blog

An Upgrade to "Meet Grace"

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:45:16 +0100

Last week my “Meet Grace” presentation on SlideShare was narrated and turned into a YouTube video. This YouTube video presentation is an example of how one can leverage social media and video for outbound marketing purposes.

Ian Griffin, a professional speechwriter, generously converted the slides for me and posted it on YouTube. My tags and description were added to help increase traffic to the video and my website.

To further leverage social media, I updated my LinkedIn status, shared on Facebook, and tweeted on Twitter about my new video. Now, I’m writing a blogging about it. Last week, Ian already posted a blog about the new video.

These are just a few examples of how one can leverage social media for marketing purposes.

To greater success.

Developing a Product Idea Presentation

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 03:46:27 +0100

If you need to put together a presentation to pitch ideas for a new product, whether it is for executive management or for an interview (as it was in my case), check out this post.

This blog post is related to a previous post—Next-Generation Conference Room Phone Design Ideas—where I talked about a presentation that I had put together for a job interview. This post will review what I did in building and pitching of the presentation.

In building presentations for pitching ideas, keep in mind the following…

Know your audience – understand what the audience wants to get out of the presentation.

Keep it concise – presentation should be about 10-15 slides and 30 minutes long.

Have it be readable – don’t pour every detail into the presentation.

Use graphics and images to support and enhance text.

Content should include…

Introduction – state the goals of the presentation and assumptions made.

Market Problems – present problems your product is aiming to solve and the extent of the pain it relieves.

Solution – focus on the solution to solve the problem.

Competition – demonstrate why you’ll win in the marketplace.

Financials – project the market opportunity in terms of revenue/profit and market share.

Next Steps – summarize what action you will take or want the audience to take.

During the presentation…

Go into the meeting with the intent of providing value – if you go in selling, the people listening to your pitch will not likely believe you because they expect you to embellish.

Have an upfront agreement – Determine if anything has changed.

Get feedback – Do checks throughout the presentation.

Get closure – if the feedback was positive, tell the executives/interviewers that you are looking forward to working with them, and ask what they would like you to do next?

Final tips for the presentation…

Practice, practice, practice.

Bring a backup method for presenting – In case your computer crashes or the projector does not work, bring hard copies of the presentation and if possible, your own projector.

To greater success.

Next-Generation Conference Room Phone Design Ideas

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:02:23 +0100

Recently I interviewed for a product management position and was asked to put together a presentation on next-generation product design ideas for audio conference room phones. Since my presentation was market problem and user experience oriented, I thought I’d share my presentation with you. In a separate blog post, I will review what I did to build and pitch the presentation.

To keep the company anonymous, I’m going to call it Company X. However, before I go into the design ideas, let me provide a bit of background. Because I didn’t have access to all the information Company X had about the market data and problems, I had to present in a way that gave a small sample for the processes I normally use. These were the assumptions I used…

Upfront market analysis and evaluation work had already been completed.

Company X’s target market users and buyers’ problems were equivalent to my personal user experience and observations in using conference phones. (With the goal of supplementing my personal experiences, I sent out a message to my network through Twitter and Facebook asking my followers to comment on their experiences with conference phones. The result was that others had similar experiences to my own.)

Below were the market problems and new design ideas I presented.

First, I listed the conferencing problems and broke them out into two categories…

Time Wasted to Initiate Call

Long power up times – phones have a long start-up time
Wire entanglement – the microphones, Ethernet cords, and power cords are getting tangled
Hijacked Ethernet cords – people use conference rooms for privacy and take the Ethernet cord out of the phones and use them for their computers
Usability of phone controls – setting up multiple line calls is confusing, dropping a phone line is impossible, calling via personal calendar is not possible

2. Poor Conference Experience

Don’t know who is speaking – in multi-party calls, it is difficult to know who is speaking or even which line the speaker is using.
Individual phone line quality issues – in multi-line calls, invariably there are phone lines that need volume adjustments or need to be dropped

Both the time wasted to initiate calls and poor conference experience affect business productivity.

