Great resources to become a better product manager

The following link provides a great number of wav files for product managers.

http://aipmm.com/podcasts/

Learn from other's mistakes and fast-track your development.

Profile of a high performing marketer

Here is an article on MarketingProfs that is worth of a second look. Want to be high performing... have a read.

Marketing Champion Focused on Customer Analytics: Q&A With Paul Barsch, Marketing Director of Teradata
by Roy Young

Published on October 21, 2008

Paul Barsch, Marketing Director at Teradata, the business intelligence and data warehousing firm, is responsible for coordinating services engineering teams to define, build, and bring new offers to market.

A self-described "information junkie" with over 15 years in marketing for information technology and consulting firms, Paul challenges all marketers to bring value to their organizations by taking the analytical path to understanding customers.

As his frequent posts on the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog and this interview make clear, he holds himself to that same high standard.

Roy Young: To what do you attribute your success in marketing?

Paul Barsch: Constant learning and continuous improvement. I hate to admit it, but I'm an information junkie. There's so much to learn and absorb, that frankly most days I cannot keep up with everything that's going on.

RY: How have you had to transform as a marketing professional to continue to be effective?

PB: I've worked in three Fortune 500 companies and collaborated with some extremely talented marketers. Some of my best campaigns were a result of input from a fellow marketer or an idea that I've taken from one company and implemented at another.

I tend to learn a lot by observing others, discovering their best practices and seeing if there's applicability to what I'm doing in my sphere of influence. If there's not applicability on this particular day, I keep an active database of best practices that may come in handy down the road.

RY: What has been your most satisfying marketing achievement?

PB: There are few things better than being on a multi-disciplinary team (sales, finance, operations, marketing) and helping land a multimillion-dollar deal.

When I was at EDS, a typical deal ranged from six to ten million dollars, and some "mega-deals," as we called them, were $100 million and above. I wouldn't target my entire marketing budget on those opportunities, but I would do whatever I could to help push the deal through the last mile and drive those deals to close. So that means if a particular deal has an identified business need, we might develop thought-leadership materials around that need and case studies that showcase our expertise. Marketing dollars might also go to funding a private hosted reception at a business conference where a key decision-maker is speaking, and then of course inviting that speaker to attend.

Working with account teams, I would strategize on the best marketing activities that would help push the ball forward. Now, obviously, from a cause and effect perspective, there are many diverse variables that influence a sale. That said, we would tag and track sales opportunities to marketing campaigns so that we could show that marketing had influence on a particular deal.

RY: Please describe one marketing initiative you are working on now that you find particularly exciting.

PB: Recently our company acquired a small consulting firm to help us in some key verticals where we had some gaps in coverage. So we had two weeks to identify where this company fit in our services portfolio and create a new value proposition for this company now that they were part of a much larger firm.

Working with another team in the company, we created sales proposals, sales materials, updated our Web site and built an internal training presentation within a two-week time-span. It was intense, but I think the end work product was fantastic. As a result, we now have over 100 new proposals to customers with "opportunity" in the millions of dollars.

RY: Considering the marketers you have respected most, what made them effective?

PB: You might expect me to list key marketing gurus like Seth Godin and Philip Kotler. And while I deeply respect and read those folks on occasion, I'm more influenced by people like Ted Minnini, Lewis Green, and Stephen Denny. Ted, Lewis and Stephen are all bloggers on the MarketingProfs DailyFix and each is president of their own marketing consultancy.

Ted Minnini is an expert on packaging and design. I love his perspectives on the importance of good design and the impact of design on consumer decision-making. Lewis Green is an influential marketing consultant who understands social media and marketing return on investment. And one word for Stephen Denny: brilliant.

RY: What is the greatest challenge you and your marketing colleagues face today?

PB: One of the greatest challenges that marketers face today is the perception of relevance by the C-suite. As marketers, we know we're moving the ball forward on deals, helping create better customer experiences, and building powerful brands. But for some reason, the C-suite of executives isn't making that same connection.

For the most part our measurement systems are terrible, and we often lack the ability to toot our own horn because our measurement systems are terrible. I wrote an article for MarketingProfs earlier in 2008 that details a panacea for this situation.

RY: What do you think is the single-biggest constraint facing corporate marketing departments today?

PB: The marketing function is not getting enough people, budget, or tools to do the job properly. If marketing were seen as a critical component of the organization, something where the CEO would rather lose his or her left arm before cutting the marketing budget, we'd actually have the resources to effectively do our jobs properly.

There's a bucket in the mind of every CEO called "the customer." You, Roy, have said that marketers need to show the CEO how we are reducing customer churn, increasing wallet share, and adding new customers. We need a data-driven approach so that marketing can tell a CEO all about "the customer"—who they are, what and when they buy, what they'll buy in the future, whether they're profitable, etc. Then and only then will we have the proper resources allocated to our departments.

RY: In your experience, what has made marketing influential and powerful in an organization?

PB: Working closely with the CIO, the marketing function needs to take the lead in championing and building an analytical infrastructure to better understand customers. If marketing is leveraging data to understand customer behavior, developing customer strategies that improve cash flows, driving richer and more personal customer communications, and establishing our department as the "voice of the customer," we'll be much more influential and valuable to our organizations.

RY: What changes do you expect to face in your work over the next 3 years?

PB: Will we see robots taking over marketing functions in the near future? No, but I've previously written for MarketingProfs that technology is going to drastically change marketing in the next five years.

Moore's Law and the fact that data is doubling every three years for most organizations means that marketers must take advantage of new technologies to capture and analyze available data and distribute intelligence to employees in strategic and operational functions. Intelligence in the hands of those who need it most—when they need it—will lead to better service, increased loyalty, and more profits.

RY: What do you like most about your work now?

PB: I love the subject matter. Business intelligence and data warehousing are changing the way companies market and sell to and service customers. Better than that, these technologies can help improve the entire value chain—both demand and supply.

If you examine my writing over the past three years, you'll see that I've been profoundly impacted by the field of analytics. I've also learned a new way of thinking—the need for deep and probing analysis and how to tear apart a problem to discover many viable options.

Unlike a multiple-choice test, I'm discovering, there is usually more than one right answer to dealing with a business challenge.

RY: What do you look for in people you hire and promote?

PB: One of the most difficult things to discover about a candidate is "do they know the value of a dollar?" A candidate may be brilliant, but if their work ethic is shoddy or they aren't constantly improving and acquiring new information and skills, then they'll probably be left behind by employees who are aggressive in these areas.

Woody Allen once said 80% of success is just showing up. That's bunk. Showing up is table stakes. An employee who puts in an honest and productive day of work and one who is constantly getting better at his or her job is worth their weight in gold.

RY: What was the first hard lesson you learned in business?

PB: It's often hard to predict the next big thing. When I was a divisional manager for a regional telecommunications company, I made a bet on a product I was sure would be a hit. I bought a lot of it, and unfortunately the product was ahead of its time. So, I had to unload it at a pretty steep loss. I had been in the telecommunications business for five years and thought I had stumbled onto a winner—but I was two years too early in the adoption cycle. Sometimes there is a big difference between a customer saying "that sounds like something I would buy" and the actual opening of his or her wallet.

