ProductMarketing.com

Microsoft to charge for Office beta

Tech News on ZDNet reports Microsoft to charge for Office beta: "Microsoft plans next week to charge a nominal fee for Office 2007 Beta 2 downloads, a move that runs counter to the practice held by most software companies."

The article now has dozens of flame threads complaining about it. Why not charge for it? A nominal fee of $1.50 doesn't seem onerous to me.

I've often wondered about the viability of charging for beta; it does give customers a heads-up and often a competitive advantage over others. But the real question is "what is the point of beta testing?" What's the second word? TESTING! Beta testing is about verifying that your product works in environments that you cannot test in the lab. Charging customers seems to fly in the face of what we're trying to accomplish. In fact, enterprise vendors would probably benefit from more internal testing and much more limited field testing. Microsoft and others with millions of users may want millions of testers; enterprise vendors only need a few. Charging a few beta testers really isn't worth it.

YouTube - Day of the Longtail

I'm reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. He puts today's 'micro-markets replace mass markets' crisis in context. Excellent read for all marketers. Here's a funny video that sets up the book nicely.

Dude, Dell's got a problem

Laura Reis writes:

"When a company gets into trouble, all management wants to do is to use PR to fix the PR problem. Instead they should be doing something to fix the underlying problem that is causing the PR problem."

In effect, she reminds us that PR shouldn't deny problems; PR tells us "what is." Read her full post in Dude, Dell's got a problem.

Her solution: focus on the "best" customers. "Bad" customers want Wal-Mart pricing and Nordstrom's customer support. In Dell's case, home users are "bad" customers; corporate customers are "good."

Which customers are your best ones? Should you fire your worst ones? And can you make that sacrifice? Focus ain't easy, is it?

Tips For Delivering Consistent Services

The services you deliver with your software - implementation consulting, installation, and training - aren't accessories to your product, they are an integral part of the product and its success. Software plus services plus customer effort equals success.

Because of this, it's critical to take steps to make each service you deliver predictable, complete, and consistent across customers, channels, and the individuals who provide it.

Yet unlike software, the human element involved in service delivery brings the potential for wide variation in content, quality, and effectiveness. The people who shine in front of your customers, delivering stellar services, are often highly individualistic. Their priority is to perform well when they're in the spotlight - AKA the hot seat. Like sales reps, they don't focus on adhering closely to guidelines but on reaching their goal come what may.

To build consistency in your services, read Tips For Delivering Consistent Services.

David on Marketing 2.0

Most product managers and marketers are familiar with the term 'Web 2.0,' a reference to the 'post-Google' rise of the web, with new emphasis on online search, web-centric media, and, even more recently, blogs. Smart marketers have embraced what David Meerman Scott calls 'Marketing 2.0' - using the new Web 2.0 media to develop thought leadership based marketing, which is valuable, interesting, relevant, and easy to find. Marketing 2.0 recognizes that marketing success today calls for brand new best practices, which David shared at the May 2006 BPMA meeting. Read more in Marketing 2.0 on the BPMA site.

What if you have two calls come in at once?

Two calls come into your phone line at the same time. Through some technical magic you know the caller on line 1 is a customer with a problem and the caller on line 2 is a prospect wanting to buy something. If you can only answer one, which do you answer? Which would your president answer?

A customer-driven mindset will answer the customer on line 1; a revenue-driven mindset will answer the prospect on line 2.

For me, the customer should come first: we've taken his money and made him a promise. The prospect won't go away and might appreciate that you put a customer first, since (he hopes) he will soon become a customer. Despite what many think, a deal doesn't die so quickly, as long as you respond to the prospect in a timely manner.

My friend Alan reported this interaction with AAA:

Thank you for calling Triple-A, where Members come first. To become a member, please press 1. If you are already a member, press 2.

Who comes first again?

Learn From Adobe - Don't Annoy Customers

Michael reminds us Don't Annoy Customers!

July newsletter posted

So you've attended Practical Product Management and gotten all fired up! You come back to the office ready to be market-driven. You're anxiously awaiting the looks of joy and amazement at your newly found skills as a product manager. And then reality hits you... hard! Development couldn't care less! They're not listening!! How could this be??

You missed a step: you skipped the part where you earned credibility. What do you do first? For an existing project or product, start with the ending. Read more in July's Pragmatic Marketing update.

Product Managers Play Tug-of-War

Scott Sehlhorst reports in Product Managers Play Tug-of-War: "63% of product managers report to marketing and 24% report to development. 22% of requirements managers report to marketing with 55% in the development organization. These reporting structures can over-emphasize the needs of new users and super-users, while shortchanging the needs of the majority of users. Product managers will constantly be playing tug-of-war to get time to do the right thing." Scott's post contains references to various studies that could be helpful if you're considering organizational issues.

