so different from yours.

Finally, I always tell myself that it’s fine if I don’t feel like talking or there’s nothing obvious to talk about – sometimes I’m not in the mood. For those times, you can always creep over people’s shoulders and see what apps they’re using 😉

BONUS: Starlee Kine has a funny take on how to skip the small talk and get to the juicy stuff.

💯 This post is part of a series called “100 Things Every Product Manager Should Know” about things outside of product management that make great PMs.