{"id":268,"date":"2018-10-05T14:39:46","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T14:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/?p=268"},"modified":"2018-10-18T15:17:06","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T15:17:06","slug":"things-you-need-to-know-about-michael-sippey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/2018\/10\/05\/things-you-need-to-know-about-michael-sippey\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Things You Need to Know About Michael Sippey \u201990"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Sippey is an ideas guy. As Medium\u2019s vice president of product, he spends his days collaborating with the company\u2019s editorial, design, and engineering departments to improve the\u00a0<\/span>online publishing platform for its 75 million monthly visitors.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. Those tools on Medium? He builds them.<\/span><\/h2>\n

Sippey works on software that people use to write stories on the platform, but his role comprises more than that. \u201cWe build personalization and social tools that will help people discover the stories they\u2019ll love to read.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

2. He learned on the job.<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cI grew up loving computers, but I got all of my experience in building software on the job since graduating from Colgate. I\u2019ve had a successful career in tech with a bachelor\u2019s degree in English<\/a> because a lot of what I do is understanding people and being able to tell stories.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

3. A sampling of his posts on Medium<\/a>: <\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cOne highlighted passage from every book I read in 2017\u201d<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat will happen in season 8 of Game of Thrones<\/i>, a list\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOn the remixed Sgt Pepper<\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

4. What got him started publishing online:<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cCuriosity about the web and realizing something about myself\u2026 I learn what I think about something by writing <\/span>about it. You really don\u2019t understand what you think about a subject <\/span>until you try to put 500 to 1,000 words on a piece of paper.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

5. The most important lesson he\u2019s learned in his career: <\/span><\/h2>\n

Talk to users before writing a line of code. \u201cIf you focus on the user and understand their life, their needs, their goals and aspirations, it makes building software for them a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As VP of product at Medium, Michael Sippey ’90 puts his Colgate English degree to work every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1221,"featured_media":813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[52,97,114,123],"coauthors":[158],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alumni-spotlights","category-alumni-updates","tag-engl","tag-profile","tag-tech","tag-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/palXSH-4k","amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2018\/10\/maroon-Sippey.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":629,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.colgate.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}