To address the user problems (as opposed to addressing the buyer), I started with the basic wire management to help mitigate the slow power-up and productivity loss issues…

Manage the microphones with one of two methods–

Wireless microphones with proximity sensors and location finder in case the users took the microphones out of the conference room or dropped the microphones.

Retractable microphone wires to reduce the amount of excess wire on the conference room tables.

2. Integrate Ethernet Switch/Hub so that computer users don’t have to “steal” the conference phone’s Ethernet connection

Next, I addressed the ease-of-use and social connectivity problems by proposing an addition of a large touch-screen with a well-designed graphical interface. These elements …

Simplify conference management (joining calls, adding multiple lines to calls, releasing lines, etc.)

Provide phone line or talker activity indicators

Offer personal calendar access needed to initiate conference calls quickly without manual dialing

Access to personal calendars could be initiated with access codes or built-in readers for company badges

Another proposal to address the social connectivity issues was to leverage unified communications via Smartphone integration. Callers with Smartphones can view phone line or talker activity, similar to what can be seen on the large touch-screen, and have automatic access to private chats between conference participants. The ability to initiate conferences directly from Smartphones also facilitates ease-of-use.

I also provided a proposal that addressed the buyer. To motivate buyers, products need to provide enough value—or address customer pain points—as well appeal emotionally. So, in addition to the added value of increased productivity and lowered frustration levels, my last proposal was to provide a “got to have it” industrial design. The design must entice executives to press their IT departments into purchasing the new phones for multiple conference rooms. Currently most conference phones look very much alike. A large touch-screen provides the perfect opportunity to change the look and first mover advantage.

In my presentation, I listed some of their competitors and images of the competitive conference phones to emphasize how similar all the phones looked and that Company X would have first mover advantage with a new industrial design and large touch-screen.

Overall, it was a fun exercise in presenting new design ideas for conference phones that addressed productivity issues, ease-of-use problems, social connectivity limitations, and emotional desirability. Of course the next step, had I started with Company X, would have been to verify the market problems through market analysis and vet the solutions I had proposed.

As a side note… While writing this blog, I found a blog by Kicker Studio, which addressed similar user problems and offered a design proposal for conference phones. The post is worthwhile reading especially if you want to see their user interface ideas. My concern about their design is that it may only be applicable for individual users or very small conference rooms. The speaker and microphone placements are not conducive for large conference rooms. Also, the lack of a swivel limits who can see or use the touch-screen.

To greater success.

Pain Sells—Not Features and Benefits

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 23:57:21 +0100

Update your marketing and selling approaches by starting with pain. Focus on what pain you solve for your customers / prospects. People buy solutions to their pain, not features and benefits. Pain is the only thing they identify with. Lead with the pain and use products, features, and benefits as proof points to the solution.

Start with positioning the pain. Traditional marketing teaches positioning as describing your product / service in terms of benefits, target customer segment, and key reasons how you’re different from your competitors. Times have changed and different practices are needed to drive more market share than traditional marketing can offer.

I focus on positioning because it provides the cornerstone of what you do for the customers / prospects. Having clear positioning affects every decision made. Every product / service decision can be judged by how well it supports the positioning.

For Product Management – Positioning provides focus, scope, and priorities for the product requirements. Make sure that positioning is created and clearly communicated before development starts. As the positioning owner and market messenger, make sure people in your organization are focused on the pain to keep them aligned with the market.

For Outbound Marketers – Positioning provides a basis to create marketing strategy, sales collateral, and other marketing materials. Understand that customers / prospects buy the best story, not the best products. Market the pain—otherwise you’ll sound like everybody else in the marketplace.

Selling the pain is also very important for you or anyone else in your organization who presents to customers / prospects (sales people, management, etc.). You need to show and tell customers / prospects how you are going to take away their pain. The fact that you understand their pain will set up apart from your competitors. When it comes down to it, product is product. People buy emotionally and justify intellectually. (If you want to learn more about this selling technique, consider sales training with Achievex Corporation located in the Silicon Valley. Achievex teaches the Sandler Selling System.)

