via www.google.com
Check it ouT! Nice slick video to show how it works. But we'll be needing this on iPhone -- if it wants to have staying power ie., before Apple gets in there.
In a little over a week as chief executive of J.C. Penney Co., Ron Johnson is already shaking up the department-store chain's management and tapping former Apple Inc. colleagues to help shape his new team.
via online.wsj.com
Lots of this going on! Interesting only because, not too long ago this talent poaching used to mainly work in reverse - when tech companies would bring in seasoned execs from P&G's of the world...now the old dogs need to learn a few new tricks too.
Adobe Systems Inc. said it plans to stop development of its Flash player software for mobile browsers, saying it will focus its efforts on HTML 5, another media presentation standard.
via online.wsj.com
About time, too!! Once agan RIP Steve...
One of the challenges of product marketers face is that in many organizations they are asked to “market” a product which they had no say in defining, worse they may not see much customer value in. The pig shows up at their door, so to speak, for some lipstick and the product marketer knows no matter what they do, this pig cannot fly! So what’s a good and diligent product marketer to do?
The key here is to find ways to influence the product development process and outcome long before the pig shows up at your door. In my career, including my consulting practice, I’ve observed really successful product marketers – like yourself – do these few things really well. Not only do these practices make your work more meaningful, it helps you wield influence when you have little power and it also makes you invaluable to the organization.
1. Be the voice of your Target Market & Customer: Even as product strategy is being developed, bring your knowledge to those discussions. Sometimes the business goes out looking for a market to address. In such cases product marketing has an important role to play in identifying which markets are large, growing, addressable with your business' assets and satisfy other criteria. As a product marketer you should be integral to leading this effort. On the other hand if you're in a situation where your company has a cool technology looking for a market, once again, you should be helping/leading the effort to identify the target market, your target user (often different vs. target buyer if you're in a B2B business), and your core promise to them. If you are seen as someone who brings the target customer's voice to the table, then your influence on product strategy, definition and future road map will be welcomed – even sought out. The key here is to make sure you're seen as a thought leader in seeking, developing and integrating such customer knowledge with what your company or team is doing. The best product marketers understand their customers AND freely share this information such that the initial product strategy and roadmap is greatly influenced by this knowledge.
2. Zero in on Value & Differentiation: Before you develop one piece of marketing collateral ask all key stakeholders two critical questions: i) what’s the VALUE your offering will create for your target customer ii) what's DIFFERENT about your offering vs. other offerings/ substitutes that your target customer can use. Why would they pick, try and stay with your offering? Get your team, organization focused laser-like on these aspects. And lead the team to agree on 1-2 sentence answers for these questions – not whole paragraph where your poor pig tries to be all things to all people. Good product marketing managers make sure their product strategy teams remember these as they develop product requirements definitions.
3. Help Product Managers make Smarter Choices: The best product marketers also use their customer understanding to drive product management make smarter choices about features & functions! This can be done in many ways and I leave the politics and diplomacy up to you; but the idea here is that product managers often have several trade-offs and tough choices to make for new product releases and they would always appreciate a more customer- and criteria-driven approach vs. a shoot-from-the-hip one. They may be forced into the latter in the absence of good data or lack of time to gather good data. This is where you, the well-informed, communicative, focused product marketer can weigh in and influence the selection of features/ functions particularly for enhancement releases. Customer and market insights about what your customers need – both articulated and unarticulated – where the market is headed and what your competition is up to are invaluable to this discussion and to your product’s success.
“I don’t think I’ve ever worked so hard on something, but working on Macintosh was the neatest experience of my life. Almost everyone who worked on it will say that. None of us wanted to release it at the end. It was as though we knew that once it was out of our hands, it wouldn’t be ours anymore. When we finally presented it at the shareholders’ meeting, everyone in the auditorium gave it a five-minute ovation. What was incredible to me was that I could see the Mac team in the first few rows. It was as though none of us could believe we’d actually finished it. Everyone started crying.” [Playboy, Feb. 1, 1985]
via blogs.wsj.com
The world lost a great man today - people commonly refer to him as a genius and visionary which he was - we are all a lot poorer for all the products that will not benefit from his touch. As a product manager I salute him and wished I'd had the chance to work with him. In the meantime I try to take his lessons seriously (many of them captured in this article) -
i) Focus relentlessly on doing it right AND saying no to what's not essential; I call this being the "anti-product-manager"
ii) Create something you can be proud of
iii) Really REALLY deeply understand and deliver what a great experience means for your consumers and often they cannot tell you...
Read the article for Steve's best, most compelling quotes to learn what he believed, where his passion came from and why it matters to us!
Zynga co-founder and Chief Executive Mark Pincus, 45 years old, has used the measurability of Facebook activity to shape games in a way that hasn't been possible in the past. He calls data the "operating system" of Zynga.
via online.wsj.com
Fantastic article for many reasons, esp the importance of analytics assuming you want to make money the "old fashioned" way i.e., by getting adoption among the largest audience, not just the hard core ones...
Hewlett-Packard Co.'s board is expected to oust Chief Executive Leo Apotheker and replace him on a permanent basis with former eBay Inc. CEO Meg Whitman on Thursday, according to a person briefed on the matter.
via online.wsj.com
Mostly think she's a rockstar and will be interesting to see what/how her B2C experience can do to save HP which has got to be the saddest "has Been" story in the valley..
But then I still had to tell the dumb credit console whether I was paying debit or credit. And then I had to wait for my receipt to print out, all ten miles of it. Which made my attempt at being a mysterious stranger with mysterious magical technology quickly disappearing into the night fail miserably
via gizmodo.com
Yup! The future first arrives with friction -- but we would rather have that than not; if only to make sure Apple and others launch (or acquire) something even better er..more frictionless...
The 2011 PanIIT Global Conference is designed to be different so that you can listen to views of recognized industry leaders, attend workshops to enhance your professional skills and explore career enhancement opportunities with leading corporates.
via www.cvent.com
I'll be at this conference for IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) where some heavy hitters are speaking. Look forward to seeing old friends and colleagues.
via www.google.com
Check it ouT! Nice slick video to show how it works. But we'll be needing this on iPhone -- if it wants to have staying power ie., before Apple gets in there.
It also ties in Google Offers, Google's semi-new Groupon clone. That means whenever you buy a Google Offer from a local vendor, Google Wallet automatically factors in your discount when you make the purchase.
Cool! Google wallet + Offers will make it much more compelling!