Month: May 2008
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Has definition of leadership changed?
Has definition of leadership changed over the years – over the century? Countless books have been written on the concept of leadership – Amazon returns 263,761 results when you search for leadership – The 21 indispensable qualities of a leader, 21 irrefutable laws of leadership, leadership and the one minute…
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Surveymonkey messaging …..
I was checking out Surveymonkey to see if they have made any improvements since I last used it. Among the three survey tools (Zoomerang, Surveymonkey and Key Survey) I have used so far, Surveymonkey is the best hands down. So what impressed me about Surveymonkey this time? Check out their…
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Customer motivation to buy your product?
There is a great article on Business Week titled Johnson & Johnson’s Big Design Challenge which talks about how their design director Chris Hacker is promoting sustainable design. I thought the key sentence was when he says “The key to growing sales is not to load up the packaging with…
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Product Review – Service Magic rocks
Last week, I had to get a tree cut in the yard and then my garage door broke down with the door bent and the rollers popped out. Not knowing who to call, I checked out ServiceMagic. What an awesome experience that turned out to. Within minutes, they send me…
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Software product manager’s elevator pitch?
When I interview software product manager candidates, the first question I ask them is to give me their elevator pitch in one minute. Many candidates resemble a deer caught in the headlights and I am very surprised. If you cannot explain who you are, what you can do for the…
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Software Product Manager’s toolchest
I have been thinking lately of all the software tools and resources I use everyday to get my job done and to get better as a software product manager – here is my list in no priority order. 1) MS Office 2) Outlook 3) Google 4) GotoMeeting, Webex – to…
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Is Saas the real solution to address software piracy?
Software vendors have been struggling to find a solution to thwart software piracy with very limited success. Anywhere from 70-90% of software used in Asian countries like India, China, Vietnam and in the former Soviet republics is estimated to be pirated. There was nothing you could do when pirates made…
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9 elements of a good functional spec
A while back, I had written why a functional spec is needed in addition to a PRD. So what does a good functional spec need to contain? Here is what I consider elements of a good functional spec. I tend to use smaller paragraphs or bullets to make it readable.…
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Small decisions can impact product success …..
Last weekend, I volunteered to spend an hour at our local grocery store handing out flyers to shoppers on an upcoming Town hall vote on Grafton school feasibility study. We had a simple decision to make – do we hand out the flyer when shoppers are coming into the store…
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Five guidelines to prioritize feature requests
As a product manager, you are very likely to have more feature requests than what you can put out in a given release. In my case, a good product manager’s job at release planning is figuring out what to eliminate from consideration – you have to make hard decisions –…
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Small nuggets … Big payback
Recent news article about the airlines report how they are looking at flying slower to save fuel costs. Consider these numbers from the above article ….. $42 million – Southwest Airlines will save in fuel this year by extending each flight ONE to THREE minutes. $13.6 million – Jet Blue…
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Corporations ask for Mac, Apple says not interested …
The latest Business Week cover story reads Mac in the gray flannel suit and talks about how more and more corporations are now allowing their employees to use Macs in the office. Apple on the other hand has shown no interest in catering to this market. The above article is…
Software Product Manager by Gopal Shenoy 