Knowing the market and understanding customers requires getting out of the office. You need to listen to the people who are in the trenches using your product or perhaps your competitor’s products. Understanding their needs, their pains, their ideas for doing things better help product managers tune into the market. After all, it’s the people [...]
Filed under: Knowledge, Product Management / Marketing | Tagged: customers, market, product direction | Leave a Comment »
It’s becoming increasingly more common for companies to hire remote employees who work from home. This trend dates back several years. I’ve noticed, however, that companies are increasingly hiring managers and even executives that live and work remotely. This trend is not new for sales teams, but it is (or at least seems to me) [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Learning, Product Management / Marketing, Team Building | Tagged: Communication, distributed teams, face-to-face, remote | Leave a Comment »
I was saddened to learn that Randy Pausch passed away today. Randy, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, inspired millions of people:
Outside the classroom, he gained public fame for delivering what would come to be known as “The Last Lecture.” On Sept. 18, 2007, only a month after doctors told him that he had three-to-six [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Learning | Tagged: Carnegie Mellon, Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture | Leave a Comment »
A few months ago I wrote a post I wrote about the reason I write my blog. I concluded that the reason (if there’s only one) is because it forces me to learn; to dig into books and magazines, to read other blogs and to find out where the things I value in the world [...]
Filed under: Knowledge, Learning, Product Management / Marketing | Tagged: blogging, Learning, passionate | Leave a Comment »
The work fake has various connotations and degrees. In one sense it means not real or untrue. It can be as harmless as an actor who shows contrived emotions or as damaging as a criminal who uses deception to defraud people of their money. Regardless of the degree, the act of faking or being [...]
Filed under: Integrity, Leadership, Trust | Tagged: confidence, genuine, humility, Integrity, leaders, persistence, Trust | 1 Comment »
Most people have more work to do than they have time to finish. In many cases there’s an endless array of work (or busywork) that gets in the way and takes up time that could be used more productively. Quite often the more trivial things get in the way of the more important things, which [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Product Management / Marketing | Tagged: accomplishments, productivity, results | Leave a Comment »
A common characteristic of tuned product managers is the passion they have for their work and the products they manage. Their passion shows through when they interact with the product team or speak to customers; they communicate their enthusiasm by their actions. Ivan at The Productologist wrote a great post about the importance of [...]
Filed under: Product Management / Marketing | Tagged: enthusiasm, passionate | Leave a Comment »
A few days back I found myself running up the street to a neighbor’s house during the middle of the day. When I arrived I was a bit winded, hot and sweaty. I asked myself how I could be winded after such a short jog; I’m training for a marathon and it’s not uncommon for [...]
Filed under: Leadership | Tagged: circumstances, conditions, decisions, solutions | Leave a Comment »
