Today, I was hurt.

Hurt in the sense that my pride of being useful was undermined. Today, I understood that in the company I’m working for, my usefulness is not only in the things I bring to the table, but also in the way I play the “sad” politics surrounding me.

It started with a prospect that was defined as we need to find something new and sell it under a title. It took some time, and I found a company that can provide interesting equipment and solutions, but was the first time we worked together.

In short, I was blamed for not pursuing the opportunity and not getting enough information from the company. I do feel I was out of focus the last few weeks, but I wasn’t feeling it was too terrible.

I took a back seat in the flaming that happened with this accusation, but I did try to move it forward.

What hurt me was a comment “You have to make clear to your peers that you can fight and get to their bosses, otherwise you are irrelevant”

This is completely opposite of the way I wanted to be, to keep the ugly politics and just try to be “professional” aide.

The story isn’t finished yet, as I going to fight it and make it work.

What I learned today it that you have to get dirty all the way to succeed and to be seen. Lesson number one: “Get messy when it gets messy”

(Photo courtesy of Fortimbras @ Flickr)

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Selling to corporate customers is hard and painful, almost agonizing. But still its normally the most rewarding sale as the budgets are greater. But even selling to a corporate you have to keep in mind you are selling to people and have to keep the three stories of a sale in place.

What are the three stories?

1. The formal story – of the benefits of the product to the company: cost reduction, additional revenue, better service or marketing benefit. This story is geared for the position of the person, deciding on purchase according to rational reasons for implementing the product in his organization.
2. The personal benefit story – what does this person gain personally: this is mostly about internal politics, where the inclusion of this product will help in the power struggles within the organization. This benefit can be also material for places where the personal integrity is lower.
3. The emotional benefit story – what is the emotional connection between the product, the sales person and the person in front. This is where most of the influence comes – Can you trust me to give you something that work? Would I stay by you when problems arise? Do you enjoy being with me?

The first two are conscious decision criteria, where I have control of the story and the perception. The third, being the unconscious decision reasoning needs much more attention but of a different kind. Is about creating the human connection, because we all know – its about people.

When you lose a sell, you might think because you couldn’t beat the price or understand the politics. But unfortunately the real reason was because the connection wasn’t made. Having the human connection would have given you’re the information about the expected pricing, the understanding of the politics and the hints on how to win the deal.

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Sometimes the work is just never ending, and there is no release time. This is a compression time, where you get to be stressed and make the most of your capabilities.

Do you have a decompression time?

Time for learning, reading, letting your mind wonder and wander without a specific goal?

I believe that decompression time is precious, for releasing the creativity part, for inhaling other ideas and scopes

and most of all, for having a sense of meaning, time for reflection on what is exactly you are reaching for.

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In a manufacturing line, this is what was expected from a worker – to be obedient, constant and repeatable, a robot in a sense. But most people are not working in a manufacturing line and need to do some creative work.

In contrast, we have the fantasy of creation by inspiration, where the Muse goddess comes to me and gives me the perfect idea and it’s ready.

Where is the truth?

The truth is that there are no truths:

1. One can be exceptionally gifted and create unique pictures from childhood.
2. One can be totally unable to learn and create only trash
3. One can learn to create, and in the process of learning create stunning creations.

Hence the 10,000 hours rule, where everyone doing something, will become proficient after 10,000 hours of practicing.

What do you do? How do you learn to do something new?

IMHO any action will help you improve as it will make you learn and adapt, and in this change learn to create something unique that has value, especially for you. For you, DO exactly what you want to do!

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Lately there has been a run of all Pixar movies on my satellite broadcaster and I, being a sucker for animated movies, watched them all. One of the movies presented was a BBC documentary for 25 years of Pixar . (Here for direct view)

Watching the movies and the documentary was enlightening, to see excellent storytelling and see the hard work behind the scenes. It also had a special meaning for me as product manager, for understanding how good stories are made and not by magic.

As Product Manager, one of my roles is to create a good story for the customer, to motivate him to buy my products and give him an emotional reason. Taking from the documentary, here are some notes:

1. Storytelling is about understanding people; about knowing what connects and at which layer, using the right element for creating the emotional bond.
2. Inspiration is what gives you the original idea; it makes the uniqueness of the story, but it does not give you a complete story.
3. Hard work fills the complete story;  to make is wow; to have polish; hard work is required and the cooperation of people, each one bringing its own touch and knowledge.

Can I be Pixar? Of course not. But I can bring to my stores the knowledge of how to make one: Inspiration and Perspiration.

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If you look on the past of web products, there has been a change of how people think ideas should be implemented.

The original paradigm was: “Build it and they will come” as to mean that any service could find clients and be successful. Unfortunately many services made that way have failed and for a clear reason – not every idea and solution really solves a problem.

Then the paradigm changed to: “make something to show” as to mean that everything that is flashy and looks promising will be. The reason it failed is still the same.

The next change was: “Make something with value” as to mean that the solution should have a reason for being as bringing value to the user. This is much better as it provides a good guideline and a clear reason something might work.

The current paradigm asks for customer validation: “check before you build” as to mean you need a clear view of the customer. This paradigm is much clearer as is really profit oriented.

To me, as a product manager, the last paradigm is known, it’s the way that mature companies decide on new products and how decision is taken. But it is sad; it’s a loss of innovation and sparks the web had in previous years.

My question is: how would the next evolution be?

I still think that the internet is a vehicle for ideas to be spread and can create unique values, but the current trend of marketization of products loses this focus and IMHO is a loss.

