Posted on May 26, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
Working as a product manager has at least one interesting side effect: you become keenly aware of customer service in nearly every aspect of your day-to-day activities. At the end of the day, happy customers spread the word about your products and services and you get more happy customers. So when you go into a [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Product Management / Marketing, Trust | Tagged: Communication, customer service, Delta, Hilton, honesty, Marriott, social media, Universal Studios | Leave a Comment »
Posted on May 12, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
Every product and service we have today was once an idea. Even the most basic items did not exist before someone (or ones) came up with an impression of a product or service that would be useful in some way. When you stop and think about it, the number of incredible products and services available [...]
Filed under: Innovation, Knowledge, Leadership, Market-driven, Product Management / Marketing | Tagged: strategy, customer focus, products, services, Carol Bartz, Yahoo! | 3 Comments »
Posted on May 5, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
Today’s post comes from Jim Holland. Jim’s passion is product management and product marketing. With over 20 years of technology industry experience, he has a fresh and current perspective in leading product management teams and has a gift for taking conceptual ideas and turning them into strategic reality using methods based on market sensing best [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Market-driven, Product Management / Marketing, Team Building | Tagged: balance, committment, Communication, courage, credibility, Flying Monkeys, interactions, Jim Holland, success, unsolicited requests, Yin-Yang | Leave a Comment »
Posted on April 21, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
The best thing you can do to elevate yourself is to lift others: lift their spirit with a kind word, lift their hope with a positive reaction, lift their burden by helping them in times of need. The act of lifting others causes you to feel better and to improve.
Yesterday my friend Todd sent out [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Product Management / Marketing | Tagged: Dr. Paul, improvement, Steve Farber, Greater Than Yourself, lift others | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 9, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
It’s no secret that difficult situations happen to everyone. Nothing you do will remove every obstacle on your path to success.
At time, the difficulties — such as emergencies — happen quickly. In those cases most people act quickly and do everything they can to mitigate their problems. However, difficulties often creep up slowly and cause [...]
Filed under: Knowledge, Leadership, Learning, Product Management / Marketing, Purpose | Tagged: decisions, faith, Jason Jennings, paralysis of inaction, product quality, success, Think Big Act Small | 3 Comments »
Posted on April 7, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
A common practice in marketing and product management (and other disciplines) is to create personas to capture behaviors, patterns, goals, skills, attitudes and environment of people. The personas — though fictitious in nature — represent potential buyers and users of their products; they guide professionals to design the right products for the right people at [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Learning, Product Management / Marketing, Purpose | Tagged: adapter, buyer persona, persistent, personas, products, success | Leave a Comment »
Posted on March 31, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
Leadership, by its nature, involves being out in front, cutting a trail through difficult surroundings and confronting problems as they arise. Leaders spot opportunities and through the combination of market evidence and intuition pursue the right course for themselves and their organizations. They figuratively walk ahead and make sure the surrounding conditions are suitable for [...]
Filed under: Integrity, Knowledge, Leadership, Market-driven, Product Management / Marketing, Trust | Tagged: confronting problems, courage, humility, Integrity, intuition, market evidence, opportunities | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 27, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
This week’s posts on Lead on Purpose have been highly influenced by Steve Farber and his work in leadership. I had the honor of interviewing Steve on the Product Management Pulse yesterday. The conversation focuses on two areas:
Extreme Leadership (”otherwise known as ‘real’ leadership”) and its odd mixture of fear and exhilaration. If the only [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Product Management / Marketing, Purpose | Tagged: Extreme Leadership, Greater Than Yourself, Product Management Pulse, Steve Farber | Leave a Comment »
Posted on March 18, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
What is the most important role in a company? That question has been debated endlessly, and as the idiom goes, the “jury is still out.”
If you think about this question not from the perspective of the role, but from the perspective of the outcome, you start to shape opinions that at least get you closer [...]
Filed under: Leadership, Market-driven, Product Management / Marketing, Techology | Tagged: Marketing, products, sales, services | 2 Comments »
Posted on March 9, 2009 by Michael Ray Hopkin
Announcing the Utah Product Management Association (UPMA): If you live in the Utah (USA) area we would love to have you join us for this upcoming event. If you live outside of the Utah area (which admittedly applies to most of you) please help us spread the word to any friends, colleagues or contacts you [...]
Filed under: Market-driven, Product Management / Marketing | Tagged: education, Glen Mella, networking, product management, Professional Association, UPMA, Utah, Utah PMA | Leave a Comment »