Time for a change

It's time for thinking about New Years Resolutions. I specifically have been following a collegue on Twitter who posted "Least Favorite Corporate Jargon." I looked. Then looked again. Having done product management for quite a few years now. I am guilty of quite a few of those catch phrases - passing them on to MarCom to use in press releases & product literature. Yikes. That's when I started to think about how I'd like to change how I do what I do (product management) to build relevant, sticky technology products - sooner. If you turned product management to a transparent ongoing conversation with end users, collegues, what would that mean? And how could you keep that momentum going?

What I'd like to do next, and what alot of technology companies are doing is showing some transparency in product development, ideas, and integration. I like it that Saleforce allows users in their community forums to vote on the best feature that should come next. I like it that Dell is using Twitter - like crazy. I like that advice from seasoned, very successful veterans in email marketing is easy- very easy to come by. You can get Harvard Business School lectures on YouTube. You can read the latest thinking of blogs of Pulitzer Prize winning writers for free. The online world, has become - much more open. I think that for any technology company to succeed against competition, that openness, risky creativity is going to have to be part of the culture of product development.

So this time around, without disclosing what InfoGroup might not want disclosed, I can at least share the process of developing a new product....so...here goes!