ProductMarketing.com

Surviving Your New Boss

Dave Christiansen points us to the May 2007 issue of Harvard Business Review, Surviving Your New CEO by Kevin P. Coyne and Edward J. Coyne, Sr. The article describes the fate of senior managers under a new CEO and Dave has added some valuable commentary.

Dave notes,

This article really made me think about what I should do to deal with management change in a positive way.

We've all had a new manager over the years. What can you do to make sure the new manager knows how you can be part of the solution? Read more in Dave's Surviving Your New Boss.

Do u know personas?

Sarah was born in 1989, the same year as Hayden Panettiere (the cheerleader from Heroes) and Daniel Radcliffe (who plays Harry Potter). Sarah was six when Toy Story came out and nine years old when the first Harry Potter book was published. Sarah has always had a cell phone. She's always had access to the internet.

And Sarah is entering college this week.

Imagine being a college professor today. One who went to college in the 60s or 70s is teaching students who think of Vietnam as a prime vacation spot, not a war. Could you connect with Sarah?

For a decade, Beloit College has produced the Mindset List, describing the reality of an 18-year-old for their much older professors:

The "Class of 2011" refers to students entering college this year. They are generally 18 which suggests they were born in 1989. The list identifies the experiences and event horizons of students as they commence higher education.

So, for the incoming freshmen, the Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.

Creating a persona is not a creative writing exercise although it certainly helps to be creative. Instead, persona development is grounded in research. We at Pragmatic Marketing know product managers: we visit dozens of them weekly; we survey hundreds in our annual survey; I can review their technical stats in my website logs.

When was your persona born? What were the popular names that year? Create a persona based on market research and then use NameVoyager for picking statistically relevant names. It shows the popularity of names in the U.S. for the last 100 years.

Do you know your customers? Are they fictional characters? Or are they archetypes grounded in research? Personas give us a programming and marketing target. Let's make sure that everyone in the company has clarity on our customer.

on Compatibility

What happens when you want people to upgrade to a new release? You have to bring their files and their friends along. That is, you must keep your customers compatible with the old file formats for as long as their friends use the old version.

To illustrate the point, Microsoft offers the Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats:

Microsoft has added new file formats to Microsoft Office Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 to reduce file size, improve security and reliability, and enhance integration with external sources. To help ensure that you can exchange documents between Microsoft Office releases, Microsoft has developed a Compatibility Pack for the Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint 2007 File Formats.

On the one hand, they introduced a new series of Office products (and new file formats) and want everyone to upgrade to 2007. On the other hand, they need to upgrade the old 2003 programs to support 2007 file formats. [I guess they figured out that I'm the only one who actually bought 2007 and I'm sending my XML files to everyone else and driving everyone crazy.]

Graham adds,

Once downloaded, I had to run it and was greeted with a large EULA. I have to agree to allow Microsoft to make its own products compatible with each other! It is so frustrating! After a couple of minutes it installed and I had to go back to the original message and re-click the attachment. At least I did not have to re-boot as is typically the case with Microsoft (like the 11 hot fixes Microsoft asked me to install in Windows this morning!!!!).

New vendors--without an established customer base--have the luxury of not worrying about backward compatibility; established vendors must worry about it! And the universe of files in that format is an incredible barrier to change...  until a startup finds the "weakness in your strength" by making the barrier irrelevant.

Too much information

Ever tried to drive in downtown DC or New York? How do I get to where I need to be?

Have you ever gone to a new airport or train station and been overwhelmed with too much information? I’m sure when the terminal was opened there were only a few signs but with time, a sign was added here and there, and another and another and another. And now there are so many signs that you can’t see anything. 

Today’s public areas are polluted.

Wikipedia says,

Visual pollution is the term given to unattractive visual elements of a vista, a landscape, or any other thing that a person might want to look at. Commonly cited examples are billboards, litter, graffiti, overhead powerlines, utility poles, contrails, skywriting, buildings, signs, weeds and advertisements.

Noise pollution (or environmental noise in technical venues) is displeasing human or machine created sound that disrupts the environment.

Speaking of pollution, have you ever used someone else’s computer and ached to “clean it up”? There are icons all over the desktop that you know are never used. There are empty folders in My Documents, put there by installations of software that have never been used. The typical desktop is a mess!