RY: What advice would you give to someone who is just beginning their career in marketing?

PB: Interestingly enough, I wrote a post on that very topic titled "Desperately Seeking Distinction."

RY: What are your final thoughts?

PB: Life, including business, is a series of choices. Read much, ask questions, and spend the time to do the analysis. Then choose wisely. Flying by the seat of your pants and making choices haphazardly without the facts or reviewing all the angles is a recipe for much heartache.

Pay special attention to outliers and don't be so quick to dismiss them. Those "once in a hundred years" events, as Nassim Nicholas Taleb reminds us, often have a way of happening every 5-10 years!

How HP Boosted Product Sales 84% by Letting the Blogosphere Run Its Online Marketing Promotion

by Kimberly Smith

Case study published on 10/14/2008

Company: Hewlett-Packard
Contact: Scott Ballantyne, VP & General Manager for Hewlett-Packard's Personal Systems Group
Location: Palo Alto, CA
Industry: Information Technology, B2C
Annual revenue: $104,286,000,000
Number of employees: 172000

Quick Read:

Hewlett-Packard Personal Systems Group VP and General Manager Scott Ballantyne simply handed over a $5,000+ computer prize package to each of 31 bloggers, asking them to give away the prizes to their readers in any way they saw fit. He trusted their influence over the market he was hoping to reach.

It was a promotion designed to increase sales for the company's HDX Dragon Entertainment Notebook, and it involved zero advertising and not a single new marketing message from HP. With the exception of a couple of minor stipulations, each aspect of the giveaway was designed by the blogging community for its readers—a risk that paid off in spades.

More than 50 million impressions were registered during the 31-day promotion, leading to an 84% increase in HDX Dragon sales, a 10% increase in overall consumer PC sales, and a 14% jump in Web traffic.

"The results were stellar," Ballantyne said. "Sales went through the roof."

Challenge:

In mid-2007, Hewlett-Packard introduced its Pavilion HDX Entertainment Notebook PC. Nicknamed the "Dragon," the system—which boasts HP's first 20.1-inch widescreen display, an HDTV tuner, a subwoofer and four Altec Lansing speakers, a low-light Web camera, a dedicated ATI HD2600 XT graphics card, and fingerprint reader technology—is one monster of a machine and, not surprisingly, carries a hefty price tag, starting at $3,000. Accordingly, it attracts a fairly niche target market: 25-34-year-olds with plenty of disposable income.

Considering its specs, the Dragon was well received by the tech community when it first came out, but sales didn't measure up. The pressure was on Scott Ballantyne, VP & General Manager for HP's Personal Systems Group, to effectively reach this target market and turn sales around.

Campaign:

Ballantyne saw his answer in the blogosphere and together with Austin, Texas-based Buzz Corps, a social-media and word-of-mouth marketing firm, created the "31 Days of the Dragon" promotion to play out within selected blogging communities.

Identified for their influence within the HDX Dragon's target market, 31 bloggers were summoned to develop their own contests for giving away an HDX prize package valued at over $5,000 (including software and movies). A new contest was launched every day between May 2 and June 1, 2008 on one of the designated blogs, which were responsible for creating all of the rules, messaging, and Web 2.0 tools for the giveaways.

HP's only stipulations were that (1) the prizes had to be awarded to readers and (2) the bloggers had to regularly promote the giveaway throughout the 31 days with posts about the other sites' competitions as well as their own.

Several of the contests, including those from AbsoluteVista and HardwareGeeks, resulted in blog postings and videos on sites such as YouTube and Blip.tv, submitted by contestants who explained how the Dragon notebook would benefit them, such as improve their productivity and mobile gaming. HardwareGeeks offered extra points for producing a commercial-like video promoting the HDX system.

Others instituted innovative ideas for increasing traffic to their blogs, such as the following:

• DigitalMediaPhile designed a treasure hunt. Users had to search through the blog's posts to find an image of the HDX Dragon, specs for its Intel processor, and other information, such as the first HP Pavilion Entertainment PC ever referenced in the blog.
• GearLive monitored the activity of its members during its week-long competition and awarded the prize to the user who collected the most points, which were granted for various site interactions, such as posting (non-spam) blog comments and participating in forums.
• Notebooks.com readers had to (1) submit a post to the site's forum explaining why they need and deserve the HDX Dragon, (2) get at least five friends to comment on those entries, (3) start at least five non-contest-related forum threads, and (4) write substantial comments on at least 10 other forum threads.
• LockerGnome picked a blog post at random and chose the winner from the reader comments left to that post; that approach goaded users to comment on all of the blog's posts.
• TheDigitalLifestyle made its readers search through the site's forums to find the details on its competition.

Others used the promotion as a means for learning more about reader preferences. For example, Jake Ludington's MediaBlab asked readers to share their opinions on the best freeware available in 22 categories, and TheGreenButton requested suggestions for improving its blog.

All the bloggers carried out their own marketing, cross-referenced each other, and together, without any persuasion from HP, built a communal Web site promoting the giveaway with links to every participating site.

All in all, the campaign cost HP and its partners $250,000 in prizes and payments to offset taxes for US winners. No money was spent on advertising or media buys, and no new marketing materials or tools were created by HP for the promotion.

Results:

According to Alexa data, the "31 Days of the Dragon" promotion registered more than 50 million impressions. It was translated into 40+ languages and reached 123 countries. A Google search garners over 380,000 links to discussions of the giveaway, and the more than 10,000 videos posted on sites such as YouTube.com and Blip.tv by participating contestants have received over 5 million combined views.

HP and Buzz Corp say that there are "virtually no negative comments about HP or the promotion that can be found" and that readers "overwhelmingly came out to praise HP, their products and the company as a whole."

Throughout the 31 days, more than 25,000 entries were received by the 31 participating blogs, which averaged a 150% increase in traffic during the campaign (some had as much as 5,000% more traffic during this time). Months later, these sites continue to report a 50% increase in monthly traffic compared with pre-campaign levels.

And their sites weren't the only ones to benefit. HP.com's traffic increased 14% due to this promotion.

More importantly, HDX Dragon system sales increased 84%. Overall consumer PC sales also increased 10%, and sales gains have reportedly been sustained in the months since the giveaway.

Lessons Learned:

The "31 Days of the Dragon" campaign illustrates the power of marketing for the community by the community. By surrendering control and allowing the participating blogs to independently create all of the contest specifics, marketing messages, and tools, HP was able to achieve third-party credibility which led to greater results, both in campaign reach and in overall product sales.

Another key benefit was the reduction in campaign cost as well as legal risk, since the bloggers were ultimately responsible for the contests and invested their own time and resources into launching and running those events. HP also limited many of the usual legal and internal approval requirements by giving the prize packages to these blogs with very few strings attached.

But as "hands off" as this campaign may have been, it was not something that came together overnight. "This is not adjunct PR or afterthought PR," said Ballantyne, adding that if you treat this type of campaign solely as a go-to-market strategy, "you will be seen through at some point."

"The blog community does this because they think and know in their hearts that it's real," he pointed out. "You have to have a trusted advisory/listening relationship with the community from day one. If you go in as a salesperson or just try to drop in, it won't work."

HP was able to build that trust by taking the time—well before the launch of this campaign—to forge long-term, open relationships with the blogging community. This included regularly reading their blogs and talking with them, organizing dinners for them, introducing them to the company's VPs and CIO, and giving them a tour the HP "Garage"—a treat usually reserved for the company's most serious customers. Moreover, it was about really listening to these folks as peers and taking action when their feedback was less than positive.

"It's different from the traditional PR/marcom environment. You have to be responsive, open, and speak in their language," Ballantyne said. "Like a marriage, every day you have to wake up and try at it."

Ballantyne offered additional tips for developing a successful campaign of this nature:

• Creating synergy through partnership and community: Both HP and the individual blogs benefited from the cooperative efforts of the bloggers. Since each blog actively promoted the giveaway and upcoming competitions on the other sites, even after their own piece may have already concluded, the "31 Days of the Dragon" program achieved greater exposure and all of the participating blogs received significantly higher volumes of traffic, a decent percentage of which has endured post-promotion.
• Taking a holistic approach: It's about getting the right message to the right people in the right context, which also means ensuring that both your product and company effectively support those messages at every point along the way. If you don't have a quality product and a solid infrastructure in place, the viral engine can quickly turn against you.
• Understanding the inherent risks: To generate independent buzz and reviews, you ultimately have to be prepared to "take a black eye," said Ballantyne. "You can't control these communities; if someone writes something bad, you can't shut [the blog] down." Instead, he says, it's important to be true to yourself, your brand, and your product—and figure out what you can improve to change that perception.

Related Links:

• "31 Days of the Dragon" communal site
• Hewlett Packard site
• Buzz Corps site

How good are your communication skills?

Here is a test you can take to check out how good your communication stills are. They ask some interesting questions.

Survey



The interesting points are being aware of :

• Non verbal communication
• Communicating complex concepts the best way
• giving thought to how you communicate
• listening really well

Sounds simple doesn't it. Take the survey and see how you go! Maybe get your partner to rate you too.

Wheel of life - creating more balance

Do you feel that your life is out of alignment. Sometimes it is worth looking at our life in individual segments and just seeing how much energy we devote to each segment. We can then see where our energy goes and allow adjustments.

(Also called the "Life Wheel")
Finding balance in your life

When life is busy, or all your energy is focused on a special project, it's all too easy to find yourself "off balance", not paying enough attention to important areas of your life. While you need to have drive and focus if you're going to get things done, taking this too far can lead to frustration and intense stress.

That's when it's time to take a "helicopter view" of your life, so that you can bring things back into balance.

This is where the Wheel of Life (or Life Wheel) can help. Commonly used by professional life coaches, it helps you consider each area of your life in turn and assess what's off balance. And so, it helps you identify areas that need more attention.

Figure 1 below shows an example wheel of life with example "dimensions" (we'll explain how to choose the right areas of life or dimensions for yourself below).

The Wheel of Life is powerful because it gives you a vivid visual representation of the way your life is currently, compared with the way you'd ideally like it to be. It is called the "Wheel of Life" because each area of your life is mapped on a circle, like the spoke of a wheel.

Using the Tool

Print out the tool below:

1. Start by brainstorming the 6 to 8 dimensions of your life that are important for you. Different approaches to this are:
   

   • The roles you play in life for example: husband/wife, father/mother, manager, colleague, team member, sports player, community leader, or friend;
     
   • Areas of life that are important to you for example: artistic expression, positive attitude, career, education, family, friends, financial freedom, physical challenge, pleasure, or public service; or
     
   • Your own combination of these (or different) things, reflecting the things that are your priorities in life.
   
   
2. Write down these dimensions down on the Wheel of Life diagram, one on each spoke of the life wheel.
   
   
3. This approach assumes that you will be happy and fulfilled if you can find the right balance of attention for each of these dimensions. And different areas of your life will need different levels of attention at different times. So the next step is to assess the amount of attention you're currently devoting to each area.
   
   Consider each dimension in turn, and on a scale of 0 (low) to 5 (high), write down the amount of attention you're devoting to that area of your life. Mark each score on the appropriate spoke of you Life Wheel.
   
   
4. Now join up the marks around the circle. Does you life wheel looked and feel balanced?
   
   
5. Next it's time to consider your ideal level in each area of your life. A balanced life does not mean getting 5 in each life area: some areas need more attention and focus than others at any time. And inevitably you will need to make choices and compromises, as your time and energy are not in unlimited supply!
   
   So the question is, what would the ideal level of attention be for you each life area?
   
   Plot the "ideal" scores around your life wheel too.
   
   
6. Now you have a visual representation of your current life balance and your ideal life balance. What are the gaps? These are the areas of your life that need attention.
   
   And remember that gaps can go both ways. There are almost certainly areas that are not getting as much attention as you'd like. However there may also be areas where you're putting in more effort than you'd ideally like. These areas are sapping energy and enthusiasm that may better be directed elsewhere.
   
   
7. Once you have identified the areas that need attention, it's time to plan the actions needed to work on regaining balance. Starting with the neglected areas, what things do you need to start doing to regain balance? In the areas that currently sap your energy and time, what can you STOP doing or reprioritize or delegate to someone else? Make a commitment to these actions by writing them on your worksheet.

Rules and ideas for marketers

Good article on Marketing Mag .

Let’s look at some of the fundamental rules and ideas that make us marketers:

1. Understand your target market
2. Understand the competitive landscape
3. Build an offering or position of value and difference
4. Build emotive and pragmatic values that connect your brand and customer
5. Communicate with your target market
6. Persuade them to purchase and refer

Now let’s consider just some of the habits that make us marketers:

1. Reach and frequency are a measure
2. Stay on brand message
3. Simple messages that don’t relate
4. Media choices - Press, TV or Radio spot?
5. Full colour vs 2 colour vs 1 colour print job?

These points don’t seem to be in line with the rules and ideas of marketing. They're just things we do habitually.

So we need a revolution. The Habitual Revolution.

The solution to this marketing problem is easy - organisations and people just need to change!

So here's my Top 10 tips for marketers stuck in a habitual rut:

1. Ask more questions
2. Present and invent new ideas
3. Expect your agencies to innovate
4. Talk to innovative agencies
5. Review your process
6. Take risks
7. Learn
8. Experiment
9. Step out of your comfort zone
10. Look at what other categories are doing

But most of all, just ditch the habits and get back to the fundamentals of marketing

Marketing Strategy Article

As we go forward into a strategic planning phase I thought it might be useful to read some articles about the how and the why.

Here is the first one from MarketingProfs.com
http://www.marketingprofs.com/6/perla20.asp

Here is the other article that I thought I would just paste in.

