Steve Johnson on product management

Personal observations on technology, music, Star Wars, and more.
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Product management evangelist and guitar player.

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January 2011

 

Friday fun: Truth in Avertising

Franks_of_tucson

Thanks to Debra Mammen for sharing this.

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

QOTD: Focus

Working on the final results from our annual Pragmatic Marketing survey and working through the verbatims for some great nuggets. 

  • This company needs fewer politicians and more workers.
  • The nice thing about our company strategy is that there are so many to choose from.
  • Our VP of Marketing is an evil witch.
  • Thanks for all the fish. 
  • Strategy without execution is illusion. But execution without strategy is chaos!
  • Strategy is less about choosing what you will do, and more about choosing what you will not do.
But the most common comment for the company president is: FOCUS! 

I bought a new MacBookPro and considered buying a new monitor to go with it. I found that Apple offers... ONE MONITOR. That's all. Pick any size you want as long as it's 27". Amazing. And I think it's great! Maybe the reason that Apple is sitting on a load of cash is that they sell lots of a few things instead of a little of many things.

How many monitors, printers, routers, accessories are available from other vendors? Maybe they need some focus too. 
Maybe your company does too.

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Video Thursday: how NASA should market

People ask "why spend money on science?" My answer: To inspire innovation. 
This video shows how NASA should be inspiring our youth and our politicians to pursue space again. 
Space. It's about innovation and exploration and inspiration.

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Design is everywhere

Elevator

This is the elevator panel in my hotel. Top button is '3', middle is '2' (the main floor), bottom isn't basement or '1', it's ALARM. I wonder how many times people hit the alarm to go to the main floor. 

My hotel has a Sony Dream Machine. I never use a hotel alarm clock. But for some reason, the maid or prior occupant set the alarm for 0600. So at 6am, the alarm--which I did not set--started blaring. The first time I ever used this product was when it was shrieking at me, I've been pulled from a deep sleep, I don't have my glasses on yet. After figuring out what was happening (it's not a fire alarm, for example), I struggled to find something that said OFF or STOP or SHUT UP! Ultimately I unplugged it from the wall. I still don't know how to turn off the alarm. 

Understanding the user persona means understanding usage. How often is the product used? Where and when? Is the persona a frequent or infrequent user? A power user or novice? This alarm clock might be perfect for a home application (as long as the owner reads the manual) but it's not appropriate for a hotel. If Sony is pushing these on hotels as a promotion, the promotion will likely fail. At least, I've learned I never want to buy one.

Buttons, door handles, credit card scanners. Design choices are everywhere. See the product from the customer's point of view and you'll often realize that what appears elegant to you is actually confusing to the user. 

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Technical Debt

Technical debt and design debt are synonymous  metaphors referring to the eventual consequences of sloppy software architecture and rushed software development. Code debt refers to technical debt within a codebase.
via thecriticalpath.info

Nice short writeup on Technical debt, a term product managers should learn more about. Sometimes you'll need to put desired features on hold while your team "cleans up."

My friend Luke Hohmann suggests that you add a "persona" to your product set: The System. That way, housekeeping and code rewrites are part of the backlog so you can see the whole picture.

As Steve McConnell said, "The problem with quick & dirty is that dirty remains long after quick has been forgotten."

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Video Thursday: If ad agencies planned kids' birthday parties

This is an excellent example of using video to spread your marketing message. A little tongue-in-cheek and fairly humorous. Obviously, the ad firm doesn't take themselves too seriously. Nice.

Posted by Steve Johnson