Or you sit at a “power users” machine for a different type of mess: quite a few programs running plus gadgets all over the place plus a couple of messaging windows plus a desktop pattern that changes every few minutes. [Why is it that people refer to the desktop pattern as a screen saver? They’re entirely different concepts.]

Today’s computer desktop is polluted.

Ambient offers a series of devices that use color to deliver information. The Ambient Orb changes colors to track the performance of Wall Street. Or you can monitor traffic, the weather, specific stock performance, someone's IM status, and more. It even has an API I'm told so you can create your own. I want so much for this product to be meaningful but alas, I fear it is only cool. If it was a little cheaper maybe. Still, a cool idea, don't you think? Use color instead of text to show status. For the next few days, look around: how often could color be used instead to indicate information that is shown only in text? Open vs closed. On vs off. Fast vs slow.

Two new computer keyboards were introduced recently, one from Luxeed, one from Apple. Luxeed’s keyboard uses color is a truly silly way. Color decorates the keyboard while adding absolutely no value. In fact, the color implementation detracts; I bet using it actually slows down one’s typing. I can hear some engineer saying, “this is so coool!” and who knows? someone may actually buy the damn thing. (But it’ll probably be a parent who doesn’t understand computers buying it as a gift for a power-user teenager who will promptly pitch it out the window.)

Meanwhile, Apple introduced an ultra-thin keyboard—in wired and wireless formats—that proves that color isn't necessary. When color doesn’t add value, eliminate it. Color for color's sake is not a good strategy. Perhaps the keyboard is bland but I’m not supposed to be looking at my fingers anyway, right? Actually, the Apple keyboard is so thin I wonder if it will be hard to use. [I’d be glad to test it if anyone at Apple wants to send me one.]

Color for the sake of color is noise. I suppose simple, clean designs aren’t always better but in my experience, simple is good and noisy is bad. Luxeed used color for no reason and created noise. Apple removed color entirely and created simple.

Words matter

Did you know this? Edna Parker (born April 20, 1893) is an American supercentenarian and the oldest recognized person in the world following the death of Yone Minagawa of Japan on August 13, 2007.

What caught my attention was that elsewhere she was referred to as "the oldest living person." Is there any other kind?

Reminds me of the number of times I've said "in the Year 2000" yet I never say "in the year 2001." Do you?

Words matter! Yet jargon and phrases get memorized and repeated and institutionalized. Perhaps I notice jargon slips like these more than others; I hear jargon from other industries every week in training classes. I know the jargon of enterprise software and consumer electronics but not necessarily the jargon of banking, medicine, or semiconductor. So when I hear phrases that are odd to my ear, I notice.

It's okay to speak in jargon--if the listener knows the jargon. But words matter. Let's not waste them on gobbledygook.

Pragmatic Marketing in Chinese

This is kind of cool. Emma Chen shares the Pragmatic Marketing Framework in Chinese. By the way, she's seeking a long-term career with a technology company in Beijing.

Off the ball

Apple released the iPhone more than a month ago and AT&T finally got around to notifying me. "Sign up to be the first to know," they said--when  they were Cingular.

Good thing I wasn't waiting for AT&T's "new" marketing people to keep me in the loop. But it's okay. Apple sent me a note long ago, and sold me the phone quite easily.

Sometimes just 'not screwing up' is the best marketing strategy.

Agile product management webinar tomorrow

Don't forget. My webinar on product management in an agile environment is tomorrow. If you haven't already, sign up here.

How to be a GREAT Product Manager

My friend Saeed has written a wonderful series of articles on product management. In his latest post, he writes,

In my early product management jobs, I focused a lot on the process of product management. A CEO of a startup I worked for told me that my approach to product management was “very academic” in nature. He viewed himself as a “get it done by any means necessary” entrepreneur, while I viewed myself as a ”get it done right” product manager.

I find many entrepreneurs are so focused on getting it done that they build a business that cannot support growth. As Saeed puts it, product managers ensure that we ”get it done right.”

Saeed continues,

The startup was a very sales/deal driven company, as many startups tend to be. Putting product management in place in such an organization is not easy. But having a process focus is very important for a product manager.

