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Getting to be those lazy days of summer – ok, not really.  I’m in the process of packing up the house, coordinating all work and trying to find out how to get ready to be in Europe for the last half of August and into Sept.  No shortage of things to do in real life, so I thought it might be better to work on my focus here with a little research on what people are reading and not reading around here.

Ultimately it’s just looking at some content, stats and alike….  I’ve more or less made it an annual process to review the site, understand where it has been and what the trajectory looks like going forward – Strategic Planning more or less.

The Methodology

The process is fairly straight forward – review the content, identify content themes of personal interest and write, more acurately extend certain concepts.  The planning activity for me is psuedo-rigorous with a bunch of reading and thinking – no presentations to give, but a bunch of thinking and mindmapping.  The metrics and content themes are more or less directional and just make me understand a little more.

A Content Analysis

Over time the content and focused has changed, but there are two key areas of sustained interest for me, Branding & Product Management, which is where Spatially Relevant is listed by Alltop.   So as exercise I set out to  find out where and when did these themes started @ Spatially Relevant.  So I’m kicking off my market research for the 2010 strategic plan with a revisionist history on these two tags.

First Post on Each Tag

Product Management: First Post on Product Management was a slideshare preso on Product, which I can’t seem load, but more or less within the first thirty days of start.

Branding: Brand first appeared with an almost an incoherent post on pricing and promotion.  So the first 90 days of spinning up the blog.

Other Posts Over Time

• Brand as the Differentiator – Altschuler wrote this.
• What does a Product Manager do? – How is that different than a Project Manager?
• Target Markets and Segmentation – Brand and product targeting via content.
• Brogan on Marketing: Cultural change focused insights.

After reviewing the initial content here, I saw that it had a happy little randomness about it – sorta all lifestream like and stuff.  The site seems to be going back that way a little, last year I declared less fluff and more value as part of the strategic plan, not sure how that worked out in retrospect, but it was fun.

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I’ve never looked to AARP for messages about hope, the future and contribution, will now though!  Glad I found this on FriendFeed.

—-

Over my whole career I’ve been called a bunch of things, including even more this weekend thanks to Media Temple’s Outage by the handful of people that have domains on my server – “sorry – not my fault”, apparently not theirs either – Bluearc’s.  I digress….

Back to the names and questions and as a Product Manager you get both all the time.  However; answering the “just what is that you do again?” or the confirmations of what I do “Oh, you’re like a project manager, right?” are equally not as fun, which is something most Product Managers have to endure throughout their career.

So we all end up describing what we do in non-traditional job descriptions, which may resonate with folks.   Doubt it?  Take a look at the tweets from ProductCampBoston.

I’ve never considered myself a people pleaser, but corporate politician or favor trader works, which is not inconsistent with the Tweets above.  Ultimately the activities, ownership and accountability for PM’s is a difficult thing when a company has all 4 of the PM’s types – Product Managers, Product Marketing, Project Managers and Program Managers.  On any given product, project or initiative all 4 can be involved and ownership can be difficult to discern and each may have some level of conflicting goals/motivations, but that is have the fun of being a PM.   So I’ve been stuck on the 4 PM concept for like 2 weeks since I talked to a friend:

“We started a project the other day and it has a Project Manager, 2 Product Managers and 1 Product Marketing person and my boss is more worried about how the PMO office is going to report on it, rather than if we are doing the right thing” – Annoyed Program Manager.

Oh the right thing!  The right thing varies by job description and role, ownership, influence and visibility across the business.  So while I haven’t taken much issue with being introduced as a project manager, program manager or a product manager to clients, it’s mainly because in any given situation a product manager can be 1 or all of the roles.  I do know however that if dialed in correctly having all 4 roles can deliver good things for a business and a product. So figuring out what each person does is an important thing and may vary from project to project and release to release.

So I thought it might be a good time to put to paper a delta analysis of what a PM does of each iteration.

Project Manager: The Gantt Will Set You Free

Ever since Henry Gantt pioneered the controls, constructs and made a pretty chart with critical path diamonds, Project Managers (PM) have objectively been presenting slip risk, providing two sentence summaries and yellow/red/green bubbles to management teams everywhere.  Have MS Project can travel!  The reporting and task management realities of development, launches and organizational readiness require an attention to detail, lack of emotional investment and organizational balance which typically isn’t a core value for a Product Manager (PM).