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Gamification is a relatively new buzzword for engaging customers.  While having some possible value, I mostly thing it’s a lazy man solution. Here is why.

Gamification, according to Wikipedia, is:

 “Gamification is the use of game play elements^[1] for non-game applications (also known as “funware“),^[2] particularly consumer-oriented web and mobile sites, in order to encourage people to adopt the applications”

Wikipedia also lists possible techniques for such game play elements:

• achievement “badges”
• achievement levels
• “leader boards”
• a progress bar or other visual meter to indicate how close people are to completing a task a company is trying to encourage, such as completing a social networking profile or earning a frequent shopper loyalty award.^[7]
• virtual currency
• systems for awarding, redeeming, trading, gifting, and otherwise exchanging points
• challenges between users
• embedding small casual games within other activities.^[4]

Looking at the techniques, one might ask himself what is the real values for such activities. Here are two examples:

Linkedin profile completion bar:The completion bar really helps to create a valuable profile, with enough information and content as to serve a real introduction card. But, after the profile is completed to 100% there is no incentive in adding information to the profile, even that for the end user this information might be valuable. As a guide of initial activities the bar is a good implementation, but after the initial engagement, there is little use.

Microsoft Office PowerPoint Ribbon Hero:

The ribbon serves two purposes; one is to showoff how capable you are and present it in Facebook. The second is to get access to special animations available to more capable users. Leaving the ego boosting asides, I don’t believe there is real benefit in getting a grade on PowerPoint capabilities nor in viewing animations. Both of these features are not really advancing my use of the application and even the ego boosting badge has little value if my work is not mainly about PowerPoint usage (and even that is debatable).

There are many more examples as detailed in this post giving 15 examples of gamification

Looking at both examples and more gives me the impression that gamification is more a cargo cult and not a real understanding of how activates benefit the users. There are exceptions, but they show more of the Cargo Cult beliefs than the real understanding. Not doing it as cargo cult is especially important for Startups, as described by Teambox blog.

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If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work. Thomas J Watson

The product represents the excellence of the company as it provides hints on the way the company finishes the products. Companies willing to excel create products with excellence all over them. But what is excellence and how it is reflected on the product?

My job as product manager is creating excellent products. By excellent I mean to several aspects that are generally true:

• Respecting users time
• Respecting users wants
• Provide the best possible results
• Require minimal guidance

In addition the product should also have flash and flare, creating professional looking results, making the user proud of owning it and using it.

Looking at two examples shows the difference and provides a glimpse of the internal culture:

Apple Vs Microsoft

Apple products have a polish, a professional look that put them above other product. In addition the products give exemplary results (most of the time) and owners are proud of using the products. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t slipoffs, like the last version of iMovies.

Microsoft products are corporate products, lacking in polish and many times showing slipoffs, like the Zune. Sometimes they can produce exciting products like the Xbox .

In comparison, my role as product manager is to bring the culture of the company and using the available resources, bring out the excellence. In addition, making the choice of product easy can make the product stand out and be more attractive.  Of course, there is no magic bullet, but by making priorities and making excellence a goal, many products can have a larger impact.

“Stop doing non excellent stuff” – Tom Peters

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Seth Godin writes in “Bypassing the leap” about domain knowledge as inherent for creating great products. While this being right, there is another perspective to the activity, and its of a childs game. And I don’t mean the concept of “Gamification is busllshit“.

Children learn by taking objects apart and understand how they work. Later on they have the creativity to build then differently, mixing parts in unusual ways. Most tinkerers, enjoy doing it and continue doing for the rest of our life.

That’s great, but how do you use it to create great products?

It’s a game!!

Create the sandbox: domain knowledge, assumptions understanding, breakdown of parts, etc

Just play:

• Break down the assumptions and drop them or change them
• Mix the parts in a different way
• Leave parts off
• Add parts from a different environment

The idea is to have fun while learning what is the possible and how it can be used. Later, the cloud of possibilities can become a viable product, suited for a specific market and providing unique capabilities.

Do you still think it bullshit?

(Image courtesy of Pink Sherbet Photography @ Flickr)

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“I know I could design a better site, but that doesn’t change the fact that the fundamental idea and features are still the same. I don’t want the other site’s owner to feel like I’m copying his site. Has this ever happend to anyone? Should I just scrap my project or go with it? I’m also looking to avoid legal problems.”

This is the question in HackerNews

What is actually the situation?
Good things:

1. There is market validation – otherwise the site wouldn’t be running.
2. You have a competitive reference – a guideline for what has been done, its easier to create something unique and different.
3. You can have an archenemy – like the one described in Coding Horror – Who is your arch-enemy
4. Most of the value is earned from copycats – see this article from Harvard Business Review (direct link)

Bad things:

1. Fear of failing – someone already did it, I’m not unique anymore
2. My product has identifiable competition – there are some expectation set for the product
3. I will be sued – someone already made it and he can take legal action against me

Some of the negative impacts are real but most are imaginary: the moment there is competition it means you are in the real world, where the product must have uniqueness and be distinct. That doesn’t mean you are out of work, as there are many cases of multitude of products competing (how many TV brands are they?). Regarding the legal action, it depends if there is a patent or if someone will act upon it. If you have fear of being sued, do ask for legal advice, but most of the time legal actions aren’t taken unless there is money to be gained or reputation at stake.
In my opinion, having a competition is actually a benefit as you can use it for improving the product and improving yourself.

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