best: product management manual

What is the best instruction manual for product managers?

Yee, Wong Herbert. Hamburger Heaven. New York: Scholastic, 2001.

(Amazon link)

In a review of this fine book, C. Posey wrote:

My son was delighted while we read this book. Tickled by fantastic illustrations and disgusting delicacies, he enjoyed the book from front to back. I used it as an opportunity to teach him about entrepreneurship, a not-so-obvious theme underlying the story.

While others' reviews have pointed out that the moral is about helping others, I believe it goes deeper than that. It is about Pinky Pig taking charge, and doing what is required to not only save her job, but to help grow the business she works for.

She performs market research (asking others what they'd like), planning and advertising (distributing the new menus in places her customers were most likely to frequent), and even delivering the desired product to the masses, which nets the business (and her personally) financial success, and loyal customers galore.

A great book with a moral? Yes. And a fantastic one about self-reliance at that.

This book is full of PM goodness that will stick in your head forever. Which is why it is the best product management manual ever. Recommended for readers of all ages.

PS: When I read this to my kids years ago they both said "that's what you do Daddy!" My son then asked when I was going to start a hamburger stand. He was not satisfied with my answer.

PPS: My reason for writing about this today was I found myself saying "it's the product our users want that is important, not the one that you or I want", and I was reminded of the line "Aardvark's burger has termites inside" from this book. Everything is Connected.

embracing: crossroads

IF you've been brought into an organization as its first product manager, most likely you've spent your first 100 days figuring out the lay of the land.

AND you've probably figured out that there are changes that need to be made in order for the product and perhaps the organization to succeed. Otherwise they wouldn't have hired you.

THEN you realize you're at a crossroads. You can either continue along the previous path, or introduce the disruptions required to get the product to the destination the organization has set for itself.

This is a very lonely moment in time. It's also the most important moment you'll face in your time with that organization.

How you lead your team through this crossroads will challenge you in every way. It's a make-or-break time for you, Mr. Product Manager. Embrace it.

choices: an exercise

Consider the following.

You live in a neighborhood in a city. Your neighborhood may have three (3) restaurants. No more, no less.

When you are tired / hung-over / lazy / inspired / hungry you may visit one (1) of these three (3) restaurants.

This is not to say that there aren't other restaurants you *could* go to. But they're *far away* and it's too early / too late / you're busy. You want to go someplace familiar / close by / convenient.

And so. You must choose.

For your neighborhood, you must choose three (3) restaurants that are within stumbling distance from your abode.

They may serve any of the three traditional daily meals.

They can belong to any ethnic group.

They may be as cheap or expensive as you wish. Money is no object in this gedanken experiment.

And they can have any menu which would be typical of the sort of restaurant you select. Please note that a "serve everything" restaurant is patently not fair.

The most significant requirement is that they must suit *you* - day in, day out - on those occasions when you decide to eat out.

For purposes of illustration, here are my three choices:

1. A traditional American breakfast joint. Eggs, toast, corned beef hash, and gallons of excellent coffee served in chipped porcelain mugs. And orange juice of impeccable provenance. Oh, and more coffee: black, like my heart. Waitresses who have seen too much and yet still find time to smile and remember your name. You must over-tip them religiously.

2. A French bistro. Steak frites, onion soup, blanquette de veau, choucroute garnie, cheese, cheap wine that is still pretty good. Baguette sandwiches with good butter and ham. Diffident waiters. Black and white tile floors. The occasional confit du canard and cassoulet. Zinc bar. A blue haze of Gitanes smoke. Mismatched cutlery and checkerboard-style tablecloths.

3. A ramen-ya. Tall stools wrapped around a workman-like counter behind a flappy set of frayed black half-curtains. Enough said. Here's a wonderful post about the sort of experience I'm describing.

Why is this an exercise? Because it forces you to think about what it will take to delight you *consistently*. It connects you to a part of your psyche that you don't connect with often - the part that appreciates unsophisticated, everyday pleasure. Because you don't go out to eat unless you need to - and if you need to, you want to eat something you can't make yourself. You want to be wrapped in an experience that speaks to you intimately.

Now consider that you have the opportunity to create this sort of experience for your customers.

It's a heady responsibility.

BONUS EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY: Share your three restaurants in the comments or send them to me on twitter @bobcorrigan

change: a (new) man bag for (old) man stuff

It's a shame.

"What's a shame?"

I've come to sense the limitations of my Belstaff Colonial Canvas shoulder bag.

"Buh-wha...?"

I've been on the road an awful lot lately, and it's just not cutting it.

