citizen Evangelist

I had a great conversation with a former coworker about the challenges faced since we went our separate ways. I couldn’t help but think about how the things we discussed were so similar to every situation that I’ve ever faced as a product manager.

Internal Politics vs. Customer Priorities

As a product manager, when I was faced with the task of determining what we should do for our next release, the core challenge always came down to selecting the best enhancements &/or new products that would help drive market adoption, drive increase value (revenue) and drive reduced costs. At face level, this seems to be an easy task. In truth, this process is much more an artform than a science. The challenge faced by most product managers is the validity of the “truth” used in making decisions.

When the CEO or the executive management team make assertions that the number one priority for the company is to do something, it is often difficult to refute. Further, doing so can be a career limiting move if you don’t have market facts to back yourself up with.

When the VP of Sales or any respected member of the sales team claims that a particular feature which is lacking would generate a higher close rate and millions of dollars in additional revenue, it is a challenge to hold a different opinion.

When the executive in charge of customer loyalty and customer experience points to user flows or the absence of features and boldly states that changes will lead to reductions in customer attrition or increases in use and revenue, any dedicated product managers will want to deliver solutions that improve customer revenue and longevity.

When all three of these executives are demanding different things and the development organization only has capacity to implement a portion of one thing, what is the correct answer? Should you side with the CEO? Do you act on the advice of Sales? Perhaps you focus on the areas identified by the stakeholder responsible for customer loyalty & customer experience?

The unfortunate truth is that none of these individuals can absolutely know the right answer. The right answer can only be determined in hindsight — after the decision is made, the development team executes, and the organization pushes the new release to production. Even then, the product must be used and opinions made by the intended beneficiary of the enhancement before any true measure of the ROI can be made.

What makes this even more challenging is the fact that not everyone on the team has the same objectives. What if the sole objective of the CEO is to earn short-term reputation points with the board of directors? Or, perhaps she is looking to get the incremental valuation bump based upon early news of the release? What is the motivation behind the message from Sales is closing a very specific deal which will help him to get his commission or save his job? What if the reason that your seeing customer attrition has nothing to do with specific features and the real reason is due to poor customer support?

Seth Godin posted some thoughts on who the “Boss” actually is just a few days ago which helps to keep things in perspective. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter who on the team thinks they are right. What matters is whether the decisions made add new customers, keep current customers longer, drive up revenues, or decrease the costs of servicing those customers. The “boss” will always let you know how you’re doing in a measure called revenue from which you can qualify your success using another measure called profit. Make the right investments in the right way, profit goes up. Make a mistake… and well… that’s another discussion.

So… who is driving your priorities?

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It’s hard to believe that so much time has passed since my last post. I’ve been heads down trying to finish up my graduate degree, help some friends launch a new company, and figure out how to get the concepts we worked on during Mootcorp. Well, what was known as Extension Eleven will be rebranded as Whisper Labs. The solution set has evolved ever so gradually based upon the feeback of folks we have been working with. I can’t wait to get the product luanched and in the hands of folks.

The best part is that timing couldn’t be better. As I reviewed Harvard Business Review’s Breakthrough ideas for 2007, I realized that our solution stands in the nexus of eleven of the 20. eleven –> 11 –> 1 to 1 –> collaboration. 2007 will be a very nice year.

1. The Accidental Influentials *
Duncan J. Watts
In his best seller The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell argues that “social epidemics” are driven in large part by the actions of a tiny minority of special individuals. The idea seems intuitively right—we think we see it happening all the time. Nevertheless, this isn’t actually how ideas spread. It’s better to focus on getting enough plain, ordinary people to sign on.

2. Entrepreneurial Japan
Yoshito Hori
Japan’s economic rebound is generally attributed to the turnaround of corporate giants and to industry consolidation. But it is also fueled by the emergence of new companies led by entrepreneurs in their twenties and thirties. An entrepreneurial Japan ”no longer an oxymoron” may ultimately overshadow the much touted start-up cultures of China and India.

3. Brand Magic: Harry Potter Marketing
Frederic Dalsace, Coralie Damay, and David Dubois
Most brands target a specific age group. The big problem with this approach is that it positively discourages customer loyalty and, as we all know, it’s a lot cheaper to keep customers than to find new ones. To get around this problem, companies should consider creating brands that mature with their customers.

4. Algorithms in the Attic
Michael Schrage
For a powerful perspective on future business, take a hard look at mathematics past: the old equations collecting dust on academics’ shelves. Just as big firms need the keen eye of an intellectual property curator to appreciate the value of old patents and know-how, they will need savvy mathematicians to resurrect long-forgotten equations that, because of advancing technology, can finally be applied to business.

6. An Emerging Hotbed of User-Centered Innovation *
Eric von Hippel
Most countries, developing and developed alike, view innovation as a vital input to their economic growth and spend varying portions of their national budgets to support it in companies and research labs, for the ultimate benefit of essentially passive consumers. Denmark is taking a different tack: It’s making “user-centered innovation” a national priority.

9. When to Sleep on It
Ap Dijksterhuis
Use your conscious mind to acquire all the information you need to arrive at a difficult decision, but don’t try to analyze it. Instead, go on holiday and let your unconscious mind digest the information for a day or two. Whatever your intuition then tells you is almost certainly going to be the best choice.