The successful interaction of all PM’s with the Project Office is an imperative, since it is typically an agnostic group which is solely accountable for schedules, costs and trusted objectivity.  The best models are to have this as a standalone group.  Not all organizations have this type of functional independence, but they should.   I had a friend who once had the PMO in his PM group and let me tell you, that is a completely unfair organizational alignment for development and support, but a makes for a pretty cool Product Management time.

Product Management: Nebulous Interactions and Priority Juggling

While there is no patron saint of Product Management (PM) like Gantt for Project Managers, we do however have Dilbert and I’m OK with that.  I’m sure there is some developer somewhere is going to say Dilbert is theirs, but that just part of the life as a Product Manager.

Product Management is different in each organization, with different title lengths and varying levels of P&L influence/accountability.  Some are business owners and others manage requirements – some do all, while the common theme exist “You have to keep things going right way and manage priorities”.  PM’s are responsible for optimizing the cross functional interfaces, customer value and competitiveness of their product in the marketplace and that creates a bunch of Dilbert moments.  PM’s just dance around the organization and try to make things work.  In the more technical organizations these folks are constantly managing the delivery of IP to Product.

Program Manager: Strategic Managers of Stuff

Program Managers have the DNA of both the previously evaluated PM’s, not so much Product Marketing folk tho. These are link Project Management Ninja or pattern a matching Product Manager of strategic things.    Essentially a corporate tattletale of cross project collisions and the celebratory target for things that randomly align.   This is a great gig for project managers and product managers alike – especially if you get organizational resource influence.  Actually it could quite possibly be a really good gig with the right company: organization switching, cross product reporting and interfacing with strategic clients/executives.  There is significant risk of incremental sport coat requirements in this role.

While there are at least 1000 product managers at Microsoft, who each admittedly have a tough time articulating their role in the Borg, the MSFT program managers readily admit that “Dude – I got a sweet gig!” and have a REALLY hard time explaining what they do.  It might help just to understand the difference in a program and a project:

1. A project is unique and is of definite duration. A program is ongoing and implemented within a business to consistently achieve certain results for the business. A project is designed to deliver an output or deliverable and its success will be in terms of delivering the right output at the right time and to the right cost.
2. Program management includes management of projects which, together, improve the performance of the organization. A program’s success will be measured in terms of benefits.
3. Benefits are the measures of improvement of an organization and might include increased income, increased profits, decreased costs, reduced wastage or environmental damage, more satisfied customers. In central or local government organizations, benefits might include providing a better service to the community.
4. In the course of achieving required results, business programs will normally understand related business constraints and determine the processes required to achieve results based on resources allocated. Improvement of processes is a continuous operation that very much contrasts a program from a project.
5. At the lowest level project managers co-ordinate individual projects. They are overseen by the program manager who accounts to the program sponsor (or board).

I kinda see it like being a “cross-thing” corporate gardener and really similar to the other PM’s – the only difference is scope and lack of titles about director.

Product Marketing: Go to Market Magic

Product Managers (PM), not unlike program managers, are responsible for the random alignment of product goals and revenue optimization.   The right story, the right capabilities and the marketing mix are essentially the domain of Product Marketing folk.  Moderately good excel and PowerPoint skills are essential.   These folks are the organizational sanity check on a given product or set of products.  Sales enablement, product level brand connection and consumable stories which drives revenue and reduces cost.  For most organization’s being a PM is like being a Product Manager minus product delivery.

No matter where your company is in the 4PM model, all you need is a little trust and experience to make it work.  Detailed job descriptions help too, especially if you have all four.