Our take on the issue can be found in Where Does Product Management Belong in the Organization? In short, if product managers will support one organization primarily, which organization should it be?

And those who have attended Requirements That Work will remember that product managers need to work with proficient customers, as Scott points out. Going on sales calls won't do the job. Product managers, as experts on the market, need to have onsite experience with all users of the product--novice, proficient, and expert.

Attention American Automakers: Your websites suck

David Meerman Scott writes in Web Ink Now:

The news from the big 3 automakers has indeed been grim. Year-to-date, GM sales fell 12.2 percent, Ford sales fell 3.8 percent, and Chrysler sales were down 4.9 percent. It has indeed been a bummer of a summer. There are many reasons for the auto industry troubles such as high gas prices, last year's incentive programs, high cost production, a skew to SUVs and other large vehicles at a time when smaller is better, and many other issues. However, one thing the industry can fix is the terrible official websites. Big three automaker sites suck.

Websites are like software products: the real challenge isn't what to include; it's what to omit. Ford, in particular, seems to want to include everything. And the local dealerships are even worse. It's the iPod versus Microsoft packaging example. It's Google homepage versus almost anyone else's.

The problem is, I think, is that the Ford people are sales people first, and marketers second, while Lexus is the other way around. It's as if Ford is saying "I want to sell you something! RIGHT NOW!! at 0% interest!!!" while Lexus is saying "Come browse. Let us help you buy."

At a car dealership recently, I finally had to tell the sales person to BE QUIET; I needed to think and I couldn't concentrate when the sales guys is yammering. I've had so many good interactions with sales people that bad ones just drive me berserk. I ultimately bought from a different dealership.

Is your web site trying to sell or is it helping people buy? There's a difference.

Real People Doing Real Work

From Real People Doing Real Work:

For eight months, we followed the progress of a group of twelve people in a Fortune 500 company here in the Pacific Northwest who used Office 2007 to perform their daily work. These people graciously agreed to install Office 2007 Beta 1 on their main work computers and to let us track their feedback and thoughts over a long period of time using the software. The participants in the study were not software engineers or in any way associated with high-tech; they were just normal people who use Office to help get their jobs done.

Yes, the sample size for this specific study was small. And yes, the study only included people in one company in the Pacific Northwest. It is true that for these reasons the results of this study aren't statistically significant.

But the purpose of this study wasn't to provide quantitative results. Rather, the goal was to employ ethnographic research strategies to allow us to understand qualitatively how the new Office 2007 user interface fit into daily work lives of typical Office customers.

Marketers and developers are usually anxious to do quantitative research but you don't know what you don't know. Before you can do quantitative, you must do qualitative.

Christopher Hawkins on Effective Software Development

Ever had a project late? Christopher Hawkins explains in Effective Software Development: Estimating and scheduling are not the same. Estimating is the practice of figuring out how many man-hours of labor something will take. Scheduling is deciding when those man-hours of labor will take place.

Simplicity Sells

The new mantra for developers and marketers is simplicity.

Our newfound love of simplicity was the clear message in the spoof video "What if Microsoft did the iPod packaging?" Apple's packaging is simple; the Microsoft spoof was cluttered beyond belief--but remember, it was a spoof after all.

Much has been written about Steve Job's elegant simplicity in his speeches and slides. Many pundits imply that his slides are better because he uses Keynote instead of PowerPoint. That's just silly. It's not the medium; it's the message. He makes only a few points, he makes them simply, he uses the slides to cement the point, and he's really sure of his message.

By the way, I love the new Apple ad campaign with the Windows and Mac guys. If you haven't seen 'em, go here. For a contrary view of the Mac, go here (caution: some profanity).

At TED, the conference for Technology, Entertainment & Design, three presentations use simplicity and one advocates it. David Pogue discusses simplicity in technology development with a few gags that really hit the mark--and some somewhat funny musical bits about Gates and Jobs.

As for illustration through example, Al Gore is truly hysterical in his opening comments about his post-VP career. He then uses a series of slides, each with a single point. Compared to Jobs, Gore's slides are rather sloppy but Gore's delivery makes up for it.

Sir Ken Robinson talks about creativity and education. His talk is humorous, using stories to make a clear plea for emphasizing creativity in education. Does he have slides? I don't remember... but I remember his message.

