ProductMarketing.com

First impressions

A friend bought an Apple PowerBook, largely on my recommendation. He opened the box and found beautiful packaging... and a dead computer. He spent four hours on the phone with technical support before they decided it was indeed broken. Four hours!

As one might expect, my friend is, shall we say, annoyed.

(In a similar story, I bought a Sony VAIO and had to wait 13 weeks for a repair. THIRTEEN WEEKS!! TEN WEEKS plus THREE MORE WEEKS. Will I ever buy another Sony VAIO. Never! Yet I have friends who are extremely pleased with their VAIOs. I'm guessing they never called for a repair.)

My friend's first Apple experience has been a disaster. He has made a huge decision to change from Windows to Mac, and this is the thanks he gets? How many people will he tell? How long will it be before he forgets? That first experience is so incredibly important! We should make sure that the first experience is WONDERFUL!

Well, here’s what should have happened. On calling the tech support line, he should have been asked his customer number. Because that number is less than 30 days old, he should go to a special line for first time customers. The tech support rep should have set a timer for 15 minutes. At the 15-minute mark, he should have said, “Mr Scott, I’m going to send you a replacement for arrival tomorrow. When you get the new machine, put this broken one in the shipping box and return it to me. Thanks for buying an Apple product and I apologize for this problem.”

Apple does so many things right but what David will remember is his first experience. He’s wondering if he’s made a mistake and should buy a Dell instead. His new machine better set up immediately; it better convert his Windows files without any major problems; it better be the “better” computer that he’s been promised.

Or he’ll tell. He'll tell everybody.

Have you been thinking about customer service as part of your product marketing?

This ROI is broken....

I got this blurb about ROI analysis. Thought it'd be interesting.

This comprehensive tutorial explains in plain English -- and with everyday, real-world examples -- the concept of return on investment (ROI). You'll learn that ROI is one of the few principles that applies to just about everything in life! This white paper succeeds in demystifying ROI, making it an accessible tool to assist you in everyday business and personal financial and investment decisions.

After performing the free registration, I still cannot download it. Maybe you can. Try it here.

Well, if the persona fits...

Flight attendant unions in the US have asked members to boycott new thriller Flightplan, saying it depicts in-flight personnel as "unhelpful and uncaring". Read more here.

Subvert from Within: a user-focused employee guide

from Creating Passionate Users:

It's one thing to talk about--and execute--a user-focused approach when you're a small company or an independent contractor. But what if you are, in fact, a fish in a sea as vast as, say, Microsoft? Can you hope to make a difference?

Here's my little unofficial guide to creating passionate users for those working in Big Companies.

Read the full post at Subvert from Within: a user-focused employee guide.

A look inside the iPod nano and Apple's margins

Here's an interesting look inside the iPod nano and Apple's margins: "According to a writeup of the iSuppli analysis on BusinessWeek, the $199 2GB iPod nano costs Apple $90.18 in materials and $8 to assemble, leaving a profit margin before marketing and distribution costs of about 50%."

Tech Takes Back the Market

from Tech Takes Back the Market in CMO magazine:

Until recently, however, marketing has played a relatively small role in the industry's fortunes. Unlike more mature consumer products industries, where marketers play central roles in business strategy and planning, the enterprise tech sector is characterized by small 'm' marketing--lead generation and sales support focused on advertising, trade shows, brochures, and, more recently, Web sites and online campaigns. Strategic thinking has traditionally been left to the entrepreneurs and engineers. During the periodic slowdowns, a quick injection of sales force energy would pick up the slack.

Until now. As the tech industry matures in a post-bust world and hunts for its next wave of growth, the locus of innovation is shifting toward the marketing department. Indeed, marketing leaders are on the verge of three dramatic transformations.

Joel on Software - The Project Aardvark Spec

Product managers and product architects may find this a helpful read.

Joel on Software - The Project Aardvark Spec: "As the final version of Copilot.com (what this spec calls "Aardvark") went into production in early August, 2005, this spec is now of historical interest only. I'm making it available as a part of Joel on Software because many people have asked to see some samples of the kinds of specs we write at Fog Creek."

In a later post, Joel adds

“As I worked through the screens that would be needed to allow either party to initiate the process, I realized that Aardvark would be just as useful, and radically simpler, if the helper was required to start the whole process. Making this change in the spec took an hour or two. If we had made this change in code, it would have added weeks to the schedule. I can’t tell you how strongly I believe in Big Design Up Front, which the proponents of Extreme Programming consider anathema. I have consistently saved time and made better products by using BDUF and I’m proud to use it, no matter what the XP fanatics claim. They’re just wrong on this point and I can’t be any clearer than that.”

What's the Big Idea?

from CMO Magazine: Conventional wisdom holds that great marketers, like great companies, stay ahead of the curve by following one simple rule: Listen to your customers, and then give them what they ask for.

Our advice is to forget what conventional wisdom says. If you're looking for new ideas, customers are often the last place to look, because most don't actively seek the cutting edge or the next big thing. Customers couldn't have told you they wanted an iPod, for example, but millions bought one. They wouldn't have asked for a $4 Caramel Macchiato before you gave it to them. If customers were the primary source of insight, you'd still be puzzling over the value of this thing called the World Wide Web.

Prompted for fresh ideas, most customers simply tell you what you--and your competitors--already know. They don't want to think about it. They figure that's your job.

And they're right. Instead of giving customers what they ask for, the innovative CMO gives them what they want before they want it.

Read more in CMO Magazine.

What's really needed is to observe problems in the market. It's not about solving problems that people don't have but identifying existing problems that no one is solving. The rule for discontinuous innovation is that technology can solve problems for our non-customers; continuous improvements are usually for existing customers. Check out Building Tomorrow's Products Requires Listening to the Potential Market by Barbara Nelson.

Heard on United....

"We know that there are many bankrupt airlines you could choose and we're glad that you chose ours."

Working The Plan Using A Plan That Works

The reason Development's planning efforts are so important is that the rest of the company depends upon the success of such planning in order to plan their own work. Functions such as QA and Documentation (if they are separate from Development), Training, Marketing, Sales, Hosting and Production, and Customer Support all need solid assumptions upon which to build their plans. And this is where the Product Manager gets involved.

Without Development's ability to pin down dates and expected results, Product Management can't build reliable plans for product releases, and the entire momentum of your product is affected. So whether a Product Manager wants to or not, he or she must be involved in the planning of Development work.

Read on for ideas on how you as the Product Manager can help get your Development organization to the point where it has clear, useful, and reliable plans.

Read more in Working The Plan Using A Plan That Works.