ProductMarketing.com

Travel budgets slashed?

Product managers tell me that their travel budgets have been slashed. How do you visit customers or attend training when there's no money for travel?

Smart product managers are looking for local customers to visit. How many client companies exist within a drive of your office? Most product managers have a few dozen local companies that would be glad to have some time with a product manager. Sure, everybody's busy but you'd be surprised how much time customers will give you once they realize that you're not trying to sell them anything. Watch them use your product; talk to them about new problems that they're encountering. Shadow a user for a day and you'll learn a dozen things that could be improved in the product.

Don't forget that sales people are still traveling and always need technical help. There's always travel money available for sales calls. Go on a few sales calls with a sales rep and then stay an extra half day to visit someone in the area (without the sales rep).

As for training, Pragmatic Marketing's travel budgets are still in place. Can't come to us? We'll come to you! Learn more about our onsite classes. 

Launch clinic relaunched

My pal David Daniels is moving his Launch Clinic blog. Join his discussions and learn techniques for better product launches. If you're already a subscriber (as I am), check your RSS feeds.

On a product management manifesto

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. --Machiavelli

I've often wondered about creating a product management manifesto or treatise or statement of direction or personal oath. I have participated in discussions with Graham, Saeed, Alan, and others. I was truly inspired by the call to arms known as The Agile Manifesto because I completely agree: we do spend too much time writing about writing code and not writing code; we do seem to blindly follow a plan rather than adapt to changes. So hat's off to Kent Beck et al for rejecting conventional wisdom and refocusing development on the things that really matter.

As for product management, Alan Bullied may have the right idea; he has this to say. Brian Lawley took a shot at it with his Product Management Manifesto but Tom Grant at Forrester had a fairly strong reaction to it.

I find, in the end, that I keep coming back to Peter Drucker's definition:

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.

Call it marketing or call it product management, that's my product management manifesto. And for me, the articulation of it for technology businesses continues to be the Pragmatic Marketing Framework.

Annual survey published

Some product management surveys have 49 responses; our 9th annual product management and marketing survey had over 1,100.

We learned about the activities product managers perform, good and bad. We learned the difference between product managers and product marketing managers. We learned where you report in the organization.

See how you compare with others in the industry in Pragmatic Marketing's 2008 Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey.

Here's the part you probably care most about:

• Product managers receive 50 e-mails a day and send about 25.

• Product managers spend roughly two days a week in internal meetings (15 meetings/week). But 55% are going to 15 meetings or more each week, and 35% attend 20 or more meetings!

• Average US product management compensation is $100,341 salary plus $12,467 annual bonus.

Read more details in the Pragmatic Marketing 2008 Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey. And watch for a webinar to discuss this and other aspects of product management early in 2009.

Pragmatic Marketing alums earn more

I'm working the numbers from our annual survey and found this:

Product managers who have attended our seminars make $101,717 while those who have not make only $96,558.

Sure, it's not a lot but it's the difference between a 5- and a 6-figure income. Of course, I don't know if it's correlation or causality (or even what those words mean specifically); I'm just reporting the facts.

Blatant sales pitch :-) Invest in your career. Come to Practical Product Management or another Pragmatic Marketing seminar. Your checkbook will thank you.

Welcome.. again

I've switched from an open source blogging tool to TypePad. Your RSS feeds should have automatically changed to this new source. (If you're not getting the new updates, raise your hand.) So www.productmarketing.com now goes here. Graham and my online marketing team have changed my RSS feed URL four times in as many years seemingly to ensure that my Technorati ratings are completely screwed up but I kid. Kidding aside, I'm delighted with the typepad software.

Did I tell you that I invented blogging? I started a blog in 1999 for Chantilly High in Virginia but I didn't know that it was called a blog (dang it, I should have written a book!). I started blogging at www.productmarketing.com in 2002. You can read more my article about the history of our web sites. Good news! The new blog contains all of my posts since October 2002. David Meerman Scott, the king of social media, only has posts back to January 2005. (Neener neener neener.) All 865 posts are online with working links to the Pragmatic Marketing web site; the external links are probably dead by now so you'll have to search for the relevant articles.

I'm now documenting the travails of Robin the product manager. Ah, poor Robin! I'll categorize the posts about Robin and her colleagues in Tales of Product Management.

Hope you enjoy the new blog format, the stories of Robin, and other posts of interest to product managers and product marketing managers.

on hiatus: one week

I'm taking the week of Thanksgiving to pause, reflect, expand, noodle, and be thankful-- so no new posts for a few days. While I connect with my inner muse, my team will be moving me from one blogging service to another and they won't let me post during the move. So I don't have a choice; I must pause, reflect, expand, noodle, and be thankful for a few days.

When we reconnect in December, everything should still work, like the RSS feed and the URL. And you can always reach me at www.productmarketing.com. See you in December.

Did you know

• 37% of product managers are female (up from 28% in 2007)
  
• 51% are implementing agile development methods.

We're gathering some interesting stats in our annual survey. Have you added your information? Take the survey and get instant access to some preliminary results.

2009 product management survey online

It's that time of year again. Each year, Pragmatic Marketing conducts a survey of product managers and marketing professionals in technology companies.

The results provide interesting insight into a typical "day-in-the-life" for those tasked with defining and launching technology products in today's competitive market.

Participate in the Annual Product Management and Marketing Survey. Tell us about yourself and get early access to the results.

Product Camp Toronto

Roughly 100 people gave up their Sunday to come to ProductCampToronto: A collaborative unconference about Product Marketing and Management.

The group here is finalizing the sessions and "volunteering" people to lead some of them.

Sessions were good; networking was great. Maybe it was because no one had to check in at work but I noted that most people talked to other people rather than to their phones.