Bottom-line… Everyone in your organization needs to focus on the target customers’ pain.

To greater success.

Appearing on Pragmatic Marketing Site

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:19:06 +0100

It is an honor to be considered as someone who exemplifies the role of product management. I want to thank Pragmatic Marketing for including me on their home page. My picture is cycled with those of other product management, product marketing and executive leaders whose philosophy aligns with Pragmatic Marketing and who illustrate the best of the role.

I especially appreciate the fact that Pragmatic Marketing links to this blog on their Product Management Solutions page.

Thanks, Pragmatic Marketing!

Here's a screen shot of Pragmatic Marketing's home page with my picture.

Web 2.0 Expo Take Aways for Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:46:30 +0100

Listed are some take away messages from last week’s Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2009 that I thought would be important for Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers. I went to many of the sessions and also interviewed several of the exhibitors local to Silicon Valley. This post will provide insight into trends, business challenges to address, and areas to innovate.

General Messages

Be more agile – massive networking drives increase in dynamics and complexity
Feedback loops rule – learn by engaging in conversations
Increase transparency
Participate, listen, and act
Engage people – be authentic and consistent

Business Messages

It's about the people – be customer centric not company focused, which will allow your company to be more integrated and better connected across departments, businesses, customers, etc.
Find ways to offer a great service for free
Empower your community – remember that people want attention
Have employees spend time in your community – every week engage in blogs, forums, etc.
Focus on ROI – to get businesses who are in holding patterns buying again, make sure that they can achieve ROI usng your products

Product Management Messages

Build a simple system and let it evolve
Provide useful technology – Create more value than you capture
Open up your platforms – provide software interfaces to developers so they can also make money and innovate
Build feedback mechanisms into the product – quantify the impact of changes made to your product
Understand users – don’t build for the boss, build for customers by interviewing them before and throughout the development process
Do not launch and forget – great software requires iteration and a flexible process
Don’t make users think – users don’t want to get hung up on the product interface
For data to be useful, it must be digestible - Distill graphics to the basics by providing the minimum amount of information needed for the targeted audience
Deliver rich engaging social experience – Provide more functionality through rich media interface that is personal, social, immersive (flash, video, etc.), and multi-channel

Technology Messages

The future is mobile – information will be useful and accessible to everybody because the phone is now a cloud connected device with location attributes, camera, and voice capabilities.
Web is the most viable platform for building individual apps since it makes no sense to build for multiple code bases for the multitude of phones
It’s about the data, not the apps

Some of these messages may be good reminders and others may be new trends or ideas to hopefully get you motivated and moving forward.

You can find presentation files from the Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco 2000 at http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2009/public/schedule/proceedings.

To greater success.

Product Manage Your Career Through Changes and Transitions

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:42:25 +0100

We all need to anticipate for change whether we have a job or are in between jobs. Change is stressful but it is how you deal with change that can bring you success. To survive and succeed you must sense change, make sense of change, and respond to change.

Product managers and product marketing managers have an advantage when it comes to managing change. For the products you manage, you are already (or should be already) monitoring the market for trends, updating your product offerings to keep ahead of the competition, creating barriers to entry, etc.… in other words, you are already a change expert. Now take what you know about marketing processes and apply it to yourself. Manage yourself as a product that you are developing and launching.

Times are tough so below I have gathered a list of product management / marketing career resources to help my fellow marketers:

Inner Architect – “9 Ways to Make Yourself Invaluable”
Zigzag Marketing – “Going From ‘Between Jobs’ to ‘Between Layoffs’”
Pragmatic Marketing – “Career Management Lessons from Product Management”
Pragmatic Marketing – “Evaluating Career Opportunities: It’s Not Just About the Numbers”
Pragmatic Marketing – “Changing Jobs in Product Management: Evaluating, Farming, Interviewing, and Negotiating”
Product Beautiful – “Changing Jobs in Product Management: Self Evaluation and Farming (Part I of III)”
Product Management View – “How to Accelerate Your Product Management Career”

If I am missing important resources, please let me know and I will add them to the list.

