By Saeed Khan

If I gave you an assignment to hire someone to build a device to get cameras (still and video) into the upper atmosphere (at least 80,000 feet), take pictures and video, have the cameras return to Earth and then recover those cameras and images, who would you hire?

And what budget would you need?

If you said a $500 budget was sufficient, and you’d hire a couple of high school students to do it, you wouldn’t be crazy. You’d be absolutely right. I’ll explain more in a minute, but let me change one thing and see how that affects the answer.

What a difference 20 years makes

If this was 1992 as opposed to 2012, and I gave you the same task, would your answer be the same? Absolutely not. But if you gave the same answer in 1992, I would definitely have thought you were crazy! Back then it would have required some Ph.Ds and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do what what was asked. It’s amazing what a difference a couple of decades can make.

So what am I talking about?  Read this article about how two Toronto high school students, Matthew Ho and Asad Muhammad, did exactly what I described.  They bought second hand cameras, cell phones (for the GPS) and other parts from online sites, used the Web to help them plan their project and the flight path of the craft, so they could retrieve it later.

While this is only one small (but amazing) example, it is illustrative of the environment we live in. We have access to amazing technology  and data that either didn’t exist or was limited to large corporations and research labs only 20 years ago. And the pace of technological improvement is not slowing. It’s not simply about Moore’s Law (exponential increases in computing power), but about improvements in material science, very low cost manufacturing, and broad accessibility FOR THE PUBLIC to technology, products, services and knowledge to help bring ideas to fruition.

Culture needs to catch up with technology

But to really take advantage of all this, we need to change our thinking to be more like the two high school students. No one told them they had to do what they did. It wasn’t a high school assignment or a 3rd party contest. They did it because they thought it was possible.

While we definitely have access to 21st century technology, when it comes to truly innovative thinking, large parts of our culture and institutions (e.g. schools) are still mired with very old 20th century structures and cultures.

We need to change that so that we can encourage all the other “Matthews and Asads” (as well as the “Marthas and Ayeshas”) to truly think outside the (institutional) boxes they are in. Innovation can better every part of our society, but we have to change how we think if we want to truly benefit in the Age of Innovation.

Saeed

Tweet this: We are entering the Age of Innovation http://wp.me/pXBON-37i #prodmgmt #innovation #legoman

Related posts:

1. Canada’s Innovation Gap (part 1)
2. Product Management lies at the heart of Innovation
3. Canada’s Innovation Gap (part 2)
4. Canada’s Innovation Gap (part 3)

It’s been quite a while since I wrote a What’s the Deal piece.  The last one was called “What’s the Deal with Software Product Management?“. So it’s kind of fitting, that I’m following it up (albeit almost 4 years later) with one on Product Marketing.

Recently, there have been a few posts on other blogs related to the Product Marketing role and the viewpoints caught my eye.

• What’s the difference between Product Marketing and Product Management?
• The End of Product Marketing
• The Rise of the Product Marketer

The “What’s the difference” article attempts to delineate the functions of Product Management and Product Marketing.  You should read the whole article, but here are a couple of snippets of the definitions of the two:

Product management usually “listens” to the market and then works with the internal team to develop products to meet the needs that are articulated.  They do not usually to interact much with the market on a day-to-day basis  in a direct way, but rather listen to feedback obtained by sales and marketing.

…

So if that’s product management in a nutshell, where does product marketing differ?  Well, product marketing is a more externally focused role. The product marketers “talk” to the market more.  They evangelize what the company’s product offers the world, and help the company focus their messaging to the market.

We need to get away from these “complementary opposite” definitions of the roles. i.e. one listens, the other other talks. One is inbound, the other outbound. One focuses on putting products on the shelf, the other focuses on getting products off the shelf etc.

The roles are are definitely complimentary, but are definitely not opposites. These kinds of definitions, while short and easy to remember are incorrect and only help to further confuse those who aren’t clear on their relationship.

Now, in The End of Product Marketing, Dave Wolpert (guest posting on A Random Jog) describes a death spiral he sees happening to Product Marketers. Caught between Product Managers, Marketing and Sales, Product Marketers are losing responsibility for any strategic activities and are becoming tactical, siloed content creators.

At many companies, product management has already replaced the inbound function I described earlier. At others, product marketers have evolved into field marketers by focusing mainly on sales tools that are only used internally; development of externally-facing content marketing tools, like technical white papers, are sourced to others.

In what seems to be a bit of a rebuttal of Dave Wolpert’s piece, Josh Duncan (the main blogger on A Random Jog), states the following in the Rise of the Product Marketer.

