ProductMarketing.com

who're you close to?

A friend was laid-off yesterday. That sucks. It's a reminder that you need to be close either to the product or to the customer. Otherwise you look easy to outsource.

Also, even tho' they shouldn't, sometimes executives do shoot the messenger. 

DC and London product camps seeking leaders

Two product camps--one in DC and one in London--are in the process of starting up and are seeking your leadership. Want to volunteer to move these projects to the next level? 

Both have established web landing pages with contact information. 

DC: http://productcampdc.eventbrite.com/

London: http://www.productcamplondon.com/ with 

More details on the London camp at http://product-management.ning.com/forum/topics/coming-soon-productcamp-london

Want to start a camp in your area? Check out: 

http://www.productcamp.org and

http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/publications/topics/09/productcamp/productcamp-best-practices

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Agile Product Management with Scrum

I'm reading Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love by Roman Pichler

Agile Product Management with Scrum is a really great book that explains all the mechanics of being a product owner, grooming the backlog, participating with teams--all the details of Scrum from a product owner's point of view. 

One of the key concepts of Agile is that the team must work at a sustainable pace. The same is true for the product owner. Yet in too many cases, I see product owners overwhelmed with too many daily development tasks--such as daily stand-ups for 5 or more products. The common rule is for product owners to spend at least one hour per day with their Scrum team. Five teams = five hours each day = when are you gonna do your work? 

The best practice for Scrum is one product owner per team and one team per product owner. 

But even with one team, you need some time to do the rest of product management. Take a look at the Pragmatic Marketing framework. In addition to dealing with development, product managers and product owners need to spend time with marketing, sales, support, finance and others--oh, and also with both old customers and new markets. When will you find time? 

For more on  the comparison of product management and product owner roles, read the free "Living in an Agile World" ebook.

I guess I'm outa sync with the Agile community on this. As a product manager or product owner, you can't spend time every day with development if you're also going to interact with the market and support the rest of the business. Yes, I think a product owner should spend time each week with development... but not every day; I prefer a few hours at the beginning and end of the week, rather than spread out across the week. 

Here's a good work schedule: 

Monday: backlog and sprint planning with Development

Tuesday: work with Marketing and other corporate folks

Wednesday: available for sales calls and customer visits

Thursday: Time for product management

Friday: Review and retrospective with Development in the morning followed by fajitas and margaritas!

Need more help. Attend our Living in an Agile World seminar or watch the many webinars at http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/resources/archived-webinars

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Friday fun: does your software look like this?

Thanks to Alain for sharing...

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Next Toronto pCamp

The Date: Sunday May 30, 2010

The Location: Ryerson’s Ted Rogers School of Management in downtown Toronto.

Get the latest on productCamps at http://www.productcamp.org/

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Rich Mironov Product Bytes articles judgment

All of this is to remind us that we lead through credibility, marshalling of market insights, maintaining the long view, and appreciating functional experts for what they can do.  And a strong daily dose of humility.

via mironov.com

Rich offers some tips on convincing others and using your judgment. I always look forward to a new issue of Product Bytes. If you aren't reading it, you should! Sign up; it's free but very valuable.

Posted via web from Steve Johnson on product management

tickled with my ICON

I recently purchased a Jawbone ICON, the 2010 bluetooth headset from Aliph, and I was struck by their "new rules"  product marketing. First, their web site is at Jawbone (the product), not Aliph (the company). They have created a different model each year with only six variations of the current model. Nice clean designs; nice clean price sheet.

Those of you who are product-oriented will appreciate the demo on the home page: "Jawbone eliminates noise" is an actual phone call that illustrates the before and after of "Noise Assassin." Marketing-types will appreciate the Media Library that includes Press Releases, News, and product imagery with product shots, people wearing Jawbones, and packaging shots. Sure makes it easy to include an authorized image in a blog post. And they're active in the social media community as well. They have Facebook and Twitter accounts--and they actually post stuff. Okay, gushing=OFF.

So I'm a satisfied buyer and user (I bought three for me and the kids) but what prompted this blog post was this: 

Want to know what features they should include in a future product? Just look at the discussion board. There are 4 pages of remarks about battery life, 5 pages on support for A2DP (which, by the way, friends, is a spec, not a req; the req is to play podcasts and music), and 3 pages on volume controls. 

Does a product manager need any more product research? The answers are right there in the discussion board. 

A discussion board is a great way to have users help users and for customers to learn more about buying. But the sheer volume of posts indicates where the product could be improved. Happily for Aliph, the firmware on ICON can be updated via the web site. Nice! 

Overall, I'd say that Aliph has done a near-perfect job of product design, delivery, support, upgrades, and a great job on their product marketing from website to video to social media to discussion board. And also comes in environment-friendly packaging.

What have you done this week to create a better product and marketing experience for your customers? 

