Billions of consumers around the world use Google Workspace to connect, create and collaborate. Of those users, many choose Google Chat, Calendar and Tasks to help them keep track of their day-to-day appointments and to-do’s, and communicate with friends and business colleagues.

One of the team members responsible for working with colleagues to define product requirements, grow usage and engagement, lead positioning, naming and other go-to-market activities is Cole Briggs.

Briggs (‘19, computer information systems) is a product marketing manager for the company.

“My goal is to understand the market and customer base and use that to inform the products we build, the way we talk about them, and the way we grow usage,” Briggs says. “Another part of my job is engaging with our users and using their insights to make our products better.”

Briggs’ favorite part about his role is working with large customers to understand their needs and transcribing those into features to implement into the products. For example, through customer feedback, Briggs was able to help a large multinational organization move tens of thousands of users from a competing product to Google Chat for their daily communication needs.

He has been working in marketing at Google since graduating from Cal Poly Pomona, but feels ready for a job rotation, so he can continue to develop and grow. Soon, he will be switching to a product manager position at Google, which will enable him to work more closely with the company’s engineers and designers to directly build features for Workspace products.

Briggs’ technical know-how comes not only from his work experience at Google and his degree in computer information systems, but also from the internships he participated in during the summers between school years at CPP.

He was a product management intern at Edmunds, an automotive reviews and inventory company. In this internship, he began to learn and develop an understanding of how product teams comprised of product managers, engineers, and designers work together to build solutions for customers. It was then that he discovered his interest in the technology field.

When Briggs started college at CPP, he was a marketing major. However, after realizing his interest in tech that summer at Edmunds, he decided to change to computer information systems. He wanted to study tech and still be able to stick with his roots in marketing – and business as a whole – and CIS fit the bill.

While navigating his CPP journey, Briggs had a few mentors who guided him along the way.

“My goal is to understand the market and customer base and use that to inform the products we build, the way we talk about them, and the way we grow usage,” Briggs says. “Another part of my job is engaging with our users and using their insights to make our products better.”

Briggs credits Professors Tarique Hossain and Wesley Avery for helping him think about different career options and giving advice to help him succeed in building his knowledge base and planning his career.

Another mentor is Political Science Professor and Founder of the Prison Education Project, Renford Reese, who had an indelible impact on Briggs throughout his college experience. They met when Briggs attended the Residential Intensive Summer Education (R.I.S.E.) summer program, prior to becoming a student at CPP. This program assists high school students and incoming first-year CPP students in navigating the college transition and/or application process, while centering on the experience of Pan African students.

After hearing Reese’s speech at R.I.S.E., Briggs was convinced on attending CPP.

“A lot of Black men struggle with the expectations of their peers to be ‘cool’ and have a ‘gangster thug’ persona,” Briggs says. “I struggled a lot with this in high school, and the turning point was Dr. Reese giving me permission to be a weird, nerdy, and studious person without shame. He told me, “‘You are what you read’ and encouraged me to augment my CPP classes with educational books outside of school.” Briggs was most proud when he was able to complete a 100-book challenge and present the list of books to Dr. Reese before graduation.

Briggs also volunteered for Reese’s Prison Education Project, teaching weekly classes ranging from marketing to career development in rehabilitation facilities to incarcerated people. It helped him build empathy and understanding how differently many people experience our world.

“I’m extremely thankful to my professors, mentors, and friends I met at Cal Poly Pomona for helping to make me who I am today.”