In most businesses, there is a gap between marketing and product that must be filled. Without an audience, a great product has nowhere to go. Likewise, a great marketing strategy can’t save you from a woeful product. I believe that business success can be found when you match a great product with a great marketing plan and this is where Product Marketing can have the most impact.

So with that preamble, here’s my take on the situation.

1. Product Marketing is not dead, but it’s also not on the rise.

I currently work with some really good product marketing folks. I’m not saying that just to be nice or polite. I’m saying that because it’s true. But it’s not like that in many companies.

Part of the problem is that many companies don’t understand what Product Marketing is. So they define the role incorrectly, or hire the wrong people, or both. And what happens then? You have ineffective Product Marketing and little need to expand on it.

A lot of companies look at the role like this – product MARKETING. i.e. they focus on the second word and thus create conditions like those described by Dave Wolpert. i.e. Product Marketing becomes a tactically focused sales support role.

2. Product Marketing is usually ridiculously understaffed.

I’ve been in Product Management for a LONG time. And while most companies I’ve worked in have small Product Management teams, they have tiny, and sometimes non-existent Product Marketing teams. Ratios of 5:1 (Product Managers to Product Marketers) are not uncommon.  Why? Because companies don’t understand the role so don’t hire properly. Or they feel that the work can simply be done the “the Product Manager”.  Yes, it can be done, with the right people in place, but at what cost? Having individuals splitting time between all the different tasks of both Product Management and Product Marketing is simply a recipe for mediocrity at best, failure at worst.

3. “Marketing” is viewed very differently than it was 20+ years ago

The word “Marketing”,  if you look at the business school definition of it, is very different than how it is understood in most technology companies today.

Marketing used to be viewed as a strategic business function. Remember the 4 Ps (Product, Price, Promotion, Place)? Notice that “marketing” included “product”. Today of course, the term “Marketing” is mostly understood to cover only “Promotion” – i.e. advertising, PR, events, campaigns, awareness, lead generation etc. It has become specialized and focused heavily on demand creation.

Product Management has taken over “Product” and “Price”. “Place” — i.e. sales/distribution channels — has been taken over by Sales and to a lesser extent Product Management. Thus the “Marketing” part of “Product Marketing” is viewed in this context. Not as a strategic business function, but an outwardly focused partner to Sales.

Perhaps we need a new name for Product Marketing to better align with the changes that have happened in Marketing over the last 20 or so years.

So, what does that mean for “Product Marketing”?

In short, I see the clear need for what I would call “strategic marketing”.

This covers the basics like positioning and messaging, but also other areas where market, customer and product knowledge are required. This could include (but not be limited to) the following:

• evangelism
• analyst relations
• sales funnel analysis and optimization
• working on product, market or competitive strategy
• high value content creation

So where does Product Marketing fit within a company? This role does NOT belong in Marketing and definitely not in Sales. Product Marketing should be part of the overall Product Management organization.

OK, Product Marketers, hear me out before you think I’m out to assimilate the role into that of Product Manager. I’m not. In fact, I’m advocating the opposite.

I’ve written and presented on the topic of How to Structure a Product Management Organization as well as The Need for Differentiated Roles in Product Management.

The fact is that both the roles of “Product Manager” and “Product Marketer” are poorly understood and implemented in the industry.  e.g. There’s too much focus on what a “Product Manager” does vs. what “Product Management” does.

Far too many companies have Product Management organizations that are populated solely with people with titles of “Product Manager” at varying levels of seniority. e.g. Technical Product Manager, Product Manager, Sr. Product Manager, Product Management Director, VP Product Management etc. Is there any other department that looks like that? No.

All departments have a spread of roles that have particular complimentary (there’s that word again)  focuses (foci?) and that work together to achieve common goals.  Why should Product Management be different?

There’s little disagreement that Product Managers and Product Marketers should work closely together, yet for some reason, there is pushback (mostly from Product Marketers in my experience) to be functionally within the Product Management organization.

Take a look at the following presentation. I delivered it last year at ProductCamp Boston. In it I present my case for the various roles, the place of Product Marketing within overall Product Management, and the problems this structure solves.

Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Saeed

Tweet this: What’s the deal with Product Marketing? http://wp.me/pXBON-371 #prodmgmt #prodmktg

Related posts:

1. What's the deal with BizDev? pt. 2
2. Should Product Management and Product Marketing be parts of the same department?
3. What's the deal with BizDev?
4. Open Question: How did you get your first Product Management or Product Marketing position?

All over the web and in all the product management communities, there are articles and discussions about gamification. If you’ve been offline for a while, gamification is about applying design and development efforts to software in a way to make it more engaging, more “fun.”