Marketing is too important to be left up to the marketing department.--David Packard

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Q&A for product management

Red Canary's Shop Talk offers several perspectives on product management from some top minds in the Toronto area. Read the post at http://www.redcanary.ca/?p=648

The questions:
1. Tell us about the best product you’ve ever encountered? Why do you like it?
2. How do you know a great product manager when you meet one?
3. What’s your favorite interview question?
4. When is the best time for a start-up to hire a product manager?
5. What has been the defining moment in your career?
6. Mistakes. What was your biggest?

My answers:
1. Best product: I like all of Apple's products and I love my Kindle but the best? Right now I'd have to say my Kensington presenter's remote. It has five features—next slide, last slide, turn off the slides, laser pointer plus a memory stick to hold your presentations. It must've been a nightmare getting the developers to NOT add additional features.
2. Great product manager: A great product manager sees patterns. We're not looking for one request, one story, one mistake, one data point; great product managers see the patterns in the aggregate. Like watching the game film on Monday morning, you can see what really happened from an overall perspective.
3. Interview question: What's your favorite Microsoft Office program? Your answer tells me how you organize your thoughts and where you fit in the product management triad. (And no one has yet said Microsoft Project). Learn more about the product management triad.
4. When to hire?: Just before your first failure. A founder has a great idea for a product. He quits his day job and starts a company. Success! (Of course, we don't often think about the 99 others who didn't have success). But then, what's the next product? And the one after that? That's when you need a product manager, to bring market facts and patterns from the world as it is now, not how the founder saw it a decade ago, not how the developers imagine it to be, and not what the sales people can sell once to a deal they're working.
5. Defining moment: I had the joy of working at a really well-run company as my first vendor job. It took me years to realize that they were the anomaly. The book I'll write some day is titled "Everything I thought everybody already knew about running a software company."
6. Mistake: Letting my people teach me to micro-manage them. I promised myself I wouldn't yet they were so used to being second-guessed, they tried to get me to continue my predecessor's bad behavior. It took me a few weeks to figure out that they took my opinion as a mandate. Once I understood, I assured them that I wouldn’t question their decisions if they were grounded in company strategy and market facts.

How would you answer?

What's a pCamp?

This is what makes productCamp great.

Come to a pCamp and before you know it, you're a volunteer or a speaker. pCamps are about people connecting with people, about sharing your experience, not selling a product. 

Lots of pCamps coming up--hope to see you at one soon. Go to http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/about/industry-events to see a list of the ones we know about.

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

ProductCamp Austin Spring 2010

Pragmatic Marketing is pleased to sponsor another productCamp, Austin's 4th session, on March 27.

Read Paul Young's blog post at http://www.productbeautiful.com/2010/03/11/productcamp-austin-spring-2010/

More info at http://www.barcamp.org/ProductCampAustinSpring2010

Register at http://productcampaustin0327.eventbrite.com/

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Friday fun: getting the names right

This reads, "Do you have any money? Let's talk about how much we want your money."

But it could read, "Dear James, this is the information that we have on file for you. Click here to update your info." I'd be glad to update my info but I'm not gonna engage with a sales guy who doesn't even know my name. 

This is bad, no matter whether it was initiated by an individual sales guy or by the marketing dept. Given the poor grammar, I have a guess which it was.

(By the way, no one in my family is named James).

Read this rant by David for more on annoying email marketing.

pCamp Chicago now online

http://www.pcampchicago.org/

Another great pCamp opportunity is online. 

Chicago pCamp. (no date set yet)

Welcome to Chicago’s very first ProductCamp! ProductCamps have been a hit in Silicon Valley, Austin, Toronto, Boston, Raleigh, Minneapolis, Atlanta, New York, Seattle and Amsterdam, so we thought it was high time we had one in Chicago. Let’s show those folks how it’s done in the Windy City and put our own stamp on what will sure to be an annual must attend event here!

Pragmatic Marketing will be there. Will you? Register today!

(By the way, beautiful execution of the web site! But did I miss something? Where is the event date shown?)

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

ICON and distribution strategy

In the past, discussions about distribution strategy always focused on channel. That is, how to get the product from the factory through the channel to the customer. But nowadays distribution means that we need to explore also the best way to deliver, maintain, and use the product.

Should we sell direct, through multi-tier, via the web, over the phone? And how should we deliver? Hosted, SaaS, on-premise? How will we deliver patches and upgrades? Nowadays the choices seem limitless.

Virginia recently passed a law forbidding use of handheld devices while driving.  (That's called an Opportunity in SWOT analysis) I do have a bluetooth capability in my Toyota but the hands-free lacks noise canceling and it just doesn't satisfy. I find myself shouting into the phone and am exhausted after a short phone call. So, as a result, I was in the market for a new bluetooth headset. 

What next?  I could go to Amazon and do some comparisons. I could also go to the vendors' web sites and see what they have to say. I could go to the phone store and see what they have. Three different ways to buy. After looking at a few different sites and blogs, I decided on the Jawbone ICON from Aliph. 

http://us.jawbone.com/productsPageIcon.aspx

Now I have to think about delivery. If I buy from the phone store, I can see the product and take it home immediately--but alas, my store only carries The Thinker (black on black, a safe choice) With Amazon, I can choose from two different models but I'll have to wait a couple of days. With the vendor site, I can choose from all six models but have to wait a week or more. In my case (and maybe yours), I'll do anything to stay away from a retail store and Amazon didn't have the model I wanted so I was stuck with the vendor site. Sigh, hard to wait a week (a week!) when you're used to next-day service from Amazon. 