Maybe I should have just tried to explain the roles by the core apps they use:

• MSFT Project + PowerPoint + Intranet Project Status Site = Project Manager
• PowerPoint + Email = Program Manager
• PowerPoint + Email + Excel + Software Lifecycle App = Product Manager
• PowerPoint + Email + Excel + Adobe = Product Marketing

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cheers! ~jon

Some of the highlights from my perspective:

• KSU got a $1.5M grant to research journalism in context of social media
• Chris Carfi rearranged the room and lead the engaging keynote discussion on markets
• Search.twitter.com basically STOPPED due to refreshes for those on the KSU network
• #SoCon09 sustained as a trending topic right up until the end of the day
• Met at least 6 people from Twitter I hadn’t met before – real life can be fun
• Met EVEN MORE people who I will now get to know better on Twitter
• Learned about really cool stuff people are doing in Atlanta – where are you people the rest of the year?
• Jeff Haynie reaffirmed that Your Idea Sucks and it is about execution!
• I met a person more theoretical and conceptual than myself, ok I met Greg Bond before, just didn’t realize it.
• Plenty of pictures shared in real-time
• I learned that facilitating a discussion is far more rewarding than giving a presentation
• I figured out you can go to a conference and make it to baby shower without issue, even if you start your day in Kennesaw

So who was there? A bunch of people, but to highlight a few and create pseudo blog roll:

• Jason Brett
• Lee Kent
• Kim Brame
• Mike Gresham
• Saba Long
• Michael Forrester
• Steve Cadly – dude you need to delete the hello world post, just an idea
• Rhonda Duffy
• Jeff Hillmire
• JBrotherLove
• Grayson Daughters
• Richard LeBer – His companies actually make stuff, like real stuff.
• Elizabeth Fairleigh
• Thomas Strickland
• John Mecke
• Matt Hyatt
• Taryn Pisaneschi
• David S. Cohen
• James Andrews
• Jess Pater
• Peggy Duncan
• Rob Dunford
• Urvaksh Karkaria
• Dougal Campbell
• Mike Adkinson
• Glulife
• Tessa
• Caleb Masland
• Amani Channel – Thanks for the live stream!
• Josh Hallett
• Moushumi Kabir
• Eli Wendkos
• Jeff Garbers
• Mallory8
• Scott Lockhart
• Jamie Gumbrecht
• Megha Bradley
• Brent Leary
• Sean Wood
• Joe Winter
• Hillary Meister
• Cameron Watson
• Matt Smith
• George Daniels
• Andrew Mccann
• Ricky Steele
• Ruth1150
• Justin Ruckman
• Kristina McInerny
• Bill O’Neill
• leatrice Ellzy
• Joe Magennis
• Desiree Scales
• Jessica Latin
  

At the end of the day, a big thanks has to go out to Leonard Witt, Sherry Heyl and all the folks at KSU.  The event clearly shows that technology interest and expertise isn’t in short supply in Atlanta.   As a follow up, I started trolling through the event tweets and the tweet below made me ask myself a question: So why would we wait until next year to synch up?

We shouldn’t!  Every month ATL Tweeters and Social Media Club Atlanta meet to share ideas, discuss things we are seeing in the community and try to find ways to get just a little more social in ATL.

If I left you off the “blog roll”, I apologize, I recreated via hash tags and cards I had in my pocket – so leave a comment and your link so everyone can read other folks out there in the Greater Atlanta Area.

Great meeting y’all and see you at either ATL Tweeters or the next Social Media Club meeting.

Cheers!

~jon

This unconference will span the practical to the theoretical and should provide significant insight into effective social media strategies and tactics.   The conference includes local business folk like me, the curious and those who are passionate about social media in the south.  For a complete list of the leaders and their bio’s you can get it here.  Hopefully the group will look forward to talking about Social Media and B2B and how social media can effect business communities and the impact of social media on social good.  Friday night provides for focused discussion tables around multiple topics and Saturday includes a conversation with Chris Carfi.

Registration ends in the like 3 days.  So if you are in Atlanta and have an afternoon to spend, come learn best practices and meet others in the community trying to change how they engage their customers and the market.

Many thanks to Sherry and Leonard for getting me involved and keeping the south active in social media.

The search for the new Twitter use case wasn’t a waste, I did learn some stuff along the way and find a couple of folks who are now in my RSS reader which is upside.  The one thing I did notice is how the tips and ideas posts are targeted at various levels of user participation and Twitter awareness.

To that end,  I took some time to create a hype cycle view of using Twitter based on the tips and tricks I found during my clicking around.