Not only have whole applications been born under the premise (i.e. Foursquare), but gamification has also had great impact in some of the more traditional business software, (ie. Salesforce.com) allowing for more interaction and amusement when performing daily tasks.

I’m all about having more fun in my interactions with technology, and can truly appreciate making the more mundane less so; but, I believe sometimes we have taken the concept of gamification too far.

Not every piece of software or every interaction within should be designed around fun. Stanford professor Elizabeth Corcoran, in her book on the subject, “The ‘Gamification’ Of Education”, suggests that the gamification of businesses and virtual worlds is creating an expectation among people that real-life interactions follow simple mechanics and some disillusionment when they do not. Are we making our software more of a toy than a productive tool?

I recently heard of a software company’s UI meeting, held to introduce the upcoming planned release to the internal audience, where the  discussion quickly went from what the planned for now to the planned for later. In the “planned for later” talks, the designers were sharing their vision for the upcoming UI changes, which were focused on including more opportunities for social interactions. The problem? No one had talked with more than 1 or 2 current customers to find out if this is what is truly needed or wanted.

Conversations need to start with the market, not just customers. Does your market want to play a game when they are in your software? Will it help them do their job better? More effectively?

Luke Hohmann, with his company Innovation Games, does great work in promoting playing collaborative games with your customers to build  engagement. He states that engaging customers in a well-designed Innovation Game frees them up from the constraints of typical focus-group sessions and delivers deeper, more accurate information than is available through online surveys or other tools.

There are some very successful elements that need to be copied.  Gaming elements do and should belong in SOME software. Luke’s reasons and use make sense. In consumer-facing sites, I support using gaming elements to make the site more engagement, building more loyalty, etc. In business programs,  I can no longer remember the “old” training programs where you didn’t even see your status on the module much less your achievement. Gaming made training more fun. But, once you start entering the enterprise software realm, gamification is an area that needs to be evaluated carefully.

Gamification elements that are added in by designers because they are the latest and greatest, will quickly get subjected to the sideline and prove to be a waste of your time and effort. In the competitive software market, time and effort need to be focused on those areas which deliver the differentiation. And, it might not be about the game.

(Please share this on Twitter, LinkedIn and even Google+: “Not Everyone Wants to Play Games” by@jidoctor: http://wp.me/pXBON-36h #prodmgmt #gamification”)

Related posts:

1. Games executives play: Guess what's in the envelope
2. Book Review: Innovation Games
3. I clicked "Play", mommy
4. On Product Design

While we try to stay very apolitical on this blog — with a few exceptions — I’ve decided to join the online protests against certain legislation that is currently being considered by the US Government.

So, in support of the protest, like many other sites, we’ve gone black for a day.

These two bills — Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) — are bad policy, bad for the open Internet and bad for innovation.

I support protections such as copyright and respect the needs of content creators to be paid for their works. But these bills currently being considered by the US government are both heavy-handed and unnecessary. There are lots of laws and means for large media corporations — the primary business supporters behind these bills — such as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to protect their content.

Now I can’t go into all the details of why this legislation is bad, and believe me, there are many reasons. But WRT innovation, this article from Mashable explains it fairly well.

Any site that allows users to post content is “primarily designed for the purpose of offering services in a manner that enables copyright violation.” The site doesn’t have to be clearly designed for the purpose of copyright violation; it only has to provide functionality that can be used to enable copyright violation.

This means that YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Gmail, Dropbox and millions of other sites would be “Internet sites…dedicated to theft of U.S. property,” under SOPA’s definition. Simply providing a feature that would make it possible for someone to commit copyright infringement or circumvention (see: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0) is enough to get your entire site branded as an infringing site.

So every media sharing site, social network, collaborative content site, or data exchange site that currently exists, or any new applications or sites that leverages media and information sharing could be targeted with this law. And it’s not just the big guys with deep pockets that can be targeted. Keep in mind that the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) sued a Minneapolis woman for $220,000 for downloading 24 songs. Yes, $8000 per song! And they won.

Think about the implications for startups who have content sharing, or user-generated content functionality on their sites. The proposed laws put the onus on the owner of the site to, in effect, police them for potentially illegal content, and the punishments — e.g. blocking of site domain names from DNS registries — can be done without due process. Good for innovation? Absolutely not.

Even if you don’t live in the United States, you should be concerned. As you know, the US Government has a way of extending it’s reach into other countries, and other countries with sympathetic governments (cough, cough, like Canada’s current government cough, cough) will be emboldened to pass equally regressive laws or simply fall in line with the US.

