Product Matters

Today we lost a luminary. Steve Jobs died this afternoon, leaving a hole in the beating heart of Silicon Valley, and a virtually unparalleled legacy in high-tech history. Steve will be remembered for many things. What I will remember him for is perhaps something...different. He didn't design all these lauded products we covet. He didn't invent all the great technology Apple is known for. What he did do, however, is transform Apple into a product-based company and instill his philosophy of quality and simplicity in the teams that he assembled. Apple is a great company because they have great internal processes for product development, they exhibit outstanding execution with regard to production and delivery, and they have one of the best marketing teams in the world. Steve Jobs didn't architect or design all of these components, but he recognized the business value of them, hired the right people to get the job done, and invested the required time and effort to get thin

As the 2011 season of the National Football League approaches, so does the rabid anticipation of its parasitic counterpart; fantasy football. Anyone who knows me knows that I love football (not fútbol); particularly the NFL . I grew up a dedicated Patriots fan and have since become more of a fan of the game itself rather than just a New England loyalist. I tend to keep up with NFL news throughout the year, and regularly download the Rich Eisen Podcast for listening during my morning commute. Rich's guest on the most recent episode was Michael Fabiano, the resident fantasy football expert at NFL.com. At one point during the podcast, Rich and Mike were exchanging viewpoints on what constitutes being an expert and how no matter how much of an expert you are, you need to be lucky to win a fantasy league. A similar sentiment was expressed during a 2010 podcast by one of the guests (I forget whom); that it's all luck and you can't really predict anything. I take exception t

Email: Dead Man Walking. We've all heard this quite a bit recently. The most recent claim came from a Cisco blog titled Why Email's Days Are Numbered . While email's reign as King of online communication is clearly diminished, I don't believe that it's going away anytime soon. Although many contemporary products provide rich, multi-media experiences that make email seem quaint (anybody remember having a pen-pal?), I contend that email is still necessary and highly useful. Before I explain why, I must digress somewhat... I recently started reading World Wide Mind - The Coming Integration of Humans and Machines  by Michael Chorost . As the title implies, this book examines the extent to which humans and machines are currently integrated (pacemakers, cochlear implants, etc.) and the extent to which additional integration may be possible (optogenetic neural implants, etc.). Many concepts are discussed in the book, including psychology, neurology, nano technology, o

For those of us who play, have played, or are fans of sports, there is a phrase that is used when a coach or player has lost the trust and/or respect of her/his teammates: Losing the Locker Room . In the 2010 NFL season, Brad Childress lost his locker room. Some say that he lost it long before that, but it came to a head midway through November when he was fired from his job as the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. Poor decision making and the inability to effectively communicate cost him the respect of his team, the team owners, and the fans. " Without a foundation of trust and loyalty, Childress watched as his players reached near-mutinous levels at the first sign of adversity this season ", wrote Kevin Seifert on ESPN.com . It also resulted in an abysmal collapse of the team that, during the previous season, was a coin-toss away from advancing to the Superbowl. It resulted in failure. Unfortunately, this phenomena is not limited to realm of sports. It exists in

Just the other day, I read a story about how LinkedIn hit 100M users. That's a great accomplishment, and one that they should be proud of. They also took the opportunity to thank their early adopters; the first million people (1%) to join by sending out an email. I got mine today. Things like this are a nice touch for users. People want to feel involved & acknowledged, and even a token acknowledgement like this can go a long way in terms of customer perception and loyalty. As a Product Manager, I applaud LinkedIn for recognizing its customers, and hope that we all--not just product managers, but all of us--can remember to acknowledge our clients, colleagues, partners, families, friends, and acquaintances more often.

There's been a lot of hooplah and unrest over Apple's recent decision to take 30% off the top of all subscriptions to digital content (the language of their T&C implies that it's not restricted to "print" media, but also music, movies, etc.) purchased via iOS Apps. Google promptly countered with OnePass , a move that will certainly appeal to content providers. Of course, Google doesn't have Apple's footprint in the tablet market (although Android currently ranks #1 in terms of smartphone operating systems ), but if any of the budding hardware manufacturers can hit the market with a good device that doesn't cost more than the iPad, things could get interesting. A friend of mine recently took a job as a Product Manager at Redbox , the company that puts those giant red  machines ("red boxes") in grocery stores that vend DVD rentals at $1 each. It's the alternative for people who either don't know about Netflix or who prefer p

About 2 years ago, I was in the middle of a Project Management sequence at UC Berkeley Extension when I got the news. My employer would no longer be sponsoring employee education. While I understood the rationale; we needed to run a tighter ship and offering tuition reimbursement was deemed a luxury the company could no longer afford. Fortunately for me, employees already enrolled in a program/course were eligible to complete them; the policy change would only affect requests to reimburse new programs and/or courses. During one of my SVPMA meetings last year, a 5-day Product Management course was advertised for the UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education. It sounded great, except for the $6,000 price tag. If only I was still eligible for reimbursement. Alas, you can't catch every ship that sails; you can only try to catch the ones available to you. I now have two Product Managers reporting to me, and I often wish that our reimbursement policy was still in place so that I c

In case you haven't noticed,  Chatter.com  went live (strange, considering that they took out an ad on the front page of Monday's WSJ with a date that indicated February 6, 2011). This is Yammer's Page This is Chatter's Page Notice how similar it is to Yammer? I even read in an article today about Chatter and how they are calling it "Facebook for Business" ; a ripoff of Yammer's claim of being "Facebook for the Enterprise" (which itself is just a marketing piggybacking on Facebook's name). Yammer, not sitting idly, launched a very clever Youtube video in retaliation: I haven't seen this much of a direct assault since the " No Jive Talkin' " camaign. OK, that was a shameless plug for Clearvale , I know.