Software Product Manager by Gopal Shenoy

Month: October 2008

  • Audience, GPS, Monkey – Three powerpoint presentation tips

    I have written many prior posts on presentation skills and how not to use Powerpoint. I was recently asked to guest blog on Chris Brogan’s website. I decided to do this via a 6 min video. BTW, Chris Brogan is the most social media savvy and super-friendly person I have…

  • 5 ways software product managers can listen to the market without a travel budget

    Times are tough, budgets are being cut, there is no travel money to visit customers. Oh no, the sky is falling, how am I as a product manager going to listen to the market or get customer input on some of our ideas? This is the time to become even…

  • Managing products in an economic downturn – Part 2

    Here are couple more ways how you could manage products in an economic downturn. This assumes that you have enough cash in the bank to stay in business in the midst of slow sales. 1) Can your product help customers do things in a new way: Can your product help…

  • Managing products in an economic downturn – Part 1

    Currently, we are in a global recession (Yes I am tired of hearing it is coming, for all practical purposes we are in one). Pundits predict this to last a while since we are breaking new grounds with the global financial crisis, two wars, new President and the interlinking of…

  • 5 ways software product managers can develop their personal brand

    We as software product managers spend a lot of time figuring out positioning statements for our products to ensure that the product brand will stick. But how about our own personal brand? Have you ever thought about your own state? After all are you not a product? – what about…

  • Why did Facebook and Google forget their users?

    Recently Facebook did a major UI upgrade that caused an uproar in the user community. People screamed because the new Facebook UI was just awful and made the user experience terrible. Google last week brought out the new iGoogle UI and it is awful. To make matters worse, they did…

  • Demo candy may not be sweet after all

    Hey, it is Halloween time, so let us talk about some candies. Heard the term “demo candy”? – almost all of you probably have. Features that are thrown into a product because it appeals to the emotions of the buyer but basically a feature of less practical value. But there…

  • Biogen CEO James Mullen forgets to be human

    This post has nothing to do with product management. Andrew Baron, founder of RocketBoom reported yesterday that his father Frederick Baron, is dying of multiple myeloma, a particularly nasty form of cancer. Last week doctors gave him days to live – as of this morning he’s still fighting.Sad story indeed…

  • Product Review – Webnotes

    I came across a cool little product called Webnotes couple of weeks back. It initially caught my attention when I saw it at the Web Innovator’s group meeting a few months back. Webnotes is a startup based in Cambridge, MA. Basically, it allows you to annotate any web page using…

  • 5 tips to building a successful user community

    If you as a product manager would like to build a user community that will self sustain, here are some tips based on my experience building the foundations of a user community on 3D ContentCentral website that currently has close to 450,000 registered members. 1) What is in it for…

  • Taming the Powerpoint Monster

    Powerpoint is killing presentations. Speakers are happy – because they put everything they want to say on their slides and they are assured that they will never forget anything or make a fool of themselves. Alas, the audience is being tortured. I have been a big proponent of using Powerpoint…

  • WBUR/NPR is not “On point”

    I listen to WBUR/NPR every day on my 50 min drive to/from work. I listen to the BBC World news (and it really is world news) at 9am and to OnPoint with Ashbrook at 7pm. At last, I had found one radio station that I looked forward to listening to…