So what can you do?

If you live in the United States, click here and contact your Congress person.

Not in the US, sign an online petition here, or use your online presence to spread the word.

We live in an ever increasingly interconnected world. Let’s work together to foster innovation and stop (possibly well intentioned) but clearly very poorly written legislation that could impact us all.

Thanks

Saeed

Related posts:

1. Product Management lies at the heart of Innovation

NOTE: The following is a guest post by Veronica Figgarella. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information.

In a recent post entitled Open Question: Product Management Challenges at a Startup, Saeed asked for community input to three questions posed by a startup founder. Looking to scale his company, the founder asked for input on the following three questions.

1. What metrics should be instrumented into the product to see if implemented features are effective in solving customer/user problems?
2. What are the right collateral pieces for the sales people? What is/are the right pricing models?
3. How to have marketing work with Product Management to create compelling stories to identify and target new customer segments?

I want to address question #1 and share a few thoughts about developing the right metrics for measuring product success. I hope to address the topic in a broader sense, and not limit my answer to the B2B software industry.

Measurement is necessary to monitor progress in all areas of the business. We measure sales to track progress towards quota; measure bug counts and bugs fixed as a quality indicator. Product Management needs measurements to identify value creation and product improvement. And especially in a startup company, Product Managers are most worried about measuring how much cash flow their product generates thus working hard to solve customers’ problems.

Measure Cashflow

If you want to learn how your products are helping your customers solve their problems, your first metric should be how much cash flow your product is generating? If your product is not producing the expected earnings it is most likely not generating value for the customer either.

Proper metrics need to be:

• precise and sensitive to change,
• reliable,
• relevant
• and cost/effective to implement.

The amount of cash flow your product generates depends on multiple factors (i.e. channel supply, vendor supply, sales effectiveness, etc) which can be tracked through market performance metrics. Although metrics vary from one industry to the other, market performance needs to be linked to cash flow especially for a startup where initial revenue is vital for company survival.

Some of the most relevant market performance metrics are:

• Sales effectiveness (acquisition):
  • # of trials vs. purchase,
  • # of referrals vs. actual adoption
  • Wallet share: How much of the customer spend is in my product?
  • Price Premium: Are my customers willing to pay a premium for my product?

As money comes in, you can start thinking about your second biggest worry:

How do you generate future cash flow?

Your metrics need to be linked to your strategy, mission and vision statements so you can monitor how your products contribute to your corporate strategy. They will also help you deliver continuous value to both customers and shareholders.

Some helpful long-term value delivery metrics are:

• Return on product and marketing investment: a simple way of calculating it is (return – investment)/(return), the tricky part is defining what return means for your product. Return can be total revenue or, gross profit or net profit.
• Customer satisfaction: it is a measure of the value your product gives to customers, so define satisfaction in a way that is simple yet relevant to them.
• Market share in targeted segments and
• Loyalty (are my customers willing to buy from me again?) Satisfied customers are more likely to repeat a purchase therefore loyalty impacts long term business profitability. Identifying which components of your product/services drive loyalty and monitoring them, is key in generating future cash flows.

Several academic studies show that future cash flow is related to customer satisfaction. This is because a satisfied customer is more likely to repeat a purchase and a loyal customer is cheaper to maintain than acquiring a new one. Let’s dive a litter deeper into measuring Customer Satisfaction.  After all, if your products are solving customer problems, it is very likely they are satisfied customers.

So… How to measure customer satisfaction?

There is no right or wrong metric to measure customer satisfaction, but the following considerations are pretty much what many experts and best practice reports agree on:

1. Identify what service/product dimensions are relevant to your customers

For example, If you are in B2B arena and each sale is different, then you need to be able to identify a common driver for purchase among your customers: i.e. how fast your RFI was answered, or the inclusion of a clause that allows discounts when the product fails, or if a specific option is included with no additional charge. It works pretty much the same for B2C; you still have to investigate what does your customer value from your product/service? Identifying these relevant dimensions will help you define the important metrics to monitor.

According to Leonard Berry in his book Competing Through Quality, there are 5 areas customers’ weigh as important in order to achieve satisfaction (and this is mostly for services):

• Reliability
• Responsiveness
• Assurance (related to how the company and its employees convey trust and confidence),
• Empathy (to customers’ problems)
• Tangibles elements of the service are primordial in providing satisfaction because they are the evidence of the service, for example: appearance of physical facilities, of service personnel, tools or equipment used, etc.

Customers will be satisfied if they believe the received what they expected in these areas.

