Category Archives: Product Development

Get Better Before You Start Shouting

Posted on Tuesday, 31 July 2012 8:27 am by

Marketing and communications professionals in companies and agencies often get called on the carpet to answer questions about why the product isn’t selling enough to please the executives. At times, it culminates in an agency review or with the termination … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Communications, Marketing, Product Development | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Scale and the Unbelievers

Posted on Monday, 21 May 2012 9:22 am by

There are two things that matter when building great products, movements or companies. They are easy to follow, easy to understand and also incredibly easy for those of us with MBAs and too much corporate experience to screw up. User … Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Marketing, Product Development, Strategy | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Real Innovation…

Posted on Friday, 23 March 2012 8:24 am by

…changes the courses of industries, if not society. Real innovation gives us the lightbulb, Linux, and the Internet. Real innovation also breaks your company’s current profit model, organizational structure and strategies. Real innovation is also messy, scary and “dangerous” to … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Communications, Leadership, Product Development | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

DICEE (Not Dicey) Products

Posted on Wednesday, 22 February 2012 9:11 am by

Are you still making undifferentiated beige boxes of mediocrity, developed by lowest-common-denominator product managers that are sold through “the channel” to anybody who fogs a mirror? Look to your financial results if you don’t know the answer to the question. … Continue reading →

Posted in Product Development | Tagged , , ,

Apple’s War Chest

Posted on Wednesday, 1 February 2012 10:30 am by

Chunka Mui provides his reasons for Apple to say no to using some of its $100 billion cash as a one-time dividend for shareholders. As a shareholder myself and one that’s been handsomely rewarded by Apple’s focus on the experience, … Continue reading →

Posted in Communications, Marketing, Predictions, Product Development | Tagged , , , , ,

Apple Wins CES

Posted on Monday, 16 January 2012 12:10 pm by

I didn’t go to CES this year and, with any luck, I never will. I think it’s easier to follow the flow of news from outside Las Vegas by watching my RSS feed, Twitter and other social media channels. While … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Product Development | Tagged , ,

“The Channel” to Nowhere

Posted on Thursday, 10 November 2011 9:00 am by

Why do you sell through distributors, resellers, VARs, or in other words, “the channel?” Is it worth your time building lots of infrastructure to manage the rules around distributing your product, dealing with channel conflict, commissions, “owning the customer” and … Continue reading →

Posted in Customer Care, Organization, Product Development | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

No Press Didn’t Kill Your Product

Posted on Monday, 7 November 2011 5:01 am by

Products fail in the marketplace all the time.  There’s a couple of main reasons why, but I’ll tell you why they didn’t fail: Marketing Corporate Communications All the marketing in the world can’t make a crummy product work.  Look at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Branding, Marketing, Product Development, Rants | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Passionate Product Managers

Posted on Monday, 22 August 2011 8:46 am by

Startups beat large corporations primarily due to a lack of passion.  Sure, the large company might have everything one thinks you might need to win in new product development: Capital Development resources Development process But what’s missing is the thing … Continue reading →

Posted in Career, Product Development | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Planning to Kill Creativity

Posted on Tuesday, 5 July 2011 8:56 am by

It’s annual planning time for big corporations and many of us are working feverishly on revenue and expense forecasts for existing products, planning our three year product roadmaps, capital budgets, new initiatives and the like.  It’s all very important, especially … Continue reading →

Posted in Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Product Development | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments