Tag Archives: Ottawa

Business-Driven Product Management Podcast from PCamp Toronto

During ProductCamp Toronto in October I was interviewed by Donna Popacosta on Business-Driven Product Management. She turned this into a podcast which is now available on the ProductCamp Toronto website. Thanks to Donna for putting all this together.

Product Marketing for an Agile World

At this month’s OCRI Zone5ive meeting I delivered a presentation entitled Product Marketing for an Ever-changing World. [The Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) is Ottawa’s leading member-based economic development corporation for fostering the advancement of the region’s globally competitive knowledge-based institutions and industries.] The goal of this presentation was to educate the Zone5ive membership on how they can become more effective as the development team shifts to Agile development. This transition does not just impact the development team, it also impacts Product Marketing, Product Management and Marketing.

The net result is that product marketing (and product management) teams will have the ability to engage customers early and often throughout the project which will increase the chances of a successful product (or release) launch. In other words, by engaging customers during the project, they will feel like they helped shape the release (or capability or feature) and so will be in a better position to talk to the press and industry analysts. They will also help you with your messaging, i.e. they will provide with real value statements.

Social Business – Are You Ready?

Marketing and Operations together to leverage social networks to conduct business – that’s what social business is. This includes Product Management, Product Marketing, Product Development, Sales, Service and Customer Support. All of these groups within a company need to leverage social networks in an organized fashion to conduct business – i.e. generate revenue, improve customer satisfaction, etc.

As with any earth-changing technology, social networks are changing the way business needs to be conducted – companies need to get involved in the conversation as an integral part of they way they do business – Product Managers especially. Testing new ideas, improving existing capabilities, watching your competitors, etc. are all activities that the Product Manager needs to do on social networks – Twittter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. The first step is to identify your community – in other words the people and companies in your target market. Find out where these people have their conversations? All / some networks? This includes customers, prospects, competitors, influencers, users, etc. Product Managers must be part of the conversation to help achieve your company’s business objectives.

Are you ready? You had better be.

ProductCamp Toronto 2009 Sponsor

Ateala Management is proud to be a sponsor of #PCT2 (ProductCamp Toronto 2009). We look forward to meeting everyone. If you have not registered go to: http://pct2009prereg.eventbrite.com/. If you have not voted for your favourite session go to: http://productcamptoronto.uservoice.com/pages/28890-productcamp-toronto-2009-sessions.
We're Sponsoring ProductCamp Toronto, Oct 4, 2009

Ottawa Product Management Assoc. Meeting

#OPMA #ProdMgmt – The first meeting of the Ottawa Product Management Association will be a “meet ‘n greet” gathering at a pub (tentatively Tuesday October 6th, starting at 6:30pm). In order to attempt to make the location as convenient as possible (closer to work or closer to home or whatever suits), please complete the following poll.

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Thank-you very much … look forward to seeing everyone in October!

Product Management is a Philosophy

Too many companies view #ProdMgmt as a set of product managers who’s primary role is to manage the product requirements / backlog. They believe that as soon as they have hired one or more people to fill the role, product management is covered. That’s it; done … on to the next issue.

They can’t be further from the truth. Product management is about managing the product portfolio from initial concept through to end-of-life (EOL); maximizing the revenue their product(s) generate. This is the life-line of product companies … the entire company needs to realize that messing this up could be disastrous. Hence, product management is a philosophy that everyone needs to understand and determine what their role is in it.

This philosophy is about understanding that every decision anyone in the company makes has implications on the management of the product. Decisions by executives about where to invest or which markets to target are the obvious ones. But decisions by the finance group regarding contracts and/or licenses impact pricing and packaging or agreements with 3rd party suppliers impact the content or profitability model of the product are examples of those that are not so obvious. I challenge everyone to think of every department in their company and write down the decisions and actions by each department that potentially could impact the product(s) … you will soon see that there are many that impact the management of the product(s).

So as an executive, impart this philosophy on all of your employees … mandate that decisions and actions by everyone are fed into the product management process ensuring that fact-based product decisions are being made. As a product manager be proactive and set up your internal network so that you meet face-to-face monthly or quarterly to review the latest news to find out what will potentially have an impact on your product(s) … don’t be blind-sided.

Ottawa Product Management Association

To all you product managers in the Ottawa area … I’m interested in determining who would participate in an Ottawa Product Management Association. I envision that the association meetings would be on a monthly basis somewhere in the city with guest presenters or a panel discussion related to product management. The goal is to help enrich each other in the practice of product management and to network. It does not matter whether you are employed, self-employed or unemployed. If there is enough interest we can start in the Fall.

If you are interested, please send me a note through the Contact Us page on this site … use OPMA as the subject … or leave a reply below.