2. Encourage complaints to understand dissatisfaction

Sometimes customers are not clear about what satisfies them before they try a product, but when they return it or call to complain they are pretty clear about what’s not working for them. In Berry’s book, he explains some of the gaps where managers need to look to find sources of dissatisfaction:

• Misunderstanding of customer requirements
• Poor specification of standards;
  • management may not have instructed staff properly on how to implement desired standards
• Capability gaps
  • staff might not be properly trained
• Creating over-expectations
  • advertising and sales people can promise too much leading customers to have inflated expectations

The importance of these dimensions needs to be clear especially to sales representatives, front line staff and marketing people as they promote your products/services and interact directly with the customer.

3. Not all communication channels are equal

Be careful about the channels you use to encourage complaints and be true about embracing customer dissatisfaction. According to a recent study by Maritz Research most customers expect the company to read their Twitter complaints but only a third received a response. Jay Baer comments on this topic on his blog Convince and Convert.

Social media doesn’t create negativity, it puts a magnifying glass to it.

So companies need to be aware of this and respond. Secondly he points out the following:

…social media doesn’t close at 5pm, and in fact many customers use social media during the night and on weekends, when it may be inconvenient for you to monitor and reply. But your corporate convenience is not the prism through which you should be gazing upon social business.

So in short, not only is responding to these public complaints important, but the responses should be done in a timeframe that is convenient for the customer.

social media will put a magnifying glass on dissatisfaction and you will need to expand your “complaining hours” after 5 pm.

4. Customer satisfaction needs to be linked to financial reports to be taken seriously

Unfortunately, financial reports and product line incomes often dominate the thinking of a business that lacks of customer orientation.  However market-based assets such as: size of customer base, quality of supplier relationships and customer satisfaction needs to be tracked and linked to earnings in order to make it everybody’s business (finance, customer support, engineering, etc).

5. Keep customer feedback mechanisms simple

When collecting information from customers, make the questions simple to answer. This has additional benefits as short surveys tend to reduce user fatigue and return more reliable information.

Here is an example of a good satisfaction survey Amazon sent me recently. I was really happy with how they handled my problem; especially because it was my fault that the item I bought had not arrived on time (I entered a wrong address ooops!)

_____________________________________________________________________
Thank you for your recent inquiry. Did I solve your problem?
If yes, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1CSAT0DV4C6JL&k=hy
If no, please click here:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/survey?p=A1CSAT0DV4C6JL&k=hn

When I pressed the YES link I was directed to here:

It was really simple, all I had to do was rate each questions with stars, it did not take a minute and the answer was very true to my feelings.

________________________________________________________________________

If you want to read more about the links between market orientation, customer satisfaction and profitability I recommend reading: Chapter 1 (it’s a free pdf) from the book Market-Based Management byRobert J Best.

6. Understand how to manage your data.

If data collected is not managed properly and acted upon timely, measuring customer satisfaction will be a wasted effort. This links back to defining the quality of what is being measured and stabilising a relevant score card to assure company’s commitment to customer satisfaction.

So next time you decide to measure satisfaction, think backward and establish what data will help you make decisions so you can create the questions that will accurately yield the information needed.

References

Why Customer Satisfaction Matters – article on cvent.com

Marketing Management by Gregory Whitwell

Tweet this: A value-based approach to Customer Satisfaction and Product Metrics http://wp.me/pXBON-35B #prodmgmt

Related posts:

1. (How) do you measure customer satisfaction?
2. Go-to-Market and Organizational Metrics for Product Success
3. Product Management Metrics (part 2a)
4. A Model and Metrics for Tracking Product Success

NOTE: The following is a guest post by Ninon LaForce. If you want to submit your own guest post, click here for more information.

I was asked  to formulate a 90-day plan for a new Product Manager role. This role was created to drive the strategy around the “right mix” of partners and solutions in a new emerging technology area. A 30-60-90 plan shows a potential employer how you plan to hit the ground running and can set you apart during a competitive interview process.  Here is my plan:

Before The Start Date

• Obtain all information relevant information I can find to get up to speed on what is happening with the organization (e.g. annual reports, website, press releases, internal contacts if I have them). Also get a good understanding of what is happening in the industry.

Day 1-30: Learn my way around and get to know the team

• Meet with my manager to identify top priorities for my department and what is expected of me. Set up a time for weekly status meetings.
• Meet with each member of my team to learn their role, challenges and opportunities. Find out what they expect of me and how I can help them.
• Meet with as many top influencers as possible and ask them valuable suggestions about my role and about navigating the
  organization.
• Learn the corporate systems, the internal workings of the company and read the company policies and procedures.
• Attend any orientation or training offered.
• Review the list of existing partners and study what is known about them, how they have been performing, etc.
• Subscribe to industry online news, thought leadership, and any other industry online resources.
• Go to lots of meetings and offer to help on small initiatives.
• Read as much as possible and study to continue to improve industry and product knowledge.
• Draw up the logical value chain (ecosystem) for the industry and find out as much as possible about each value step and how the organization adds value (or could add value).
• Listen and take lots of notes.

