• An Overdose of the Olympics
• Being Remarkable is never out of style

PCampATL has been a great time.  Good discussion, networking and session facilitation. Great job by @jbrett and the rest of the volunteers.

Many thanks to the folks that attended the session and provided your insights on the things we get bogged down on.  Based on the discussion, it is clear we all get bogged down in the daily noise, the tactical and the stupid things which stop us from doing the right things for the business.

Related Product Management Articles:

• Not everyone’s strategic and 4 other things to think about before you finalize the company’s 2010 goals
• The State of Product Management: Tweets, Conversations and Near Quotes….
• The 4 PM Confusion in Technology Companies

• Anybody, As Long As It’s Not You The Experience is the Product
• Product Management in Pictures #2- Feature Requests from Sales Reps
• Are You Listening To Your Customers Product Manager?
• definition: what is a product?
• Setting priorities…

I really wouldn’t want one of my customers sending emails like this one I got today from Hertz.  As if being on the news wasn’t enough for Toyota on this recall and major rental companies choosing to opt out on Toyota until addressed, now one of their larger fleet customers is letting their customer base know – “we will make every effort to switch you to another brand (e.g., Nissan, Ford, GM) as quickly as possible.”

This note also makes for great customer service by Hertz.  I really hope similar notes went out to all email addresses Hertz had for the coming days/weeks.

Safety first just might mean 1 brand does well in this recall nightmare.  Another thought, they could have just been inundated with inbound customer service calls asking for a non-Toyota rental, whatever the reason I still liked the note.

Related articles:

• Ghosn: Toyota woes will be temporary (cnn.com)
• Honda, GM Gain Buyers’ Favor Amid Toyota Recall, Edmunds Says (businessweek.com)
• Toyota recall could help North American automakers (ctv.ca)
• Toyota to recall 2.3 million more vehicles as its troubles continue (businessweek.com)
• Toyota has few details on gas pedal solution as recall expands (thestar.com)
• Toyota extends massive safety recall (financialpost.com)
• Toyota safety recall spreads to Europe, China (windsorstar.com)
• Hertz, Enterprise, Avis remove recalled Toyotas (money.cnn.com)

Many thanks to the folks that attended the session I lead.  We had a great discussion on what’s important, what folks are doing and how organizations should focus on improving over time.  There still appears to be this learning curve around social media which is awesome.  SoCon10 had a bunch of new faces and folks who are looking to better understand the tools, the type of processes which are best supported via social media efforts.

As discussed in the session, here are the links to the MS&L and PR Week Survey on Social Media and the 2009-2010: Product Management Survey from Pragmatic Marketing, where several of the graphs came from.

Thanks again for the discussion and many thanks to Leonard Witt and the rest of the folks who again setup a great event at Kennesaw State for Atlanta’s marketers, interactive media crowd and journalists.

• 2009-2010 Pragmatic Marketing Annual Survey results published – ProductMarketing.com
• The career trapeze
• GM offers $1,000 to unfriend Toyota
• The history of neon
• why being a mensch matters in social media

• Now that’s an adhesive concept you can’t shake.
• It’s kinda like that  mid-January cold you get every year.
• <insert other made up silly thing which wouldn’t be as effective as sticky>

• Social media and product marketing
• The rise of community bank brands
• A Product is NOT a Brand
• Why We Should Replace Case Studies With Fairytales
• Making the Promises Real in 2010