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• How to tell your mom what Twitter is
• Twitter for Business
• Ann Handley: B2B, Twitter and Me
• My Ten Favorite Tweets – Week Ending 122608
• Job: Monetizing Twitter
• Why you should be on Twitter – and how best to use it
• Using the Hype Cycle to your advantage

None. I was a technologist for the last 18 years, but got into marketing by way of joining an events marketing company (Pulvermedia), and just haven’t left the circus since. Over the last 10 years, I’ve been blogging and using social media for improved business communications. Turns out that *became* marketing when I wasn’t looking.

When you look at your career in marketing, what discipline/component have you found most interesting/challenging?

Interesting: listening. I think that listening and customer service are the new marketing. Screw your stupid tag lines and contests. If I listen to prospective customers’ needs, and I can improve the way a customer works with my company, then I’m doing what marketing really wants to do: acquire new customers and keep the existing ones happy. Have fun with your contests.

What do you feel the most important component of a successful marketing gig?  (Product, Brand, Positioning)

Moving a behavioral needle. Did I get something to change and stay changed from when I started until when I left.

Since you selected something I NEVER would have thought of how has that contributed to revenue?

Building loyal passionate communities is a great way to contribute to revenue. It’s lovely to ask people who are passionate about how you make them feel for money. They like giving. Revenue is a return on influence.

What experiences brought you to this conclusion?

I’ve run some very successful conferences, and I’ve also run some online marketing experiences for people. In both cases, my best proof is revenue. I hate the ROI question, because there’s no easy calculator that shows you what I’m going to deliver. So instead, I show revenue bumps as fast as I can. Seems like a fair trade.

If you could design the perfect corporate environment for a marketer to be successful what would that be?

Small, nimble, and focused on action, not beauty.

How far is this from reality?

Not far in my world. I’m working with some great companies, big ones, who love the idea that it’s as simple as listening, building relationships, and serving those relationships. I love developing quality content marketing for them, like group blogs or email marketing that delivers, instead of the same tired old marketing messages. I’m loving my ride, and looking forward to what comes next!

So after a year since the last Thanksgiving post I have anxiously awaited the 2008 version of my things I am thankful for post. This post is perhaps the most grueling, enjoyable and fun to write.  The list clearly will include similar and exact things from the last one, but that makes sense since gratitude and appreciation should be fairly consistent.  So while it’s been a very busy year, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a bunch of new folks, to try and work on who I am and to try better understand what is actually important.  I hope you have a bunch of things to be thankful for and another full year of opportunity to find new things to appreciate.

1. My family (all 3 generations)
2. The Community coffee mug I got this year,  It’s got a great heft.
3. Spring Time Panic – didn’t get the chance to see Panic at all during the spring of 2008.
4. Seeing “Greatest” Hits Live Music Shows (I got AC/DC in about 2 weeks!)
5. Being home
6. When the batteries die in noisy toys and they mysteriously disappear
7. On time departures
8. Sunny Days
9. A brisk morning walk (the 3 or 4 i get to do a year)
10. The fact that I almost know how to get around Phoenix now.
11. Catching up with Ron Kevren at least 1 time a year
12. Dijouri’s ability to experience pure joy from anything in life
13. Prescott’s ability to watch something other than “Thoas da trein” on tivo, like “srak”
14. I still like kids with afros, but have come to not like dreadlocks, I’m so glad that love is hair independant.
15. That sometimes your wife does just deserves a day at the spa.
    
16. My dogs still are cool
    
17. Cool maps, like my 1932 relief map of Europe which I can’t seem to get back after 8 years.
18. A show at the Tabernacle
19. Sancho’s broken arrow in Denver IS the best bar on the planet with a great ambiance, if you can call it that.
20. Waiting for the train at Hartsfield to take me to baggage claim
21. Naps
22. Watching my kids grow up, learn and change.
23. A good bowl of soup
24. My mentors (Ron, Ken, John and Jim)
25. Golfing when I can
26. Farmer’s Market Saturdays
27. The pre-school Prescott goes to, it’s kinda cool being sorta a Methodist, since it is a GREAT school, I guess we should go to a mass.
28. Mountain weekends thanks to Joan
29. Being able to have actually gone on a sales call in the US with my friends from the UK – they brought their usual cheer and weather – see below.
30. That I had the opportunity to speak in Calgary this year and now some kid is getting a scholarship in my name.
31. The fact I actually made platinum last year, so this was a little premature.  I like being platinum, if you have to fly, upgrades on nearly every flight are cool.
32. Playing Guitar hero and Wii Fit with my kids
33. That my facebook network has really become about friends, not just randoms
34. The connectedness that social media provides with my extended network of friends
35. Looking at my setlists on my iPhone
36. That I have friends that do good things
37. That I don’t mind a juice box every now and again
38. That Emily is usually right and I now just accept it
    