Day 31-60: Take ownership

• Meet with my manager for a first 30-day review. Ensure I am focusing on the right activities and adjust as necessary.
• Take ownership of some projects.
• Contribute my thoughts/ideas on how to streamline industry partners and programs.
• Make a list of activities/project that will contribute to meeting the department objectives and set up a plan to reach the goals.
• Go to lots of meetings and begin to run some of them.
• Continue to build relationships.
• Begin to write materials (drafts)
• Continue to learn and read as much as possible.
• By this time I hope to have uncovered some promising unexploited opportunities for growth and have begun to figure out how to exploit them.

Day 61-90: Begin to take on more of a leadership role

• Check-in with my manager for a first 60-day review. Discuss how things are going, review progress on projects I am involved in and offer new ideas. Reach agreement on how to move forward and secure sufficient resources to get things done.
• Obtain constructive feedback from team members on my progress.
• Start to recommend new partners.
• Use my integrative thinking and propose new solutions or better ways to add-value to partners or programs. Ensure the
  strategies I am proposing match the business environment.
• Share my ideas on developing new ways to reach out to partners and engage with them.
• Start making decisions.
• Take a fuller leadership role.
• Start being a resource to others.
• Keep a focus on problems/projects/activities that are priorities. Create some momentum in a positive and collaborative way.

I consulted the following resources for the formulation of my 30-60-90 plan. They are:

The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels
by Michael Watkins, Soundview Executive Book Summaries, 2004.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/09/06/leadership-pink-careers-cx_ag_0906ninetydays.html

http://www.thedailymba.com/2010/06/21/your-first-90-days-at-a-new-job/

Thoughts on my plan would be appreciated. Please do not hesitate to comment.

Ninon

Tweet this: A 90-day Plan for New Product Managers – http://wp.me/pXBON-34i  #prodmgmt

—

Note: This article was originally published on Ninon’s blog – Product Edge — in 2011.

Related posts:

1. Guest Post: Do you have a roadmap for your Product Managers?
2. Questions for Product Managers
3. Product Managers need time to breathe…
4. Do Product Managers need Domain Knowledge?

Hi

In December, we asked you for your votes to help us make the final round in the Canadian Blog Awards.  Thanks to your support we are a finalist in the Best Professional Life Blog category.

With your help we can now win this category. So please click the link above and vote for us.

Also, in some surprise news, we were nominated in the Business and Career category of the Canadian Weblog Awards. Although the name is similar, this is a completely different set of awards than the Canadian Blog Awards. Apparently we love giving out blogging awards in Canada.

This second nomination is judged by a panel, so no voting is required (or allowed). We’ll keep you posted on both.

And please don’t forget to vote for us in the Best Professional Life Blog category. But don’t delay. Voting ends soon.

Thanks

Tweet this: Help @onpm win some awards. http://wp.me/pXBON-352 #prodmgmt #cdnba #awards

Related posts:

1. Please vote for us – Canadian Blog Awards
2. Vote For Us – Canadian Blog Awards
3. Vote for us in the Canadian Blog Awards!
4. Canadian Blog Awards – 4th is better than 5th!

by Saeed Khan

It’s only the 3rd day of the year, and I already have a great customer experience story that I want to share.

I have to say, that barring any changes in the policies of this particular vendor, they’ve got a customer for life in me.

So what do I want as a customer or purchaser of products? Simple – three things:

1. Products (or services) that work as advertised or expected.
2. Honesty and competence from the vendor’s employees.
3. Post sale service that treats me fairly and efficiently.

Now how hard is this for companies to understand and implement?

Many times, I’ve had the opposite experience of the 3 points above.  I’ve blogged about my horrible experience with Future Shop (a large Canadian retailer) here.  They pretty much violated #2 and #3 above right from the get go.

On the flip side, one of my first posts on this blog — back in 2007 — was about the Dyson vacuum cleaner I had bought.

During the almost 5 years that I’ve had it, it’s continued to work well. We had a problem early on with a small plastic clip that broke. I called up Dyson — via the toll free # very conveniently visible on the front of the unit — and spoke to a customer service rep. He verified the problem over the phone and shipped me a replacement clip free of charge. Nice.