Hans Rosling reviews census data in an incredibly persuasive manner; complex information delivered comprehensively. How has the world changed in the last 40 years? Bubbles represent countries, the side of the bubble represents the country's population, and then the bubbles move across two axes to show changes. WOW! This is what data mining is all about!

Simplicity in presentations is a beginning. But we also admire simplicity in technology products. Google's home page; Apple's iPhoto and iWeb which mask complexity with elegance; Interlink's PowerPoint remote with buttons for next slide, last slide, and turn off the slide--and nothing else!

Why aren't phones simpler?

I remember attending Rolm phone training in 1983 where we learned how to transfer, park, pick, and conference calls. Yet, here in 2006, how often do you hear, "Wait, I'm going to try to add another person into the call. If I lose you...."

My brother bought a Panasonic home phone with so many buttons that visitors to his house can't answer the phone when it rings. Panasonic engineers appear to think more is better but Bang & Olufsen takes a different approach. Hide the complexity from the novice (just a few buttons) but offer power under the hood (through the menus). Which approach is used for your products? Oh, and while we're at it, wouldn't it be great if your cell phone was easy to use as an iPod? Oh, and while we're at it, wouldn't it be great if your cell phone jumped on your landline when it was in the house? Check out the video of an Apple iTalk. (Is it real? I dunno. Hope so.)

My wife's new iMac came with Front Row, an astounding simple but powerful front-end for DVDs, videos, music, and photos. If I could talk to the designers at Apple, I'd ask them to add a TiVo interface to the iMac and then I wouldn't need a TV at all. (Hey Steve! Please buy TiVo!) My (old) Sony DVD player has dozens of buttons, only a few of which are really used. My wife marked the ones she cared about with nail polish so she could quickly identify them until the dog put the player in Spanish by stepping on the remote; that's why we now have a BOSE system.

My dad's new car knows that the key is within 3 feet of the car and just unlocks the doors. No buttons. But you can't pop the truck, turn on the car, open the sunroof, or any of the many things that are possible (but infrequently done). You can do these things with the key fob but he rarely bothers. And Mom has lost the key fob in the bottom of her purse.

The challenge of simplicity is caring about the customer more than about the developer. How many of your customers want the power features versus the most-often used ones? We need to worry more about the frequent usage of a product and less about the possible, edge-case scenarios.

Writing songs

Writing songs and writing songs for money are two different things.--Don Gant (producer)

The same is true for code, eh?

Showing off

Just saw a clever IBM ad on television. The final line: "The one test of innovation is the value it brings us, the result. Anything else is just... showing off."

So Much Fanfare, So Few Hits

It's been reported that Google employees can allocate up to 20% of their time on developing new products, focusing on anything that interests them. Business Week Online reflects on Google's culture in So Much Fanfare, So Few Hits. In short, the article's author questions whether Google's technology-driven culture has produced any successful products.

The problem is, he says, "Google has product ADD. They don't know why they're getting into all of these products. They have fantastic cash flow but terrible discipline on products," says Paul S. Kedrosky. "It's a dangerous combination."

Furthermore, product managers at Google tend to have less power than engineers, say several former staffers. This can contribute to slow product upgrades, since most engineers want to work on the next big launch.

I've used many metaphors for product management's role in producing new products: president or parent of the product. Sadly, some companies use product management as the janitor or maid of the product, the one who cleans up after the developers. Perhaps Google needs the "product manager as producer" metaphor.

In creating a movie, there are two key roles: producer and director. The director has creative control, determining the actors, the script, the camera angles, which 'take' is the best, the editing of scenes; the director owns the art of the movie. Meanwhile, the producer owns the business of the product: how to promote it, when to release it to the theaters and which ones, how to fill the theater seats, and so on. Not that I'm in the movie business but I imagine there are many heated discussions between director and producer about hitting dates, length of the film, and incorporating test market feedback into the final product. Sounds like product management to me.

Google needs some 'producers' to re-focus the engineers on market requirements, incorporating market feedback into versions 2 and 3, and ultimately finishing the product. Their approach of "always in beta" basically says it all; it seems they work on a product until the team gets bored.

Google has many ideas but do they have products? Products solve a problem for a market segment--and for a vendor, these products have to deliver profitability at some point.

Pencil metaphor

You've read (or heard of) Crossing the Chasm. Lindy McKeown offers this Pencil metaphor:

When reflecting on why every teacher isn't using their computers and Internet connections productively when schools have had computers since the early 80s and the Internet has been in schools since the early 90s, I came up with this metaphor for the various positions people assume in relation to the uptake of information and communications technologies. It might apply at other times of change as well.