"I thought that bag did everything but wash your dishes and stop bullets."

Don't get me wrong, it's a great bag. It's just not convenient for the serious traveler.

"What happened?"

First of all, it's just not big enough. I'm schlepping around a laptop, files, notebooks, my pencil case. . .

"You carry around a pencil case?"

Dude. You need a pencil case. I keep my spare pens, refills, my automatic pencil, a glue stick, all kinds of useful stuff in it.

"You're scaring me."

OK, where was I. Besides the pencil case, I carry an iPod Touch, the wires and charger for it, a phone, and that doesn't start to cover the other bits of crap I carry around, like hand sanitizer, whiteboard pens, a harmonica, a small stack of origami paper. . .

"Origami paper."

You need that for making presents for flight attendants.

"I'm not going to ask."

I've got my worry stone, a pewter acorn from the Morton Arboretum...

"OK, I have to ask. Why an acorn?"

You carry an acorn to bring luck and ensure a long life.

"Really."

I'm not taking any chances. Oh, and then there's my Midori Traveler's Notebook for tickets, receipts, itineraries, business cards and whatnot. And that doesn't include any books I'm reading.

"That's a lot of crap, Bob."

Seriously! If you're not getting on and off planes for a living, the Belstaff bag is swell. But I need something bigger.

"So just get a backpack or carry one of those big laptop bags."

Perhaps you haven't been paying attention. I need a bag for my stuff, not a ballistic-fabric monster.

"Except now you've got more stuff."

What can I say.

"So what man purse. . .I'm sorry, man bag are you looking at these days?"

Funny you should ask. Check out the Barbour Retriever Bag.

"Oh my."

It's waxed cotton so it's light, water-resistant and durable. It's got that nice Barbour tartan fabric liner. It's one big pouch with two small external pockets. And check out the dimensions: 16.5 x 16 x 6.5 inches. That's a good three to four inches longer, wider and deeper than my Belstaff bag. And it's not man-baggy-looking, if you know what I mean.

"Have you read any reviews?"

Come on.

"How much?"

Around $120, maybe less if I get lucky on eBay.

"That's a lot less expensive than the Belstaff."

And get this - there's a Barbour repair center out east in case something unfortunate happens to it. I don't have to screw around negotiating with someone in the showroom to get it fixed.

"Very nice."

I agree.

"Got another picture?"

Sure:

news: my new adventure

I'm not quite sure how to tell this story, so I'll be brief, start at the end, and leave the beginning for another day.

I'm working at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History as the product manager for the Encyclopedia of Life.

A few years ago Edward O. Wilson asked attendees at TED to "imagine an electronic page for each species of organism on Earth." Some brave people took up that challenge and a year later EoL was launched. If you want to learn more you can visit www.eol.org and poke around.

It's audacious, it's meaningful, it's a long way from finished - actually, it will never be finished, and that's part of what makes it so special. If we do our jobs correctly it will change the world. I'm honored, delighted and extremely humbled to be a part of it.

oh: and by the way

A few unrelated topics:

1. After three days in Leiden I'm convinced we'd all be better off if we all rode bikes. I think the Dutch ride bikes in part because being a pedestrian there is a full-contact sport. Curiously enough I didn't see a single person wearing a bike helmet, and yet I didn't read any stories of devastating head injuries. Could it be they've made cities "bike safe"? Or are their heads simply that much harder? By the way a wonderful review of a typical Dutch bike can be found here, with bonus points going to the author for being a Chicago resident.

2. Somewhere over the Labrador coast yesterday I finished Gail Carriger's Victorian-era vampire/werewolf comedy Soulless. It's a fast, fun read that will appeal to fans of the Dresden books (comme moi). It's a little long on the smoochy bits for my taste. The second book in the series is due out later this year.

3. While I invite and value your comments, I am going to delete any comments that include long strings of embedded URLs. I hope my Chinese readers will not be offended by this and will continue to read ack/nak.

definition: what is a product?

I had the opportunity to "define" what a product is to my steering committee last week. I thought I'd share my definition with you.

"Brands make promises to people - products keep those promises by delivering value in consistent, meaningful and delightful ways over time."

You'll note there are a few keywords missing there, such as profitable. It's missing because it's built in to the concept of delivering value over time - products that can't be sustained (by whatever means matters to you) can't be delivered, QED.

This definition works for me, because it aligns the mind around the customer, and it puts products into the higher-order perspective of the brand.

It also works for me because I can say it with my mouth full of food.

I hope all of you are well. I'm a week or so (I think) from being able to talk about my new adventure in greater detail.

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.