The Productologist

This is a new feature that I am trying out. On a regular basis, I’ll write a post with a collection of interesting (at least to me) postings from other Product Management blogs. It’s intended to give my readers some exposure to what else is going on in the world of Product Management and to spur some dialog.

Just because I include a link to a particular posting, that is not an indication that I agree with the original author. In fact, I may post topics that are the opposite of my views or at least somewhat controversial in order to provide a contrasting viewpoint to the one I present on The Productologist.

I went to visit a customer a few weeks ago as part of a commitment to myself (and my products) to get out into the field more often. My goal with them and with all of my planned visits to the field was to talk about how they use my product, what business challenges they face and what they see for the future in terms of their own growth and what they would want and need from my product. I got what I was looking for…and a whole lot more.

I was at a SVPMA meeting last month where the presenter, Barbara Nelson from Pragmatic Marketing, was giving a talk about the “Politics of Agile” and during the course of the discussion, she brought up examples of products that she had managed in the past. What I noticed was that when Barbara talked about the products, she always referred to them as “her” products. That’s what I like–making the product personal.

The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley with Jonathan Littman

I spotted this book at my local library while perusing the business book section and was drawn to it by the fact that it was written by someone involved with IDEO.

For those of you who don’t know what IDEO is, they are a world renowned product design firm based out of the San Francisco Bay area. They are responsible for many product designs you are probably familiar with, such as the Palm V and HandSpring PDAs, the Swiffer sweeper, the interior of the Amtrak Acela commuter train and others. You can check out more about what they have done and what they do on their website.

I recently decided that it was time to get a replacement to my dead USB mouse, which I used when I moved my laptop to conference rooms, prospect and customer sites and while traveling. I had put off replacing it, since the laptop provided by my employer has both a track pad and keyboard nub pointing device and I figured that I could get by using one of those when I had to undock from my desk. However, I have come to the conclusion that pointing devices that are built into the laptop are fine for general UI navigation (starting apps, opening files and the like), but not so much for hard-core navigation inside an app or through a document. Enter the Logitech VXNano.