Here's where it gets really interesting. You can change the usage over the web. Plug the headset into a USB port, go to the web site, and the website shows you how you can configure the headset. You can choose among six voices ("You have two hours of talk time remaining") and three or four applications including voice dial and memo capabilities. Logically, they could someday download a firmware update, add A2DP capability (please!) or offer other features. 

So the distribution questions you ask yourself on a new product introduction is not just what channel any more but what is the best way to deliver, maintain, and use the product. I find it annoying lately when products don't automatically update themselves with bug fixes and new features. Operating systems have done it for years; virus programs do it too. 

The more you understand your buyer and user personas, the more you'll know how to answer distribution questions. 

Have you thought about distribution in these terms? 

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Friday fun: getting the names right

It warms your heart to receive a nicely customized email... like this:

Unk and his wife Mrs Unk are likely to question this "personal" approach used by the WSJ.

Change This - Is Your Product Launch Doomed?: 10 Ways to Identify an Impending Launch Disaster

The process of introducing a product to market is a serious undertaking. Unfortunately for many companies it’s merely an afterthought; a set of deliverables created from a checklist at the end of product development. When the level of effort and resources applied to the creation of the product dwarfs that of the launch, it’s no wonder product launches fail to achieve the sales velocity anticipated.

via changethis.com

David Daniels is the launch expert. His ebook "Is Your Product Launch Doomed?" is now featured on ChangeThis. If you're responsible for product marketing, you'll find the ebook a great resource.

Posted via web from Steve Johnson on product management

product marketing to your audience

Ok Go, known for filming the mesmerizing music video treadmill choreography, are back with their latest clip, "This Too Shall Pass."

This is a fine example of product marketing to your audience. YouTube may not be appropriate for a B2B ERP system but it's ideal for reaching the music consumer. The challenge of any product--CD, video, book, software, hardware, services--isn't innovation as much as obscurity. Non-traditional forms of marketing help us get our message through the noise to our buyers. 

Alas, marketers often have to work around their corporate policies. In an Op-ed piece, band member Damian Kulash Jr. laments EMI's attempt to video distribution as a revenue generator rather than a lead generator. He writes, 

To the band, “Here It Goes Again” was a successful creative project. To the record company, it was a successful, completely free advertisement.YouTube and EMI have actually made it harder to share our videos.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/opinion/20kulash.html

That's why today's marketers need to understand the buyer persona and the buying process. Do you?

(Thanks to David M Scott and two other friends who shared this video with me. Looks like it'll go viral.)

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

Would you give this much information?

Someone recommended a product from this company. I went to the web site to see if they did anything for product managers and not just product owners. And they took me here:

Sorry. Not gonna give any vendor that much information on the first date. I can see how they might ask for an email address but nothing more. So I'll neither check them out nor recommend them.
My friend Adele (Happy birthday, Adele!) compares marketing to dating. Would you give this much information to a blind date?

Posted via email from Steve Johnson on product management

7 things customers hate

7 things customer hate in a retail or restaurant environment

via amazingserviceguy.com

The Amazing Service Guy offers these 7 things that customers hate. Sometimes marketers are so concerned with branding and campaigns that they forget where brands are formed: in consistent delivery on the brand promise. Whether it's customer support or innovative products, the brand results from the promise you keep, not the promise you make.

Posted via web from Steve Johnson on product management

Take your kid to work day?

MSNBC asks:

How would you feel if you were aboard one of the planes that was directed by a child at JFK airport on Feb. 17?

And the number one response: Wouldn't worry about it.

http://travel.newsvine.com/_question/2010/03/03/3972653-how-would-you-feel-if...

For more on the incident, see http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/35683779/ns/travel-news/

Actually, I can see this incident happening quite easily. Every parent with a child at work does the same thing. I remember taking my daughter to work. She was pretty underwhelmed. As far as she could see, all I did was sit in meetings and drink coffee. Yes, I was a product manager.

And I love the social media aspect of this story: a) a good divisive story, supported by b) real-time stats showing the public reaction. I'm sure the publisher/editor wanted more controversy but in general, people think nothing of the incident. But I'm sure there'll be some Senate investigation any day now.

"Mad Libs" Style Form Increases Conversion 25-40%

A while ago, I came across a unique registration form built by Jeremy Keith for his audio sharing site, Huffduffer. Though it asked people the same questions found in typical sign-up forms, the Huffduffer registration form did so in a narrative format. It presented input fields to people as blanks within sentences (Mad Libs-style, if you will).

via lukew.com

Interesting approach for web form design. I wonder the concept applies elsewhere? Like on product dialog boxes maybe...

(Oh, by the way, good twitter-style headline, don't you think? Kudos to LukeW)

Posted via web from Steve Johnson on product management