warning: worst beverage ever

I'm reluctant to name names, but if you should ever find yourself debating the relative merits of, say, a delicious carbonated fountain beverage and a "plain cappuccino" while waiting on line at a branch of our nation's (perhaps our world's) largest chain restaurant, PLEASE G_D select the delicious carbonated beverage. Because if you choose the other beverage, you will get a beverage that will give you diabetes on the spot in addition to burning whole swaths of taste buds as efficiently as if you had licked a simmering cauldron of napalm.

When asked "can you make it less sweet" we were informed "that's the way it comes out of the machine".

And we didn't even get it with the traditional garnishes of whipped cream and brownish sugar ooze (a.k.a. chocolate syrup).

It went unfinished into the garbage can around the corner.

You've Been Warned.

song: ashokan farewell

discovered: saddleback leather company

Readers know I'm devoted to my Belstaff Colonial Canvas shoulder bag.

But it's. . .made of canvas.

Which means it's not as durable as I'd like it to be. It suffers from wearing at friction points. It isn't what I'd characterize as waterproof. It is no friend of pointy things.

So I'm always on the prowl for well-made bags that can stand up to the sort of abuse I'm prone to subject my bags to.

Steve Derricott at Gfeller Casemakers makes lovely bags. But his range is limited to pieces that work for geologists and the like.

The nice people at Ghurka make lovely bags. But that's their problem - they're too lovely.

When Patrick Ng started publishing pictures of a bag he got from Saddleback Leather Company, I had one of those "ah ha" moments.

Go have a look and let me know what you think.

thanks: giving

I have an awful lot to be thankful for.

It has been an "interesting" year. I have had other "interesting" years before, as all of you have. This particular "interesting" year is ending on an up note, with plenty of good things to look forward to.

So it's at times like this that I come to appreciate that Thanksgiving shouldn't be all about "muttering a few words of relief that my life isn't as screwed up as INSERT INDIVIDUAL OR INDIVIDUALS' NAMES HERE." And it shouldn't be all about an organized eating festival.

Thanksgiving is a day, like Christmas and Easter are days, to be reminded of a simple truth.

It is a day that teaches us to say thank you.

We are all beneficiaries of kindness - I know I am. One of those kindnesses is your attention - for which I'd like to say thank you.

I hope you enjoy tomorrow in the company of family and friends. If you can't, I hope you will seek out the company of like-minded individuals. Because it's kindness that makes life worthwhile, and giving thanks for that kindness that makes us human.

considering: what's first UPDATED

I'm waiting.

"What are you waiting for? Godot? Mr. Goodbar?"

I'm waiting for my new job to begin. And by the way, you look for Mr. Goodbar, you don't wait for him.

"Woo hoo! Terrific! What are you going to be doing?"

"Product management."

"Where?"

Can't say. Yet.

"Why?"

Can't say that either. But I can say that I'm looking forward to starting, and I'm considering what to do first.

"What you do first is easy. You sign a lot of papers, you get your picture taken, you shake a lot of hands."

That stuff doesn't count. I'm talking about what's first.

"You've already written about that. You take a document inventory."

Well, yes. . . but. . .

"Come on, don't tell us that you're not going to take your own advice?"

The real world is complicated. Blog postings about product management make everything seem so cut-and-dry and black-and-white. Life is much more dynamic than that.

"OK, so what's first?"

I think job number one is to keep my mouth shut and listen.

"Really."

Really. When I was just starting out as a product manager I remember spending time selling the concept of product management to the new people I was working with, which was more of a telling thing than a listening thing.

"And you don't have to do that?"

I don't need to convince anyone that I know my craft. What I have to do is just do it. And that's going to take a lot of listening. And an absolute mountain of reading.

"But you like to read."

That's true.

UPDATE: Reader Matt, regretting the lack of a decent search facility on ack/nak, asked in a comment for me to cite the article in which I discuss taking a document inventory. That article can be found here.

thinking: about the blessing of mileage

A friend of mine has just started a new business - a genuine wine and cigar "bar" in Brighton, Michigan. It's already getting some great press. You should go there. But that's not why I'm writing this.

I know the guy who owns it. He is, as one of my Irish ancestors would say, a mensch. Such a man as operates this genuine wine and cigar "bar" you will rarely find, even if you lift up rocks in the search for said brand of fellow.

I know him from Way Back When, and I know a little about the trip he's taken to get to where he is today.

I don't envy him that trip.

