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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August 2010

 

Graphics add to the conversation

Between 2000 and 2008, measles deaths dropped by 78%.

Goodtedxchangeposter

Contrast that with the typical, socially correct, diverse but lame, business graphic that we so often see.
Browse free images for school.

If a picture paints a thousand words, this picture paints zero words. In your next presentation or blog post, be sure you use a graphic that adds to--rather than detracts from-- the conversation. 

Filed under  //  presentations  
Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Product Camp DC: An 'unconference' to hone skills - Washington Business Journal

Shashi Bellamkonda is director - social media & social media swami of Network Solutions LLC. Listed as one of Washingtonian's Top 100 Tech Titans, he is a self-described “Internet junkie” and prolific Twitterer, blogger, and is organizing the GrowSmartBuziness conference and speaks on small business, social media and personal branding.
via washington.bizjournals.com

Shashi has a nice blog post in the Washington Biz Journal. It seems that pCamps are now interesting to the mainstream media. Nice!

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

10 job hunting mistakes you should avoid « Software Product Manager by Gopal Shenoy

Over the last month, I have been interviewing a lot of candidates for various open positions - software product managers, directors of business development and project managers.  During the course of looking through resumes, interviewing candidates, I have come across many mistakes that candidates are making. Given this, I thought it is worthy of a blog post.
via productmanagementtips.com

Whether you're looking or hiring, these tips from Gopal are pretty handy. Note the final point: a thank-you letter. HIRING managers should do this too!

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

pCampDC: photos from Aug 28

Pcampdc_logo

If you weren’t at pCampDC, you missed some great presentations, discussions, and networking.

The pCampDC team of organizers did a great job. Registration was easy. Session started and ended on time. There was plenty of food and lots of hallway networking. A big hat-tip as well to Network Solutions who provided the venue and food.

Here I am registering with my daughter Christa and Pragmatic Marketing’s Graham Joyce:

Registration

Here’s a photo of my session on The Three Roles of Product Management:

Steve_and_darth

Steven Fisher and I took home the awards for best presentation:

Steve_and_steve

More photos from the event at

Is there a productCamp coming to a town near you? See http://productcamp.org/

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

A journey of a thousand miles

I’ve just come out of another agile conversation where prospective clients confused “we want to build better software faster” with “we hope that some new processes will instantly catch us up on years of slipped deadlines and missing features.”

So paraphrasing Confucius, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but is still a thousand miles long.  Even at twice your normal walking speed, be prepared for a very long slog.”

via mironov.com

Read Rich's article for some great ideas on showing early successes in an agile project.

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Friday fun: getting ready for pCampDC

Productcampdc_logotype_3
I'm preparing for pCampDC. 
I'll be there! And so will Graham. Will you? 
It's not too late to register.

Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Those kids today...

I remember the first cell phone bill I received and I remember saying, "What is texting and who is doing it!!!" Oh how things have changed. While today's adults are sending 10 texts per day, teenage boys are sending 30 or more and teenage girls are sending over 100!

Media_httpcdnmashable_kqbda

And what about the current group of college kids? 

Each August since 1998, Beloit College has released the Beloit College Mindset List. It provides a look at the cultural touchstones that shape the lives of students entering college this fall. The Mindset List website at www.beloit.edu/mindset, the Mediasite webcast and its Facebook page receive more than 400,000 hits annually.

The class of 2014 has never found Korean-made cars unusual on the Interstate and five hundred cable channels, of which they will watch a handful, have always been the norm. Since "digital" has always been in the cultural DNA, they've never written in cursive. Dirty Harry (who’s that?) is to them a great Hollywood director. The America they have inherited is one of soaring American trade and budget deficits; Russia has presumably never aimed nukes at the United States and China has always posed an economic threat.

The class of 2014 has never recognized that pointing to their wrists was a request for the time of day. They don’t own watches and instead use their cellphones to tell the time.

Do you know your personas? How do they learn about new products? How important is the quality/ brand/ feature set? What features can you omit and which are required?

Learn more in Buyer and User Personas. 

Filed under  //  personas  
Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

How will you make money?

Google_wave_logo

The recent demise of Wave causes IT buyers concern. What else might Google discontinue? While it seems unlikely that they’ll stop offering Google Apps what if they did? As a result, IT buyers are reluctant to put business data on any of Google’s apps.

It once seemed logical to put all employees on Gmail instead of hassling with Exchange but now I don’t know.

Say what you will about Microsoft, it’s clear that they will continue to support the business products that they offer--Outlook, Exchange, Sharepoint--and it’s not always so clear for other vendors. Can I trust Apple’s MobileMe? Can I trust Google’s Gmail? I know I can trust Microsoft Exchange.

Your buyers are asking these questions too… about your products. Should we go with [new thing that is better] or stick with [old thing that is stable]? Perhaps that’s why roadmaps are so popular with enterprise buyers. They want to see that you have a plan beyond the current release, for at least a couple of years. See Creating the Right Product Roadmap for more on this.

Posterous_75

I love Posterous (rhymes with “preposterous”), the tool I use to dash off blog entries with embedded photos, video, music, attachments of any kind; my blog entries are forwarded to my “official” blog at www.productmarketing.com. But what is the Posterous business model? How will they make money? How will they survive as a business? I love the tool but can I run a business on it? (I’m told they make money from adding their referral codes to product links so if you’re not getting revenue from Amazon and others, they will.)

Sure, the product is valuable but is the business sustainable?

Pricing has to do with the value that you deliver today; roadmaps reveal the value into the future. For business products, evaluators of business solutions need to understand both. Do you deliver enough value now? And will you be around after they’ve committed their business to your product?

Filed under  //  pricing  
Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Sure it's cool but will people pay for it?

One of the key ideas for any new product is "how will we make money?" or "Will our customers be willing to pay for it?"

Julie O'Dell writes, 

In a new study, researchers found that while half of all Americans surveyed have tried a free web app like Twitter, zero percent of them would be willing to pay to use Twitter or a similar service.

This finding is just one unearthed by USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism’s 2010 Digital Future Study, a study that’s been tracking online and social media behavior for the past nine years.

In December 2009, users were hit with a hoax that Facebook would start charging $5/mo. My friends and family went insane but all agreed that they'd pay for it. 

How will your product make money? The old school answer was "advertising." The new school is "value add." Look at the fabulous Flipboard app which turns Facebook and Twitter into a magazine format.

How will your product make money?

Filed under  //  pricing  
Posted by Steve Johnson 
 

Friday fun: Let local teams localize

Do you market your products in multiple countries? If so, you need to have marketers in the local region to tailor your message in their language.

Japan is rather (in)famous for using English phrases that don't mean what they think they mean... if you know what I mean.

Nokia-fail

Source: http://www.engrish.com/

To work with other countries, first get your positioning right... in your own language. Send the result to your marketing counterparts in each country and have them tailor the message for their market. A phone conversation is probably worthwhile so you can ensure that they understand what you're saying and you understand what they're saying. Keep confirming until you're sure that you've communicated both directions.

For international product teams, positioning documents with collaboration is the best way to connoct poopie.

Filed under  //  product marketing  
Posted by Steve Johnson