But now I have another problem with the unit. The telescoping hose — a feature I really appreciate in the unit — is wearing out. It tore sometime last year, and we patched it with some duct tape. But, over the holidays, the hose got to the point where tape was no longer a solution.

So this morning I called up Dyson intent on buying a replacement hose. What’s actually very neat about the Dyson machines is that they come apart and snap together very easily, and virtually every part except the electrical bits can be easily removed and replaced by the owner. I could write a whole post on the implications of this, but I’ll save that for later.

So, I called up their toll-free line, waited a few minutes in the queue until a service rep answered the call. He verified which model of vacuum I had, confirmed that I was still at the same address, and  listened to my problem. And before I could ask him how much a replacement hose would be, he said he’d ship a replacement hose to me — NO CHARGE!!!

Yes, 5 years after I bought the unit, replacement parts are shipped FREE– no cost for the part, no cost for shipping. And he added, once I get the part, if I have any problems in replacing the hose, I could simply call them back and someone would step me through it over the phone. Awesome!

As long as Dyson doesn’t change their policies or their level of service, they have a customer for life in me for their vacuums.

When I bought the vacuum several years ago, I did it mainly due to a VERY positive recommendation from a friend of mine. His wife had bought one a year earlier, yet he said he loved using it. Doesn’t get better than that. I wondered if the premium price of the unit — at $500, it was about 2X the price of other competitive models — was worth it.

Well, without a doubt the answer is yes.  So how do you create a customer for life? Let me modify the 3 bullets I started with at the top of this article just a bit:

1. Products (or services) that work as advertised or expected AND do it better than the competition.
2. Honesty and competence from vendor’s employees REGARDLESS of who you speak with.
3. Post sale service that is so far ABOVE THE NORM, I’d be a fool to switch brands.

How does your company rack up against these three traits?

Saeed

Tweet this: How to create a customer for life http://wp.me/pXBON-34M #prodmgmt #custservice #dyson

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Hi

This blog has a number of contributors. We tend to all post individually at various frequencies, but for the end of year, we thought it would be a good idea to look at one question and get several reflections on it. Perhaps this is the start of a tradition.

For this post, the question is:

What is something important that you learned this year, and why is it important in our profession?

And of course, we’d love to hear from you. Either comment on what we’ve said, or leave your own answer to the question in the comments.

Jennifer Doctor – Engage in Communities

This year, I learned a lot about the importance of actively engaging in communities, both online and in person. As a result, I have taken the following pledge:  “always be building your network, especially when times are good – when you don’t necessarily need it”. I invite you to join me in this pledge.

I think that networking gets a bad name because many folks only leave their cocoon when they need to take from it. They need a job. They need a reference. They need to sell something. Take, take and even more take. Yet, if you focus on the give side, giving freely at any time, then you will never eat alone in a strange city or be wanting for a job. In one of my all-time favorite movies, Pay it forward with Helen Hunt, her son Trevor applies this lesson to life in general.

It is so very important to our chosen profession, because most of us didn’t actually choose to be Product People – we fell into it. What we didn’t necessarily realize when we took the fall, was that we would be alone in our company. Seldom are there companies with large defined Product Management groups. But, by utilizing social media, Product Camps, classes and local product management communities, I know that I have built my own knowledgebase, expanded friendships and contributed to the collective pool of information available to others who join us as Product Professionals, but didn’t earn the education for it.

Moving forward, this is an integral skill and a necessary element for growing your professional knowledge. It is not as easy as it sounds, and takes a dedicated effort. Like so many other efforts, you only get out of it what you put in to it. So, as you plan to end this year and start the next, the question is “how will you contribute?”

Saeed Khan – The Power of the Individual

Perhaps this is a lesson re-learned as opposed to a lesson learned, but it’s one I think is worth reminding myself over and over again. This year has been a tumultuous year worldwide, from protests and uprisings such as the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, to natural disasters such as the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. There were many events that affected each of us in different ways.

The 2011 Nobel Peace prize was awarded to 3 women from Africa who, each in their own way, strove for and achieved remarkable change in their countries.  Tawwakol Karman, one of the recipients, is only 32 — tied for the youngest person to receive this distinction.

And while his name may not be familiar to most, Mohamed Bouazizi, an unassuming vegetable vendor in Tunisia, had an enormous impact on the world in 2011, and his tragic act of protest and frustration on Dec. 19, 2010 in the city of Sidi Bouzid, will be remembered by many as the starting point of the Arab Spring movement.