The "process of product management" is such an important distinction, isn't it? In a startup, almost everyone supports sales to one extent or the other but as Saeed points out, the product management job is to create repeatable products rather than one-time offerings.

The job of product management is a strange but wonderful intersection of business, technology, marketing, project, and process--all combined with deep market knowledge.

Success of Innovation

Innovation is a word that carries a lot of baggage. In some companies, "innovation" is code for "working on something cool." Craig noticed the SoftwareCEO/ CompTIA Software Innovation Awards where innovative ideas are judged by:

Scope of the innovation – What business problem/opportunity does the innovation address and what is the size of the problem/opportunity?

Impact of the innovation on software or the software industry – What practical results (sales, users, profits, etc.) has the innovation had on a software product or the software industry? The innovation must be new and have both a current and future impact.

Innovative ideas are judged by practical results! What a great idea!!

Peter Drucker said it best:

The test of innovation lies not in its novelty, its scientific content, or its cleverness. It lies in its success in the marketplace

Is company focused on innovation? or working on something cool?

confusing marketing with advertising

How often do you find yourself talking marketing strategy and the other person is talking about promotional tactics? Mary Schmidt writes in Marketing Is Easy! I’ll Read a Book!,

Dr. Near is confusing marketing with advertising. She spent $50,000 on advertising during her first year in business, with no results. In Albuquerque, that’s a lot of money and a lot of advertising. Nary a mention of other marketing tactics or Internet strategy in the article.

I've reached the point where I just don't use the term 'marketing' any more. One of the secrets of market-driven leaders is to know the difference between Big M marketing and little m marketing.

One more plea to vote for me!

The Business of Software conference is running a contest to fill its open speaker slots and I'm in the running. They're cleverly using the new rules of marketing to drive potential attendees to their site with a YouTube-based contest. So if you haven't already done so, vote for me on the Software Idol page before the contest ends. Thanks.
 

on product management

My friends Alan, Ethan, and Saeed have started a blog called On Product Management. Saeed offers this advice for other Product Managers:

If you want to make money, go into sales. If you want to make friends, go into marketing. If you want to be a great CEO, spend time in Product Management.

Are you the gazelle or the lion?

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up and knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up and knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up, you better start running. --An African proverb

used in a presentation by
Dr. David Gould
University of Phoenix 

What about the new rules?

I've been discussing the New Rules of Marketing with David Meerman Scott. His conjecture is that you no longer have to buy or beg exposure through advertising and PR... but only if you have a story that people want to tell and re-tell. As if David was listening, this month Jason Snell of Macworld wrote about the new iPhone:

After announcing the iPhone back in January, the company let the hype-storm build naturally. Trust me, if companies could simply buy the kind of attention the iPhone received before its release, they would. The iPhone attracted that attention on its own.

Apple and its products build a buzz. Do the products at your company? I hope you're thinking about using the techniques of David's new rules. But first, make sure you have something to say that people care to hear.

We've long known the power of buyer and user personas. These biographies remind people inside your company that they are not the targets for our products or our collateral. I don't expect sales and marketing people to understand half of what we produce; technology briefs and white papers are written by a technical writer for a technical reader relying on the web site or sales person as a distribution method. The trick is that we must communicate something meaningful to the buyer in the language of the buyer. No vendor speak, no marketing babble, and no technical gobbledegook. The new rules let us take the message direct to our audience so let's say something meaningful.

survey for smartphone users

What's the trick to product success? Visit a few people to see their problems and then do a survey to find out if what you've seen is statistically relevant.

Do you use a smartphone? Ever have problems finding enough power to make it through the day? A product manager may have an answer so give her your feedback via this survey.

After visiting three people, you've probably found more features than your developers can do this year. A survey helps to determine the most important features.

Which sounds more like your distinctive competence?

Mary Schmidt writes in "marketing without blinders,"

Words are powerful. Words can change the world. But they have to have meaning (and commitment) behind them. Otherwise, they’re like the - ahem - “stuff” that comes out of the other end of that horse. A frequent blind spot with which I help clients is that marketing isn’t just something you “do” externally - it’s also critical for internal communications - up, down, and sideways.

She continues,

Which of the following would fire you up? “I have a dream!” or “Our strategic initiative is designed to produce innovative products for leading-edge Fortune 500 companies.”

Which sounds more like your distinctive competence?