Marketing Strategy Is the Foundation for Business Successby Linda Popky

In today's business environment, budgets are tight, resources are limited, and organizations are forced to cut corners. The directive is to economize in order to increase profitability or just to remain competitive.
Some organizations are also reacting to a previous over-reliance on high-priced strategy consultants—many of whom have not provided clear value or return on investment—by decreasing the amount of time and resources they put into strategy or strategic processes.
Unfortunately, the failure to first build a solid strategic foundation is counter-productive, risking costly mistakes later on not only for marketing but also for the entire organization.
But today, strategy is out, and execution is in. Witness the popularity of the book by Larry Bossidy (former CEO of Allied Signal) titled Execution: the Discipline of Getting Things Done. First published in 2002, it's now ranked No. 168 on the Amazon.com best-seller list.
This emphasis on execution at the expense of strategy is on the rise in marketing organizations as well. Many executives question the value of spending money for marketing strategy, especially if they have already defined an overall business objective. They want the marketing team to simply go out and execute a marketing plan.
Too often, the success of a marketing plan is judged by the tangible marketing deliverables that the team produces—a series of events, press releases, marketing collateral, websites, etc. Since these deliverables draw attention inside and outside the organization, considerable effort is put into making sure they look good, whether they are hardcopy or web-based.
Packaging, or look and feel, is a key part of deploying a marketing strategy. Many important and on-target messages have been lost because they were delivered in plain-vanilla, or worse, hard-to-read, distracting, or downright ugly packages. However, attractive packaging, when combined with content that is not well thought out (or more importantly, not on target strategically), will fall flat on its pretty little face.
Because a "pretty face" will only go so far, it's extremely important to spend the upfront time to be sure that your marketing programs are built on a solid foundation, that you have nailed down the key elements of your marketing strategy, and your team can clearly articulate them—before going off to create those highly visible (and often highly expensive) marketing deliverables.
Before executing a big-picture strategy, such as "we want to enter XYZ market next quarter with ABC product line," take the time to understand what is required to really make a key marketing initiative successful:
Be sure you really know and understand your target customers, including what motivates them, what causes them pain, and why they would be interested in even considering your solution or offering.
Have a solid understanding of the current market situation. Know the competition, where they are successful, and where they are struggling. (Remember that the status quo can be your biggest competition!)
Play devil's advocate. Ask what could go wrong, what countermoves you can expect from competitors, what obstacles you can proactively plan around. Be honest. The time to consider possible pitfalls is before you begin the project, not once you are stumbling into them.
Once you have done this analysis in a logical and well-thought-out fashion, clearly define your value proposition or unique differentiation. Your positioning should be captured in a neat, organized, succinct manner and communicated throughout the organization. This way you can be sure everyone involved in the initiative, including key vendors and suppliers, will buy into the same messaging, understand it, and be able to use it appropriately in their marketing activities.
What happens if you don't take the time to do this? The answer is quite simple. If you don't understand exactly what you're executing, you may find yourself way down the wrong path fairly quickly. You might be executing a plan effectively—even impeccably—but against the wrong set of objectives. Doing so in marketing can quickly become costly, not only in terms of dollars but also in lost time to market, limited market share, and damage to the corporate reputation.
Consider this analogy: Your organization can spend much time and money getting your team suited up with terrific mountain-climbing gear, instructing them how to use it, and motivating them to go climb a specific mountain... only to eventually find out that you are on the wrong mountaintop—or, worse yet, that you really should not have been climbing mountains in the first place, but deep sea diving instead.
Take the time to ensure you have a well-thought-out, fully developed marketing strategy. It may require more work upfront, but it will pay off in the long run. After all, about the only thing worse than not knowing where you're going is starting out for your destination, only to find out later that it's not really where you want to go.

Living with a Lack of Job Security

Here is a good post from mindtools on coping with job change.

Coping with uncertainty
Some of the people you know may have only had a few jobs – or even one job – in their lives. If so, and they're not working for the government, they're likely to be older than 50, having grown up at a time where company loyalty and hard work provided a steady career and a comfortable pension. They might have spent 20 or 30 years with the same company, never making the break to search for something better, and never having a reason to fear layoffs.
These days, however, the world is much different. As a result of globalization, outsourcing, contracting, downsizing, recession and even natural disaster, "job security" can seem like a thing of the past. People entering the workforce within the past few years may have more than 10 different jobs before they retire. The lack of job security that goes with this is something that almost everyone must face at one time or another, and learning how to cope is essential to being happy, and keeping stress away.
So, how do you deal with this uncertainty?
First, learn how to handle the psychological pressure and stress. It's important to realize that not everyone reacts the same way to job insecurity. Your home life, willingness to adapt to change, and financial situation are much different from those of your colleagues, so don't expect yourself to feel or react like they do: they'll manage stress their own way.
Next, be prepared. It's impossible to know what the future will bring, so preparing in advance can help reduce your worries, because you'll know you've done all you can.
We'll show you what you can do now to deal with the feeling of a lack of job security.
Coping with Stress
Living with constant insecurity can be stressful. Some studies suggest that living with job insecurity – the "fear" of losing your job – can be more harmful to your health than actually losing it. Here, keeping a positive attitude can make all the difference!
If you're stressed about your career, try some of these tips:
Remember the saying "Whenever one door closes, another one opens." Living with uncertainty can be uncomfortable, but you can control how you look at it. It can be an adventure, and the chance to do something new.
If you're a good worker with marketable skills, then you have a lot to offer other potential employers if you get laid off. This is why it's so important to keep your skills relevant and up-to-date.
In today's job market, the technical skills you need can change quickly. So, develop your nontechnical skills as well. If your lack of job security is due to a drop in demand for your technical skills, think "outside the box." What else can you do – and how can you prove that you could learn a new line of work? Look at your track record of being adaptable, your organizational skills (time management, team management, and leadership), and your people skills. For more information, read our Book Insight on "Career Intelligence" by Barbara Moses, and use this site to build solid career skills.
Stress can result from a feeling that you don't have control over your situation. Remember, you ALWAYS have control. It's your life, and it's within your power to change it. If you're afraid that you might get "downsized," then take control and act. Look for lateral transfers within your company, to a different department or even a different branch. Start learning about other departments; perhaps your skills would allow you to do something completely different within the organization. Be PROactive instead of REactive.
If you're part of a team (or if you're leading a team), allow everyone to voice their fears. Communicating and expressing frustrations are important, but don't let these fears dominate the group. This can create negativity and hurt morale. So, have an open discussion, but focus on what you can all do to move forward and cope.
Prove Your Worth
If you were your boss, and you were forced to eliminate one position, who would you lay off: the person who leaves at 5:01 pm each day and complains all the time, or the person who's willing to take on extra work and always has something positive to say?
If you face uncertainty in your field, make sure you give value to your company. You'll have to do more than "just the minimum" if you want to keep your job.
Be willing to stay late to finish a project. Help another team member who's falling behind. Do things to show your boss that you love your job and you'll do what it takes to help the company succeed. This kind of commitment can help to set you apart from the crowd.
Stay Current
Keeping your skills current is essential if you want to offer value to your company. Make sure you're up to date on your industry's certifications and trends. Take outside classes and read trade publications, so that you know what's going on in your field.
Also, think about taking classes that would benefit your role in any company. Skills like effective time management, leadership techniques, and office organization can help you anywhere – no matter what job you're doing.
"Brag" About Yourself
Many people resist talking about their accomplishments because they don't want to boast. But think of it this way: your boss may not know how great you are, or what you're capable of doing, if you don't tell her.
By talking about your accomplishments, you keep him or her informed of your value. For more on how to brag about yourself (without being viewed as arrogant or overconfident), read Getting the Recognition You Deserve.
Keep Your Résumé Up to Date
This is smart for everyone to do, not just those who are actively looking for work (or afraid they might be soon).
When your résumé is current, you can be ready at a moment's notice to apply for a new position – even one within your own company. You won't have to rush to make changes (and risk making mistakes), and you can be sure to present yourself in the very best light. If you wait until the last minute, you might forget an important accomplishment that could mean winning – or losing – the job.
Save Your Money
Few things are more stressful than wondering how you'll pay your bills if you suddenly lose your job. This alone can convince people to accept the first job offer they receive, even if it's not the right match.
Save at least three to six months of living expenses – this can help you take the time you need to find the best opportunity, if you are laid off. It can also give you the resources you need to look further afield, if work dries up in your area. This can help you turn a bad situation into a chance to reevaluate your career, and put yourself onto a new, exciting path.
Key Points
In today's business world, living with job insecurity is a reality for many. But it doesn't have to be stressful and negative.
Preparing yourself for change is a great way to feel better about the situation. Take control by ensuring that your company knows how great you are, and invest time in keeping your skills up to date. And save some money, so you don't have to worry about paying your bills if you do lose your job.
If you do get laid off, remember that the world is full of opportunities. Changing your mindset can go a long way toward reducing your stress. Look at this change as an adventure and as the chance to try something new. Focus on the positive, not on doubt and uncertainty. Remember, your life is what you make of it!