In a more inspirational story, following the tragedy of the tsunami in Japan earlier this year, the Japanese women’s national soccer team won the Women’s World Cup of Soccer, beating many strong teams such as the United States (in the final), Sweden and Germany.

Japan beat Germany 1-0 in the quarter finals.  The lone (and winning) goal for Japan was scored by a Karina Maruyama, a substitute on the team, who had worked at the now crippled Fukushima nuclear plant until 2009 and was inspired by the Fukushima disaster to win the game.

In all of these cases, and many others this year, previously unheralded individuals made a huge impact with their actions.

Now, nothing we do as product professionals is going to have the impact of what these people did. But it’s also worth noting that the problems they confronted are so much greater than those we confront in our jobs. And so we can learn a real lesson from them — that a single individual (for example you!), through determination and perseverance has the ability to affect real change and inspire others to do the right thing — whether it be in the area of human rights, freedom, sport, or simply driving great products through the barriers set forth by those who don’t believe what you believe or see what you see.

Jim Holland – Simplicity

1. Imagine it
2. Prove it
3. Build it

Prabhakar Gopalan – Experimentation is key

This year I learned the power of figuring out things along the way and to stop strategizing in vacuum.

As unattractive as it sounds for master planners and strategists, the reality is, a lot of things around us do not behave the way they are supposed to. This includes ourselves. Understanding the behavior of people and things, and how that challenges a lot of (supposedly) rational hypothesis is something critical to successful product management.

For example, it is easier to draw and force fit a bell curve distribution for your product adoption, but much harder to figure out the real adoption over time and the variables that affect it.

This blog was started by three people – Saeed, Alan and Ethan.  Over this past year, Jim, Jennifer and I joined as regular contributors. Given the sudden increase in the number of writers, we struggled initially to coordinate and schedule our posts, and decide what topics we should blog about.   I suggested the following experiment – why don’t we assign a specific day of the week for of us, let each writer decide what they would write about, and leave it that way for a few months.  We could track progress and decide how to proceed after that.

It was a simple idea.   When we met three months later, we knew answer – it was working. Our page views and traffic were up significantly. We had been consistent in posting on our own. In short, we were doing just fine, without an overarching strategy or ongoing coordination.

Switch to scene two at a large company where a friend of mine works. Over the summer there was a complex project he was working on.  The project was in an emerging technology space, where neither the market nor the products were developed or mature enough, even for early adoption.   It required a very experimental approach towards problem solving – learning as you go.  But the smartest thinkers and ‘strategists’ in the room put forth their biggest plans.  But by the end of the year, after 6 months of PowerPoints and more PowerPoints the project had barely moved and there was nothing to show except PowerPoints and meeting minutes.  No sales funnel or sales leads.  If only the team had approached the whole problem with humility and taken one small step at a time the results could have been different.

My lessons from 2011 – start with small experiments, learn from their outcomes and continuously improve over time.

Tweet this: Lessons Learned in 2011 – http://wp.me/pXBON-34k #prodmgmt #prodmktg #innovation

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This year’s holiday tune was a bit harder to write. It seems that people are all over the place with how their year has progressed – some good, some bad, some hurried, some slowed. But, isn’t it great to know that a life in product management is certainly unpredictable? Happy Holidays.

(To the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, preferably in the styling of Bruce Springsteen. It is a bit clunky, but it works. )

——–

You better watch out
You better not pout
Better plan well
For this I can tell
The planned release is due up right now

Your scrum team is running late
Gotta get the customer input
Or you might not get paid

You better watch out
You better not pout
Better plan well For this I can tell
The planned release is due up right now

The business case is overdue
The finances don’t make sense
Better clean it all up right away
Before they take offense

You better watch out
You better not pout
Better plan well
For this I can tell
That damn release is due up right now

You pull some all-nighters
Your drive the tasks to done
You stay up with the testing team
And write the docs, no fun

You better watch out
You better not pout
Better plan well
For now I can yell
That damn release is due up right now

The date is finally here
The release time that you fear
Time to present today
Executives are at bay

You better watch out
You better not pout
Better plan well
No more time to yell
That damn release is due up right now

You present the final release
They hoot and clap their hands
They all pat you on the back
And, you almost hear the band

You better watch out
You better not pout
Better plan well
No more need for you to yell
That damn release is due up right now

The teams all came together
You all worked real well
The scope budget and the time worked
And you the release is really swell

So, you better watch out
You better not pout
Better plan well
For this I can tell
The next release is due up right now

(Please share this on Twitter, LinkedIn & even Google+:  Santa Claus is Coming to Town…#prodmgmt style by @jidoctor http://wp.me/pXBON-33Y #holidays)

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