11. Innovation and Growth: Size Matters *
Geoffrey B. West
Newfound general mathematical relationships between population size, innovation, and wealth creation challenge the conventional wisdom that smaller innovation functions are more inventive. They may explain why few organizations today have matched the creativity of a giant like Bell Labs in its heyday.

12. Conflicted Consumers
Karen Fraser
Your customer data indicate strong consumer satisfaction: Repeat purchase levels are high, and many customers have been with you for years. Good news, right? Well, appearances can be deceptive. Buried in the data may be a stealth segment of apparently loyal customers whose ethical concerns make them ready to bolt as soon as an alternative emerges.

15. Act Globally, Think Locally *
Yoko Ishikura
Companies are usually told to “think globally and act locally.” But thanks to their own global information systems and the Internet, knowledge from faraway places can be acquired relatively easily and cheaply. This means that firms have to discover and quickly incorporate good ideas from these diverse sources before their rivals do.

17. The Best Networks Are Really Worknets *
Christopher Meyer
The assumption is that if you build a network platform, people will come. If you expect to get real value from your initiative, though, you must think hard and in advance about exactly what function you want the network to perform. That will help you choose the participants, the nature of their experiences, and the technology. In other words, put the work in “network” first.

19. In Defense of “Ready, Fire, Aim”
Clay Shirky
The bulk of open source projects fail, and most of the remaining successes are quite modest. Still, open systems are a profound threat to many businesses, not only because they outsucceed commercial firms but, more important, because they outfail them.

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On my way in to the office this morning, Sirius Channel 22: First Wave was playing an old song from Love and Rockets “No new tale to tell” and it got me to thinking about my past, present and future. There really is no new tale to tell. We’ve seen it all…. and done it all…. nothing really is new.

“Our little lives get complicated
It’s a simple thing
Simple as a flower
And that’s a complicated thing”

Or is it? Everything, and I do mean everything, is nuanced and complicated and much deeper than we typically give credit. Take this for example: Techfoolery references a Washington Post article about musicians playing virtual concerts. Musicians playing music. That’s not new. Playing a virtual concert for virtual fans? That’s a little different.

Or, what about the latest patent application from Amazon? That certainly raises the stakes of personal data a few levels. Won’t be too long before we need to go to the three clearinghouses to checkup on the safety of our personal data. We’ll be able to look so many more places

“My world is your world
People like to hear their names
I’m no exception
Please call my name
Call my name”

Sure… its mostly the same old things… no new story, but one powerful & fundamental truth. It all comes down to the people. It can get complicated at times, and the answers aren’t always fun.

At the end of the day, we are all people with our dreams, families, obligations, and day to day needs. We want to feel important. We want to be inspired. We want to belong. We are, after all, social creatures of habit.

“When you’re down
It’s a long way up
When you’re up
It’s a long way down”

Isn’t it great when we find a vendor that understands our humanity? Doesn’t it feel wonderful when we feel someone truly cares?

Why is it that so many companies spend so much time and energy figuring out how to squeeze costs out of their processes instead of letting humanity back in?

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A good citizen is well read. Here’s what I’m consuming today:

Agencies are watching as ads go online
Among the teenage video diaries, pet tricks and rejected television pilots circulating on the online video site YouTube, there is another major category of clips: advertisements.

Amazon adds ‘Search Suggestions’
Amazon.com introduced a new feature on Friday, called “Search Suggestions,” that enables users to contribute keywords for items sold on the site.

Give users a Hollywood ending
We can all take a lesson from filmmakers: endings matter. The way we end a conversation, blog post, user experience, presentation, tech support session, chapter, church service, song, whatever… is what they’ll remember most. The end can matter more to users than everything we did before. And the feeling they leave with is the one they might have forever.

Mobile Marketing
Yesterday I received an unexpected message on my cell phone. It was actor Samuel L. Jackson shouting in my ear demanding me to go see Snakes on a Plane, the new movie he’s starring in that’s about–what else–snakes on a…

New Jupiter Report on Ratings & Reviews
Today JupiterResearch released and announced a report on user-generated content for retail specifically the use and impact of ratings and reviews for retailers. We launched our own release with more detail, below

Software’s big fight over small business
SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) — The software that runs businesses’ sales, finance, and operations, has never been the most exciting field - but lately, it’s been downright sleepy. Thanks to a merger frenzy over the last few years, Oracle, SAP, and to a lesser extent Microsoft dominate enterprise software sales to the world’s largest companies, and annual sales growth in this arena has slowed to a 3 percent trickle.

Citizen Evangelist: Buy a product. Join a community. Change the world

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When I was young, I attended a “lab” school. This was essentially a school designed to teach teachers how to teach… and one of the bi-products was that students were taught by teachers in training.

I suppose in the first six years of my life, I was subjected to more testing that most folks face through their entire scholastic program. As a result, I’ve always had an affinity for the various tests that one can be given.

Since I decided to return for my MBA, I’ve taken a couple of these that appear to be gaining greater relevance in my life. The first is the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator). Some information on Myers-Briggs can be found here.

As it would turn out, my “Type” is ENTP. There are some descriptions provided here. Of course, this is just a sample of the information that can be found here.

It’s interesting how many ways this information can be used when looking at organizations and their group dynamics. There used to be a number of places where you could go to get access to a free analysis. Those sites appear to have discontinued this offering. I suppose that you can get started here, but there will be some costs. Additionally, I know that you can typically get access to a test through a local university and many HR organizations offer these to their employees as well.

Thank goodness that there are a diversity of perspectives and personalities.

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