Where should product management be in the company?

Here is an interesting article by Steve Johnson from Pragmaticmarketing.com.


It seems that many corporations try to solve internal process problems by moving people around. But where should they put product management? Is there one perfect organization chart?
It's time for a re-organization. After all, it's been almost 18 months since the last one. But where should we put product management?

It seems that many corporations try to solve internal process problems by moving people around. And product management gets tossed around more than most. Maybe this is because few executives understand the role of product management. Because they don't know what to do with product management, executives find it difficult to find the proper organization within the company. Is there one perfect organization chart?
What is the role of product management?

The primary role of product management is to understand the market. We use field techniques such as cold-calling on prospects, win/loss analysis for recent evaluators, and onsite visits to existing customers. Listening to the market is what we should do at a trade show in addition to (or instead of) working in the booth.

How can product managers be effective without this market information? (Answer: they can't).
With market requirements in hand, we employ research to quantify what we learned in order to build a market-driven market requirements document (MRD). The MRD tells Development about the unsolved problems in the market and elicits their agreement to address those problems in product or features. These same market problems drive our communications messaging and our probing-for-pain questions in the sales cycle.
Evolution of titles
Titles evolve as a company grows. In a small company, everyone does anything and everything. Product planning is done by the president and the developers. With a product in hand, we then hire sales people to find customers for it.

We soon realize that we cannot do all that we want to do without adding some marketing professionals. Startups typically hire marketing communications (marcom) people to create promotional materials. But because marcom typically knows little about technology and the technology buyer, they struggle with messaging. So we hire product management to support marcom with content. Almost 50% of product managers report that they write copy for marcom. And since they're the product experts, the sales channel starts requesting more and more support from product managers for "special" deals, or whenever a sales support rep is unavailable.

Meanwhile, the developers are asking product management for help prioritizing the many customer and sales requests for features. As demands increase for more product management time, the product management role exceeds what can be done by a single person.
So we split the activities into Product Marketing and Product Management and marcom becomes Field Marketing. Field Marketing executes appropriate communication programs to reach the target market. The product management person takes on the role of market sensing: listening for market requirements and writing the business documents for the next products. The product marketing person is tasked to take the resulting product to market. Understanding technology is still key but now the role becomes one of "telling" rather than "listening."
So where should we put product management in the company?

The location of product management in a company is probably irrelevant. Instead, the most important organizational issue is a strong leader with a clear view of the product management role. A strong leader will not let other department heads rely on product management to fill their internal staff limitations. Product management is not sales, communications, or development. Instead, product management serves the business interests of the company by reducing the risk associated with building new products and product releases.

Where do product managers work today?
50% are in the marketing department
22% are in the product management department
16% are in Development or Engineering
only 7% are in a sales department
Marketing. We most often see product management in the marketing department. After all, the primary goal of a marketing department is to drive the product through the sales channel. That is, marketing helps all sales people, never just one. The difference between marketing and sales support is merely one of scale: Marketing helps the entire sales channel; sales support helps individual sales people. Product marketing makes sense in the marketing department.
Product management in the marketing department makes sense only if we can continue to gather requirements to build new products and releases. The challenge of this organization is that we get so close to the sales channel that we become the "source of the best demo" instead of the "source of market information." We must continue our on-going market sensing.
Development. Because product managers write requirements, it often seems logical to house them in the Development group. This creates a team spirit of building tomorrow's product based on what we know is needed in the market. The challenge is keeping product management engaged with the market instead of becoming the "gofer" for developers.

Product. Increasingly we're seeing a Product group reporting to the CEO. The products group contains Development, Product Management and Product Marketing; Field Marketing (formerly marcom) becomes part of the Sales group. The distinction between a Products group and a typical Development group seems to be the resume of the VP; the head of Products must be an advocate of the business of the product, not just the technology behind the product.
Any of these organizations can be successful as long as the product management function is accountable for understanding the market, instead of being "janitor of the product" or "demo boy or girl."
Market-savvy executives rely on product management to identify and quantify market problems. Market-driven product managers serve as the executives? eyes and ears in the market, bringing market information to product planning.

Get Connected

Being in an organisation like HP it is easy to build your networks internally and forget about the wider community. Here are some other marketing networks you might want to consider:



1. Australian Marketing Institute - http://www.aim.org.au/

2.The customer collective - a marketing and sales network http://www.thecustomercollective.com/

3. The network for young marketers - http://www.networxevents.com.au/

4. The marketing association of AUS/NZ - http://www.marketing.org.au/

5. The last Thursday Club - networking for business http://www.lastthursdayclub.net/

6. Network Central -networking for small business - http://www.networkcentral.com.au/

7. Linked in networking for business - www.linkedin.com

If you have any other good networks, please add them.

Clearing the clutter

The below article gives some good insights on how to start to prioritise your busy day and make you more productive.

Clearing the Clutter—How Busy Marketers Can Get Things Doneby Stephan Spencer
Published on January 30, 2007.

