My article, Stop Treating Software Development Like Factory Work, has been published on Digital Growth Insights.
In the old days, machine time was expensive and people were cheap. So developers spent days, weeks, even months designing solutions on paper before they put them into the machine. Programming in those days involved flowcharts, pseudo-code, and many, many reviews. And then personal computers came along.
Read the full article here.
The new Pragmatic Marketer issue features some rock stars of product management including:
Enjoy!
I’ll be attending Product Camp South Florida on June 8, 2013. Will you?
To register & for more information, visit http://pcampsfl.eventbrite.com
Reinvention and resilience are key to the success of any business. Look no further than the implosions of Borders Books, BlockBuster, Kodak, or any of dozens of other once seemingly impregnable or too-big-to-fail companies that have tanked in the past decade, to remind us that companies that fail to notice and adjust to change – and to see opportunities to innovate – are effectively digging their own graves.
I’ll be at Product Camp Boston. Will you? If so, vote for my presentation, “Steve Johnson’s stories of product management.”
Come hear my shaggy-dog stories about product management but watch out!—you might just learn something along the way. Learn about the product manager and the car that broke down. Learn why Star Trek is a better marketing metaphor than Star Wars. I’ll explore five principles for product managers and product marketing managers—all in story format.
Details on the upcoming event can be found at http://productcampboston.org
Google has added a new way to control what happens to your account when you stop using it — most likely because you’re no longer around. 
A new Inactive Account Manager, available in Google’s settings, allows you to set a timeout period for your account. If you go three months to a year without signing in, Google will first notify a selected phone number or alternate email address. After that, it will let you add up to ten contacts, who will be notified with a custom-written email and optionally given access to data from any or all Google services. As a last step, Google can also delete your account once any contacts have been notified. [Read more on TheVerge]
It’s a clever idea, particularly when many are concerned about security.
But here’s a crazy thought:
Do you imagine that the service began with a discussion about privacy? Or could it have been more like this: “What the heck are we going to do with all these inactive accounts? We have petabytes and exabytes of data. How will we ever clean it up?” Answer: purge old accounts when they’re inactive.
But instead of saying “Use it or we’ll trash it!” the product marketing team looked at it from the customer’s view. “What shall we do with your data when you go ‘inactive’?”
It’s an idea that has gotten a lot of positive press. (Contract this with the news last month of the discontinuation of Google Reader.)
ProductCamp DC Spring 2013 is going to be held on Saturday May 11, 2013 at CustomInk in Tyson’s Corner, VA. I’ll be there. Will you?
Sign up at http://meetu.ps/wwKTY. With only 150 spots available, you better hurry to reserve your spot for the event.
Vote for my session: 5 things every product manager should know.
Update: as of 5/10, the event is sold out!
I feel that ideas are very fragile, so you have to be tender when they are in development.—Jonathan Ive.
Sir Jonathan Paul “Jony” Ive is an English designer and the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple Inc. He also provides leadership and direction for Human Interface software teams across the company. Wikipedia
Building products isn’t factory work, yet we often act as if it was. Ideas are very fragile. And whether you’re in development or in a strategy meeting, let people express their ideas without instant condemnation. For that matter, let them finish their thought! Don’t interrupt, extend!
It’s a technique from improvisational comedy: Always accept the premise. When someone says, “How are you feeling?” provide an answer that moves the bit forward. “I’m fine” doesn’t; it just grinds the bit to a halt. “I just had a fight with my boss and I’m still mad” gives the comedy team something to run with. The same is true for brainstorming, whether with a colleague or a client.
Ideas are fragile. Be tender.
Skills: Positioning with formulas
If there’s one template or tool that summarizes everything you want to communicate about a product, it’s positioning. It saves you a ton of work because you now know exactly what you want to say. Read more here.
Managing: The whole product view
Effective product managers evaluate the company’s procedures in all areas—billing, customer support, training, and so on—to determine if the customers and prospects are getting the service they need to buy our products. Read more here.
Implementation assistance, onsite or by phone
It’s one thing to acquire product management skills but many teams need help applying that knowledge to their products and their organization. My implementation services can accelerate your transformation! Learn more here.
Product Camp Silicon Valley
If you weren’t able to attend my talk, the slides from my session are on slideshare.
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I had the pleasure of seeing my colleague Barbara Nelson at Silicon Valley ProductCamp last Saturday. Her session on “Done ain’t Launchable” was great. She quoted me, Saeed Khan, and The Big Bang Theory. What’s not to like? You can download her slides from Slideshare.
In particular, she took issue with launching products before they are sellable and to look for alternatives to beta testing.
Elsewhere, in “The Death of Beta Testing” on Dr Dobb’s, author Fumi Matsumoto advocates five alternatives to the classic beta test, including:
Read more in http://www.drdobbs.com/testing/the-death-of-beta-testing/240151159
How are you testing your products in the market? Are you testing early and often? Or waiting with bated breath for the beta test?
PS. I told Shaggy Dog Stories about product management. See if you can make sense of my slides. Download them here.
If you’ve never seen David Meerman Scott speak, you’re missing a wonderful experience. In the meantime, his update on The New Rules of Marketing and PR is now on CryWolf’s Online Biz Dev seminar series.
Go to http://www.crywolf.com/KnowledgeMatters.shtml for other great webinars.
