Today, I am thinking about a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto, client experiences, and the catalyst that originally took me into Product Management...Yes, I promise you, ALL these things tie together!
There are many paths into Product Management. As discussed in previous posts, many of us gravitate to the field because we have a passion for digging into the details of how things work, understanding why we are doing whatever we are doing, and working with people to transform intangible ideas into valued products. These three words (how, why and people) are like three legs of a stool called "success". Take away any one of these things. and the stool tips over.
Technologists and techno-centric companies are often very attuned to how things work. We are fascinated by the details. We think everyone else will be too. We create products with lots of features (more than our competition!!!). When the product is complete, we tout the technology and saavy that went into building it.
Then sadly, the eyes of the Market glaze over, and the lack of wallet-vote tell us we missed something.
And for the first time, we begin to look into why: maybe the Market just doesn't "get it". We go talk to "the Marketing Guy". "Hmmm, Marketing Guy says I need to provide 'sizzle'...what the hell does he mean by that? Obviously, he doesn't get it either...." Five marketing teams later, we either come to the conclusion that all Marketing people are morons, or we move one step closer to success: we ask the people we hoped would buy our product why they did not.
Asking a prospective customer seems like a logical and direct thing to do. Why is it such a huge leap for so many companies? I think it is because many of us invest a good deal of personal energy into our "babies". We want the Market to see them from our perspective. We want to persuade rather than listen. We do not want to hear that others find our baby cholicky, or worse yet... average! Sometimes it takes repeated failures to recognise the value of honest and constructive criticism.
Cluetrain Manifesto points out the tendency for companies to create barriers between employees and customers. It seems that the larger the company, the less contact we (the Creators of new products) have with the people who would be buying them. So we create in a void or try to substitute statistics, demographics, and averages for the opinions and feedback of real people. We kid ourselves into believing that the statistics will provide broader, more objective, and more useful information. The only problem is that real people are inherently not objective when it comes to personal choices. We forget that people have motivations and emotions that may not fit our models or be accommodated by our products. Their true feelings were not listed within "A" through "D" of the survey we sent them. Besides, they do not waste their time on fruitless exercises sent by strangers.
A number of years ago, I was a lowly Developer leading a software product team within a large corporation. My team could not find the answers to the why questions we asked anywhere within the company, so I overcame an aversion to public speaking to volunteer for opportunities to meet real customers who would be using our product. I found gold in every discussion! I brought it back, shared it with my teams. and our products began to win awards and gain a strong customer following.
In a time of unprecedented choices for communications and data gathering, understanding the difference between statistics and real people is critical. Statistics can tell you whether or not your product is selling, and provide valuable feedback. But for all the why questions that go to make-up great products and services, nothing beats 1-on-1 conversations with real people willing to share their views for transforming your ugly baby into something beautiful.