Marketers, by the very nature of their job function, must juggle numerous campaigns, a range of portfolios, multiple channels, and various corporate, political, and personnel issues—all simultaneously.
Do you have multiple action lists running concurrently in your brain? Or great ideas buried within files, folders, emails, Post-It notes, and to-do lists? If that sounds like you, join the club! But I have to warn you: This is one club I'll be resigning from soon.
Like so many folks, I made a New Year's resolution—to get organized, to get the clutter out of my head and into a system where I don't have worry about it on a daily basis, but where it will pop up when the time is right for action. And I have discovered how to do it.
Perhaps you saw my post on the MarketingProfs Daily Fix blog on January 1, when I resolved to transform the way I work and live, to get everything out of my head and into a system. That system, if you read my post, is Getting Things Done, or—as it's known among practicing aficionados—GTD.
Getting Things Done is a best-selling book by productivity guru David Allen. It is also a process and a philosophy. Once you stop using your brain as the holding tank for all the important things that you need to do today, tomorrow, next week, or even further into the future, the sooner you become clear and your mind will be open to wander, unfettered. Only then can your creativity truly be unleashed, and you reach a state of flow that David Allen refers to as "Mind like water."
I am a creative person, so reaching that state of flow is very important to me. I get bogged down in details, my head cluttered with to-do's.
If this sounds at all familiar to you, then you may be an excellent candidate for a Getting Things Done overhaul.
1. The first step in the process is to get everything out of your head and into one place. You may have to set aside several days for this step. It involves culling through all the Post-It notes, backs of envelopes, lists, active files, mail, and so forth that have not been fully processed and organized. I, for one, had a number of Word documents full of a mish-mash of ideas, to-do's, and reminders.

2.Once you have aggregated it all into one place, you can begin to process it. A simple but critical trick here is to act on anything that can be dealt with in two minutes or less—right then and there. Don't move it around on to other lists. Just get it done. That approach alone has been hugely valuable to me because I tended to touch the same email over and over again even though it would have been a less-than-two-minute task to reply to it, forward it, delegate it, or do whatever needed to happen to get it out of my face and acted upon.
Each of your to-do's requires a decision. Do it, defer it, delegate it, or delete it. If it must be done on a particular date, then it goes into Calendar, otherwise it goes on your Next Actions list, but only if it truly is the next action. If it is an amorphous project with multiple actions required (in fact, the definition of a project according to David Allen is anything requiring more than one action), then it does not go on your Next Actions list but on your Projects list. But you still have to ascertain what the next action is to move that project that next small step forward, and so you place that on your Next Actions list.
3.Each of your Next Actions also needs to have a context assigned to it (e.g., "at the office" "at home," "errands," "phone," "email," "read/review," etc.). That way, you can group to-do's by context and do them in batches, thus gaining efficiencies.
For example, if you are in a phone mood, you can easily view all your to-do's that are to be done over the phone. Say you have some dead time while you are waiting at the dentist's office and you have your cell phone with you, your PDA (or "hipster PDA" if you aren't into handheld gadgets) can reveal some of the phone calls that you can make while you are waiting.
When you are in a holding pattern, waiting for a response from another party, then you track that "open loop" by putting it on to your Waiting For list. Then, in your Weekly Review, your Waiting For list can serve to remind you of who owes you what and then you can ping them if they are tardy.
During that Weekly Review you can also review your Someday/Maybe list and see if there is anything that you want to move off that list and on to your Next Actions list.
This is just a taste of the GTD process. I certainly don't do it justice compared with David Allen, so I encourage you to read his book and listen to his podcasts.
As I mentioned in my post on the Daily Fix, choosing the right electronic or paper system is a crucial step in implementing GTD. A Mac user, I chose a Mac program called Journler after much research. I quite like Journler because, even though it is not designed specifically for GTD, it can be easily customized to meet your GTD needs.
Furthermore, if you are an avid blogger like me, you can even send posts directly to your blog from within Journler. Just log in the category and publish it without having to log into your WordPress admin.
Other Mac options I seriously considered were kGTD and DevonThink Pro.
For those of you on Windows, you may want to look at the GTD Outlook Add-in, ClearContext for Outlook, MyLifeOrganized, TimeTo, Easy Task Manager or ThinkingRock (note that those two run on the Mac, too), or a web-based system like Tracks, GTD V2, Backpack, MonkeyGTD or ActiveCollab. Or, better yet, just switch to a Mac...
A system such as any of these will help you be more organized, more efficient, and focused on what is really important, while setting aside but not necessarily completely losing track of potential ideas for the future that may not make sense or not have value right now.
As for me, I'm making great progress on my New Year's Resolution. How about you? MarketingProfs.com
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The structure of Product Management

This is a worthwhile article to read, (although I will admit long) but gives some insight into what we are trying to achieve.

The Structure of the Product Management Teamby Gabriel Steinhardt

The role of a product manager is challenging, complex and often misunderstood.
Across the high-tech industry, the "product manager" title is used in many ways to describe drastically different duties and responsibilities. Diverse interpretations regarding the role of the product manager have created an untenable situation for some, who therefore struggle to define their own role.
Properly defining and structuring the roles and responsibilities of the product management team would enable the team members to be more efficient and productive, leading to better revenues and higher-quality products that meet customer needs.
This article explores the challenges faced by modern high-tech product managers and proposes a solution to formalize and structure the responsibilities and makeup of the product management team.
What's Your Role?
Job titles are important, and the role one plays in an organization is often identified by one's job title. But often this is not the case in the world of product management. The myriad interpretations of product management job titles, especially the product manager title, make it very difficult to ascertain what roles and responsibilities are associated with a specific product management job title.
Ask several product managers what their responsibilities are, and you will get a variety of answers and descriptions. Even if working in the same company and department, they may provide very different perspectives on their position.
Most people accept that "product management" is a term used to describe the sum of diverse activities performed in the interest of delivering a particular product to market. Such a broad definition, used by many companies today, is the root of much grief because it dilutes the professional focus necessary to achieve successful results and allows virtually any product-related task to be assigned to the product manager.
Jack of All Roles, Master of None
Multitasking is challenging for humans, who prefer to focus on performing one task or sequentially performing a few select tasks. The inherent difficulty of multitasking hinges principally on humans' limited ability to maintain a high level of intellectual focus when confronted with a multitude of dynamic issues. To a lesser degree, fatigue and a lack of resources (primarily time) are also contributing factors.
Performing the diverse product management activities outlined above is the epitome of multitasking. Product management assignments are particularly challenging because they require a multitude of complimentary or differing skills. In addition, when product managers have several products to manage, the multitasking becomes profoundly more complex.
Such a broad definition of the product management profession is the culmination of individual and industry interpretations. They, in turn, have invariably led to the ever-familiar challenges that the majority of product managers now encounter daily, caused by ambiguous role definition, imbalanced relationships with other departments, an overwhelming volume of activities, a lack of or poorly defined processes, no definitive methodology and a shortage of uniform work tools in the profession.
The overall perceived obstacle that the typical product manager encounters is the pervasive lack of professional focus. One can be adequate at many things, but it is difficult to excel at many. Many product managers therefore view themselves as trapped in a never-ending juggling routine. Having too many tasks to juggle eventually leads to tasks being dropped; the outcome is poor overall performance by the product manager, which is detrimental for the company.
The title of product manager has proven more harmful than helpful. Other official and unofficial product management title variations (such as Product CEO or Product Champion or Product Executive) have failed. The reason is that they are often accompanied by a blurred, wide-scoped job description that defines or implies the product manager as owner—and, as a result, responsible for the product's commercial success. Being labeled or treated as a "Product CEO" can be daunting, since it nearly always means operating without the authority and resources available to an actual CEO.
When a job title has an overly broad set of diverse activities (roles and responsibilities) associated with it, there is a high probability that the attempt to perform to the expectations of that job title will result in failure.
Obviously, a semantic change is needed, and this change is based on the definition of professional—i.e., focused on a particular domain or discipline.
Breaking It Down
The two main disciplines residing in the product management domain are product planning and product marketing, which are very different from each other. But due to the collaboration between these two disciplines, some companies erroneously perceive them as one discipline—which they call product management.
If done carefully, it is possible to functionally divide the product management domain into product planning and product marketing, yet retain the required synergy between the two.
Product planning is the ongoing process of identifying and articulating market requirements that define a product's feature set. Product marketing is an outbound activity aimed at generating product awareness, differentiation and demand.
Product planning and product marketing are different and distinct professional disciplines, because they foster different roles and different quality goals.
With such a conceptualization, it is easy to address the respective tasks of product planning and product marketing as belonging to the roles of a product planner and a product marketer.
Whether these two roles are handled by two individuals or performed by one person is actually irrelevant. Indeed, there are cases where both disciplines are assumed by one person, or by two people sitting in one room, or by different departments that collaborate.
The point is that there must be a clear and unambiguous link between the job title and the job responsibilities.
It should also be clear that the disciplines of product planning and product marketing are inextricably linked, because companies design product functionality for the user and market the product's value to the buyer.
To clarify: an intuitive example of this is a child's toy. The parent is the buyer and has an interest in whether the toy is safe to use, will help the child grow smarter, will keep the child occupied and is reasonably priced. Product value is therefore marketed to the buyer, the parent.
The child cares only about product functionality, such as whether the toy is fun, engaging and visually pleasing, and whether it will do what he/she wants. The toy's functionality is designed for the user—the child—and not for the buyer.
The same approach is necessary with high-tech products, where buyers are often not the users; and this approach means distinct product management roles that separately analyze and address buyer and user needs.
The recent fast-paced growth of high-tech industries and the shifting interpretations of product management created skewed responsibility sets for product managers. The already-problematic, broad definition of product management was further complicated when tactical activities were added to a product manager's job definition.
Tactical activities are assignments, usually self-contained and specific, that fulfill short-term business needs. Those assignments—such as delivering a presentation, writing collateral material or assisting a salesperson—are time-consuming and demand a disproportionate allocation of individual resources (mental focus, time and physical effort) in relation to their overall importance.
By monopolizing the scope of work, tactical activities detract from the product managers' ability to fulfill the strategic responsibilities assigned to them.
A strategy aims to establish and plan the overall and long-term course of action a company should engage in to achieve corporate objectives.
The strategic mission for the product marketer would primarily involve evaluating market opportunities and writing marketing plans/programs that address those opportunities. For the product planner, the mission is to identify market needs so as to deliver winning products that help a company become a market leader, market follower or an innovator.
Roles and Goals
Executive managers have very clear work goals that primarily center on achieving corporate profitability. Software developers, for example, also know what they aim for—usually, generating lean and efficient programming code.
However, many product managers provide widely different answers when asked what their job goal is. They also find it difficult to provide a definitive answer. Obviously, this situation stems from an overly broad and task-oriented (not goal-oriented) job description.
By breaking down the product management domain into its two disciplines, it becomes feasible to clearly define the roles and goals of each.
The product planner determines and defines product functionality, and therefore the prime goal is to have product buyers and users who are satisfied with the product. This means (1) contentment with the product's ability to solve business or consumer problems and satisfy needs and (2) satisfaction with the intangible aspects of product ownership, such as service, price, warrantee, status or prestige.
The product marketer's goal is to have a satisfied sales force. This goal is somewhat indirect to the marketing actions being performed, but it is an excellent predictor of how effective the product marketer's actions are in generating awareness, differentiation and demand for the product.
Salespeople have a relatively easy job when product marketers perform their roles well. The market environment created by the product marketer leads to a favorable situation in which the market actively buys the product rather than the salespeople having to actively sell the product. Salespeople are very happy when "the product sells itself," which really means that the sale cycle is minimal or reduced because of quality marketing by product marketers.
In short, product planning's quality goal is satisfied customers, and product marketing's quality goal is a satisfied sales force. After defining the strategic roles of the key disciplines within the product management domain, there is a need for a cooperative scheme—a team concept—to maximize the effectiveness of these strategic roles through collaboration and complement them with outbound tactical support functions.
Product management is not accomplished successfully by only one person but by a product management team, the members of which fulfill various roles and functions.
The Product Management Team Model
The product management team is a task group that organizationally resides in the Product Management department and has four distinct roles: product planner, product marketer, sales engineer and marketing communications (marcom) manager.
These four roles are the basic providers of the planning, deliverables and actions that guide the inbound-oriented product definition and the outbound marketing efforts:
The primary responsibility of the product planner is to constantly research the market and identify market needs, which are later translated into market requirements that will foster new products or new features to existing products. The product planner prepares the documents that profoundly impact the product's success. These documents include the Market Requirements Document (MRD), product use cases, product road map and the pricing model.
The primary responsibility of the product marketer is to analyze product-oriented business opportunities, formulate plans that evaluate those business opportunities, and plan and guide the subsequent marketing efforts. For example, the product marketer prepares the product business case and following approval, writes the marketing plan, launch plan and communications plan.
The sales engineer is primarily responsible for outbound product-centric activities, such as presale support and product demonstrations. Relying on their technical skills, sales engineers help customers understand how the product delivers the necessary value and functionality that address the customers' business or consumer problem. The sales engineer's other objective is to provide critical input to product planners on customer needs and problems.Sales engineers often operate under titles such as product evangelist, technical evangelist, technical sales support, presale engineer, outbound product manager or technical product manager; yet, regardless of title, all perform a relatively similar set of tasks.
The marcom manager is primarily responsible for creating interest and demand for products through the conception and copywriting of all collateral material, advertising, direct response mail, Web and other types of communications media. This person is also tasked with maintaining a consistent company image and positioning in the marketplace, according to messages and directives provided by the product marketer.
The product management team is managed by the director of product management, or vice president of product management, who provides overall product vision, product line strategy and team management. Other titles are sometimes used to designate this leadership position, such as director of products or vice-president of products, in order to indicate the encompassing nature of this role.
This person provides guidance to team members and is responsible for furnishing them with resources, tools and uniform processes to do their jobs. On the strategic level, this role is responsible for formulating the company's product line strategy and driving its implementation, while balancing corporate goals with long-term market trends and opportunities.
Role
Responsibility
Goal
Expertise
Product planner (strategic role)
Identify and articulate market requirements
Satisfied product buyers and users
Market expert
Product marketer (strategic role)
Generate awareness, differentiation and demand
Satisfied sales force
Marketing expert
Sales engineer (tactical role)
Outbound product-centric activities: i.e., presale support and product demos
Customer knowledge of product value and functionality
Advocacy expert
Marcom manager (tactical role)
Conception and copywriting of all collateral material
Consistent company image and positioning in the marketplace
Media expert
Director of products (strategic role)
Balancing corporate goals with long-term market trends and opportunities
Successful corporate product line strategy
Strategy expert
The Odd Couple(s)
In startups, it is common to see one individual assume all four roles listed in the product management team model. That person will do market planning, deliver product demonstrations, formulate market requirements and write collateral material.
Clearly, Product Manager is a title assigned to a person who performs a single role or a combination of the four roles listed in the product management team model. At some point, usually as the company grows, the roles are delegated to other individuals who specialize in the role assigned to them.
However, for a variety of reasons and reasoning, two roles are often coupled together and entrusted to one person.
Frequently, the product planner and sales engineer roles are combined into one position, in which the person is charged with doing product demonstrations and providing presale support because he/she is also defining the product and thus has more expertise and in-depth product knowledge than the average salesperson.
Another possibility is the product marketer and marcom manager combination: one individual does all tasks that upper management may perceive as "marketing." This usually consists of actual market planning, writing copy and managing advertising.
A prevalent situation in high-tech industries, such as the software development industry, is the combining of the product marketer and product planner roles. Corporate job descriptions for open positions that prefer candidates with a technical undergraduate degree and an MBA with an emphasis in marketing are a clear indication that the company views the position as a combination of the two roles.
It does make sense, to a certain degree, to have these two roles cooperate with each other. Product success hinges on understanding customer behavior and the business aspects of the industry in order to build value into a product. Complementing that ability is in-depth product knowledge, which is used to plan marketing actions that deliver meaningful messages about the product.
The problem is that both of these roles (or capabilities) are strategic and demand expertise that can only be achieved by professional focus.
In addition, people come from different educational or professional backgrounds and therefore naturally gravitate toward their "comfort zone," eventually causing one of two roles to receive more attention than the other. Underperforming, or in the worst case, not performing some of the product management team roles, may dramatically impede the product's chances of marketplace success.
Roles and Activities
Any of the various couplings of roles, outlined above, can create workflow obstacles for the following reasons, which are conceptual.
Having one person simultaneously perform both strategic and tactical roles and activities, such as with the product marketer and marcom manager combination, is highly inefficient because tactical activities will always monopolize the person's time, and they will demand increasingly more effort.
On the other hand, having one individual perform two strategic roles, as with the product marketer and product planner combination, can be equally debilitating since each role demands an acute learning curve and full devotion.
Admittedly, the joining of roles is justifiable under various circumstances—such as budget limitations, personnel quotas, company or department formulation, and product complexity. However, role coupling should always be regarded as a temporary or evolutionary measure—not as a permanent arrangement.
The Solution
Product management is a domain that encompasses various disciplines. Accordingly, it is extremely difficult, often impossible, to specialize in and excel at all the tasks that product management entails, because the attempt often results in a lack of professional focus.
Adding to the situational difficulty is the product manager's expansive job description, which leads to being assigned various tactical activities, often simply because others do not want to do them. Tactical activities significantly impair the product manager's ability to perform crucial strategic tasks.
In some companies, the product marketing manager and product manager are interchangeable titles as they both relate to the same function and individual. This inconsistency further causes functional problems within companies and across industries.
This problematic reality is not planned and is seldom the result of malicious intent. It is just that some companies believe in the laissez-faire approach, with internal politics and forces shaping corporate processes, responsibilities and even organizational structure.
There is some advantage to having role ambiguity, because it allows individuals to be proactive and define their role as they want it to be. People can work within the ambiguity and chart their way to a desired job description. Unfortunately, more often than not, the fast-paced world of high-tech is not supportive of this approach because there is just too much inherent ambiguity or variance associated with the title of product manager.
Therefore, the solution is to abolish the title product manager from the corporate lexicon and use the clearer, more understandable and uniform titles of product planner and product marketer. And, accordingly, a different organizational approach would be required:
Under the charge of the vice-president or director of product management would be the corporate product management department that holds product management teams. Each team, whether real or virtual, holds four roles (as described in the product management team model), with the intent of having these roles eventually assigned to four individuals.
Tactical activities and logistics formerly imposed on the product manager now go to the program manager or release manager, thus relieving those in product management from the tactical overload they routinely experience.
The program manager, a role outside Product Management, is essentially the project manager for the entire product delivery project and is tasked with applying a suitable product delivery process that ensures deliverables from all contributing corporate functions.
The release manager, also a role outside Product Management, is responsible for handling all logistical and operational matters that pertain to the delivery of the product.
Properly defining and structuring the roles and responsibilities of the product management team would enable the team members to be more efficient and productive. The result? Better products, better marketing and higher revenues.
In Closing
Product management is a domain, not a role, and it changes and evolves with the organization. It is a multifaceted and multi-disciplined domain; therefore, there will always be some ambiguity involved, but it can be significantly mitigated by applying a proper product management team concept and structure, with well-defined roles and responsibilities. Doing so is crucial—whether the company is building or rebuilding the corporate product management function.
As a result of the team restructuring and the redefinition of roles, the newly attained occupational focus helps build professional expertise.
The product planner can now devote time and effort to excel as a market expert and problem-teller whose role is to perform customer advocacy better than everyone else in the company, while backing assertions with quantitative market/customer data.
The product marketer is now focused on becoming a process expert, perfecting corporate competency in using tools and executing techniques, processes and tasks; that promotes winning products in the marketplace.
All this decreases departmental rivalry and allows the engineers to develop their professional expertise as technology experts and problem solvers.
Doing the right things and doing things right, especially in the early stages of company inception, will help those in product management to professionally grow and contribute fully according to their potential. Undoubtedly, companies will also benefit because members of the product management team would be able to generate long-term value for their company by focusing more on strategy formulation.
The final inference is that those involved in product management must be provided with clear job descriptions (roles, responsibilities and goals) as well as focused goals and objectives. All talk and effort can prove quite futile without this basic premise. MarketingProfs.com