Looking at the Facebook page dedicated to his new venture there is a picture of this man, smoking a cigar, looking quite content. When I see that look of contentment on his face, I know it's something he's paid for, and paid dearly.

Whatever joys and sorrows have come his way have created a man of substance who occupies a still point in a moving world, as Eliot would describe it.

It's not the years, it's the mileage. Sorry, Indiana, I'm going to borrow that line.

He's earned that cigar. Now you need to go buy one from him so you can reflect on the benefits of the miles you've racked up.

link: the software maven

If you're a developer or a product manager who has come up through the software development ranks, you probably already know about Travis Jensen's blog The Software Maven.

What I really enjoy and value about Travis' writing is his focus on how the product development and product management roles relate (or don't relate, as the case may be) to each other over time, which is to say at different points of the software development life cycle. Each season of the product development process brings different challenges; Travis' insights into these different seasons makes for terrific reading.

So how about you take a break from the same old product management bloggy bits and explore something new. For your Added Convenience he provides a regular run down of what's interesting out on the intrawebs too, which is very helpful for people like me who tend to read all the same bloggy bits most days.

PS: I'll be coming up for air soon with news of my Exciting New Adventure, so stay tuned.

hello: visitors from pragmatic marketing

If you've just finished reading my article in October's Pragmatic Marketing newsletter and have decided to pay a visit, welcome. You may skip the next line.

If you have not read that article, please refer to the link above, then come back.

For your amusement and edification I have made it easy for you to find what you want here at ack/nak. Simply use the tags found on the upper right hand side of the page, relax with a delicious beverage and your choice of snacks, and enjoy.

idea: the LRD (life requirements document)

In one of my first posts here I wrote about the importance of writing the MRD first. It's amazing to think that was almost four years ago. Gosh I'm long-winded.

Recently I've come to appreciate that there's a document that must be written prior to the MRD.

It has nothing to do with your market, your products, or your company. It has everything to do with you.

I can't take credit for this - my wife made it clear to me that I needed to write down "what I wanted" if I was going to conduct a successful search, whether it was for consulting clients or a full-time gig.

"If you're such a hot-shot product manager, Bob, where are your requirements? Have you written down what you want, what's important to you, and what you will and won't accept? I think I recall someone saying 'if it's not written down it's not real' so get busy."

And so was born the LRD, or "life requirements document".

My headings are values, work (vocation), work (avocation), family, location, priorities, outcomes and challenges. Your headings will be your headings. Like the MRD, it is a living document.

I'm sure there are folks out there who are very adept at the "writing down of goals" part of this thing. But what I think is illuminating was the idea of treating it like a PM document, and as a private precursor to the MRD.

So where the MRD helps you understand:

Who are we selling this product to?
How are we going to sell this product?
What is the competitive landscape we're selling into?
What are the sizes of our buyer segments?

The LRD helps you understand:

What sorts of problems are you interested in solving?
What sort of customers are you interested in helping?
What markets are interesting to you?
What sort of people do you want to work with?
What motivates you?
What will make you feel like you've "won"?
What constraints do you need to work around?
What other activities do you need to pursue to make you feel "complete"?
What gaps exist in your capabilities that you must address or can safely ignore?

I could go on like this for a while, but you get the idea.

I've written a lot of MRDs for products and customers that frankly I wasn't all that interested in. Maybe it's a function of age, experience and scar tissue, but I am very focused today on making meaning, not just money.

If you're staring down the barrel of another development adventure and wondering what your life has come to, perhaps a little time spent writing your own requirements would help you understand whether or not you're doing work that is going to meet those requirements.

nice: persona-driven demo

If you're one of those folks on the prowl for news about the alleged Apple tablet, you probably saw reports of an equally alleged Microsoft device surface in recent days.

Well kids, MSFT beat APPL to the punch today by leaking (releasing?) a concept video that shows the Microsoft "Courier" device in action. OK, it's not the real thing - it's all animation and shadow-hands and a soothing hipster voice over.

But it does do something very, very well - it demonstrates a typical use case, and shows how the product supports that use case. It doesn't focus first on features - it focuses on value.

I was impressed.

Since I can't embed the Gizmodo video of the demo here, you will just have to go there to see it.

Sometimes product managers leave the "marketing stuff" up to the "marketing people". When it comes to how your products are demonstrated, don't let this happen. Make sure you connect capabilities to value by grounding them in problems people have, and how you help them solve those problems.