Corey posted this tweet on Twitter:

It's kinda fun to have a stalker as long as he's in Canada and doesn't know where I live.

Pragmatic Marketing: new and notable

Our promotional webinars are "new and notable" on iTunes. Go to Podcasts, Video Podcasts, and choose Business and voila! there we are. You can't tell which ones are mine so you should just download them all and listen to them. (Hint, I like to talk about The Strategic Role of Product Management.)

Pragmatic Marketing webinars on iTunes

Look ma! I'm on iTunes. Our marketing folks have posted all the Pragmatic Marketing webinars on iTunes.

 

If you enjoy the webinars, please leave a nice customer review on iTunes. Also check out our Tuned In webinars. 
 

Tuned In podcasts on iTunes

Our Tuned In podcasts are now available on iTunes. Download sessions on Tuned In product teams, social media, cultures, buying experiences, and leadership. Since this is my blog, let me specifically point out my two sessions, Tuned In Product Teams and Aligning the Tuned In Process with the Pragmatic Marketing Framework. You can also download these podcasts from our Tuned In web page.

PodCampAZ, Nov 1st & 2nd

We love the New Rules of Marketing and we're sponsoring the podcasting BarCamp, this one in Arizona.

PodCamp is a FREE BarCamp-style community UnConference for podcasters and listeners, bloggers and readers, and anyone interested in New Media. It was held for the first time from September 8-10 in Boston, Massachusetts and is now spreading across the world.

Podcamp AZ 2.0: November 1st & 2nd, 2008
This year we have more than doubled in size and expanded PodCamp AZ to a 2-day event in order to get the highest amount of interaction between participants and help people answer the hottest new media question… “What’s your source?”

Learn more here.

Feedback on Agile issues

I'm playing with a new tool called UserVoice that brings your customers into the conversation in a clever way. The glob of ideas can be reviewed and added to but most of all, they can be prioritized by customers. I see this being a great benefit to any product manager without overwhelming the IT department. (You'd think we'd have more advanced tools by now, eh?)

Anyway, as you may know, we're creating a new seminar for Living in an Agile World. You can find details here. I've started a User Voice forum for it.  In fact I created a forum for these classes:

Living in an Agile World

Practical Product Management

Requirements That Work

Effective Product Marketing

Pragmatic Roadmapping

New Rules of Marketing

I'll use this feedback to revise and extend the classes and I'll also keep you posted of my success with the tool.

Now go vote! and then consider how you should use this concept for your product.

Steve at Agile 2008

If you're gonna be at Agile 2008 in Toronto next week, be sure to come to my session. I'll be using this slide to explain product management and agile.

Come lend me your support at 2:00 on Tuesday.

update on Tuned In

Phil Myers, president of Pragmatic Marketing and co-author of Tuned In, was interviewed on Fox Business. Watch the video here.

If you haven't read the book yet, maybe you can win one! Our friend Heather Hamilton at Microsoft is giving away copies of the Tuned In book on her blog. Just come up with the new tagline for the top of her blog. Check it out here.

on the book Tuned In

Tuned In is what I’ve been looking for. For years I have listened to product managers and marketers lament that their executives just don’t get it. I’ve taken a couple of passes at it with my article “Stop Perfuming the Pig” and my ebook “The Strategic Role of Product Management.”

The essence of Phil’s post is the idea that we start with a problem first and find a product second.

You know, it’s so crazy it just might work!

I work with product managers and marketers every week. And every week they describe product first, problem second. “We have this product, how do we sell it?” Marketing people search for clever positioning to get people to want what they have. Sales people look for gimmicks or tricks to persuade people to want what they do not want.

Tuned In shows us an easier way. Start with the problem.

Do you know about TV-B-Gone?

Let’s start with the problem: you’re in a nice restaurant and there’s a TV set blaring in the bar that no one watching. Or you’re in the airport with CNN blasting and no one’s watching. Wouldn’t it be great to be able to turn off that TV? Then try TV B Gone. This product sends “off” codes for every brand of TV. From their website, here are the directions for using your TV-B-Gone

1. Point it at a TV set
2. Press the button (no need to hold the button down)
3. Keep pointing it at the TV until the TV turns off

Find a problem, solve it, tell people. What could be simpler?

You know, it’s so crazy it just might work!

The Strategic Role of Product Management

"How do I get my executives on board?"

It's a fairly common issue with product managers. After taking a Pragmatic Marketing course, they can see the value of being strategic; they even have some practical techniques for implementing change. But how do they get the message to colleagues and executives?

How 'bout sending them an ebook?

Over the years I have been asked frequently for help selling the idea of product management. This ebook is one that I've wanted to write for quite a while. Download The Strategic Role of Product Management: How a market-driven focus leads companies to build products people want to buy.

The ebook explores how product management can be the focal point for product strategy, explains the difference between product management and product marketing, and shows how the role can add value in both traditional and agile environments.

Share it with your friends and colleagues. Post it on your company’s intranet. Pass it around the office. Print off a couple of copies to leave in a public area. Blog about it.

In 2008, we're going to be bringing many new tools to help sell the strategic value of product management to your executives. Keep watching this space.

Barb Nelson at SVPMA

If you are in Silicon Valley, you'll want to come to Barb Nelson's presentation on The Politics of Agile at the Silicon Valley Product Management Association (SVPMA) on Wednesday February 6th at 6:30PM.

Whether a start-up or established company, building on-premise or on-demand products, the politics of being a product manager in an agile environment can be one of the most challenging parts of the job. Join this session where we will examine what you need to know to become an essential part of the agile team without becoming the victim of a methodology inflicted on you.