What makes a great product manager?

I guess we all have an idea of what makes a great product manager if we have been one, but it is nice to touchbase with some research that identifies some of the key concepts and check for areas where we can grow.

http://www.svproduct.com/papers/productmanager.pdf

Silicon Valley Product Group has done some interesting research that states that it is very hard to find someone who does product marketing and product management very well and to excel in both areas is very rare. This is an interesting viewpoint to challenge our skillsets. Do we operate better in one area rather than another? What does this mean for our role?

The research asks some interesting questions that as product managers it is important to ask.

KEY QUESTIONS....

Have we made this product as easy to use as humanly possible?
• Will this product succeed against the competition? Not today’s competition, but the competition that will be in the market when we ship?
• Do I know customers that will really buy this product? Not the product I wish we were going to build, but what we’re really going to build?
• Is my product truly differentiated? Can I explain the differentiation to a company executive in two minutes? To a smart customer in one minute? To an industry analyst in 30 seconds?
• Will the product actually work?
• Is the product a whole product? How will customers actually think about and buy the product? Is it consistent with how we plan to sell it?
• Are the product’s strengths consistent with what’s important to our customers? Are we positioning these strengths as aggressively as possible?
• Is the product worth money? How much money? Why? Can customers get it cheaper elsewhere?
• Do I understand what the rest of the product team thinks is good about the product? Is it consistent with my own view?
The reason that "thinking time" is so critical each day, and why the job of product manager is so all-consuming, is that these questions require serious and ongoing consideration.

© 2005 Silicon Valley Product Group www.svproduct.com Page 25

Food for thought..