Change is inevitable and learning to deal with change will make you more successful. Need some inspiration? Then read "Who Moved My Cheese" by Dr. Spencer Johnson, which illustrates the simplicity and importance of adapting to change. It is a very inspiring, short, fun, and simple-to-read book.

Finally... An Easy to Read White Paper on Product Management

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:25:14 +0100

I haven't found any simple yet comprehensive descriptions of Product Management for high-tech, so I created a two-page Product Management White Paper. The link to this document has also been added to my Links & Resources page.

This White Paper on Product Management actually started as a blog but it just became too difficult to read. There are so many dimensions of Product Management and it was easier to layout the information in a white paper.

I hope you find this document useful. For other product management professionals reading this document, I look forward to your comments.

Choose Me — Bring in Product Management before Other Marketing Disciplines

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:16:33 +0100

Product Management is a critical function during tough economic times. Many organizations when they start staffing unfortunately don’t bring in product management until marketing communications is already in place. When organizations build their teams, the first marketing person they should hire is one with a solid product management background. Start with product management and add product marketing and marketing communications later.

This blog was inspired by Rocket Watcher’s blog post call “Product Marketing versus Marketing Communications (and why Marketing Communications Must Die)”. Rocket Watcher states that Product Marketing should be hired before Marketing Communications. However, I contend that it be Product Management. Here’s why…

Both Product Marketing and Marketing Communications play very important roles in the communication of product benefits that Engineering releases, but they don’t focus on driving product and development direction like Product Management does. Experienced Product Management can also take on Product Marketing and Marketing Communications roles by...

driving and executing go-to-market strategies
developing key marketing messages
creating collateral
managing the website
writing press releases
briefing analysts
leveraging social media
coordinating events

For organizations that are looking to add Product Management after Marketing Communications is already in place, consider putting Product Management on par with other company functions like Sales, Marketing, Engineering, and Finance. This means that if the other functions are reporting to the CEO, so should Product Management in order to be effective.

If Product Management reports under another function, not only will it have to fight for attention amongst the other roles within that function, but it will also have less influence across the organization. Product Management becomes a supporting role and a source of deliverables for the function to which it reports.

Especially during tough economic times, organizations must have strong Product Management leadership in place to ensure product and business success.

Related posts:
Marketing Is Not Just About Promotions and Advertising

User Experience Focused Product Team

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:38:58 +0100

If you’re a product manager starting to add user-centered design processes to product development to create more user-friendly products, consider how the product creation team will look like.

First of all, congratulations in recognizing that the revenue stream will continue as long as the customer experience is agreeable. Just having this bit of knowledge will help you get closer to user-friendly products. If you still don’t see why usability is important, read my post called “Poor Experience Equals Poor Revenue”.

You can’t just have great designers on the development team. You need people who are trained in user-centered design processes. Just because a product is good looking, doesn’t mean it’s usable. Users will not tolerate the inability to activate important features because the functions are buried in some obscure menu or requires hours of training.

Here’s a simple product creation team structure that I’ve used several times. It is a subset of the main product team, which usually consists of many other functional groups. This sub-team is made up of Product Management, User Experience, and Engineering.

Product Management—finds and quantifies market problems and turns them into product requirements.
User Experience—focuses on understanding the user needs and tasks, designing the product interface and assessing the design usefulness.
Engineering—focuses on the technology and builds the product.

The three disciplines will overlap. When disagreements arise between the User Experience and Engineering, Product Management arbitrates and makes the final decisions.

The structure of your product creation team may vary. As with all projects, make sure that the new usability goals are clear and measurable as well as communicated to all stakeholders.