39. When Kevren explains to me just right he is, but typically is just trying to get me to say yes to something, but ultimately understands when I don’t go along
    
40. Emily’s cooking, specifically her pork paprikash – this hasn’t changed year over year
    
41. When Hadrian pukes and mainly misses me
42. The day I realized that I have no idea what I did before Google desktop
43. The Chicago Institute of Art
44. The whole SOB group, those that that are still among us and those that aren’t.
45. That Jen is a great mother of Kevren and Dijouri
46. Days I don’t have to shave
47. That I’m able on most days to wake up excited and go to bed fulfilled.
48. Everyday I have the opportunity to learn something new
49. That I was able to sit in a couple of songs and play Conga’s last week for bunch of folks and didn’t suck @ Fat Catz in NOLA on Bourbon St.
50. That a headline in a newspaper can change your day.
51. Random phone calls from folks I haven’t talked to for a long while
52. Understanding that today can be just as good as any day and it is MY choice.
53. iTunes Genius functionality
54. Eating with friends on Lake Austin is about as good as it gets.
55. That a visually appealing dessert actually tastes better, not sure why.
56. When I don’t forget my mom’s birthday, 2008 was a non-miss – I was the first of the kids to call.  Bonus points for me.
57. Not having to travel for Thanksgiving this year – two years in a ROW!
58. That I still have my atlas from my 18th birthday, it has a few less pages now thanks to my kids
59. That I finally said yes to Burning Man this year.
60. The moment I realized I should never drive in the UK.
61. Tailgating at a show with my friends
62. When Emily calls bullshit on me – I guess that’s why I married her.  It becoming less frequent, I guess l’m full o’ shit.  NAH.
63. My first Bulldog game and it was a slaughter of Central Michigan University, which was cool.
64. A Sunday afternoon drive with the family
65. Watching Dijouri think
66. Watching Kevren with his little brothers
67. Watching Prescott dance
68. Watching Hadrian walk
69. That most people are thoughtful, kind and mean well.
70. Jack’s Five-Cheese Macaroni & Achiote Chicken from Z tejas -  Made with bleu, Jack, cheddar, Parmesan and Romano cheeses, finished with toasted bacon gratin.  The Diablo chicken is good too.
71. That I’m lucky to still have a bunch of friends with the dreamers disease
72. That I realized that math is an important thing.
73. My readers and influencers.
74. The day I realized that creativity and logic are actually peer concepts.
75. That I can read not only on a plane now.
76. Real life conversations
77. The day I complained about SMC and got to develop a relationship with Chris and Kristie
78. The new professional traveler line at Hartsfield, I should still get a clear pass, but I’m too cheap.
79. Moments when I have the clarity of thought to acknowledge that I can’t control what happens – only how I react
80. That I’m clearly not a handy person and should hire most things out.
81. Watching folks who worked for me in the past doing well.
82. That going to Lake Tahoe was good idea and the luck to be able to have KISS playing there.
83. That a day on the Hooch is as good as anything, just bring sunblock.
84. That I have time to read to my kids
85. Direct flights
86. Ideas that work
87. Ideas that don’t work and learning from them
88. Sleeping in past 5am
89. That I am currently buying into the market at a discount (it’s the only way I can deal with it)
90. That it all works out in the end
91. The perfectly mixed Sicilian Kiss (1/2 Jim Beam, 1/2 Amaretto, SPLASH of OJ – Shaken over ice, served in a shot glass)
92. The day you find a really good $35 bottles of wine which is a repeatable purchase
93. The day you first try a wegyu steak and the second, third, fourth….
94. The bacon at the Camelback is just as good, well almost as good, as the bacon at the Four Seasons in Maui
95. When I get to hear all summer long by Kid Rock and thing to myself – since it is pretty much an accurate portrayal of being young in Michigan with a good beat.
96. That Chris, Sheryl and other folks were kind enough to help with the eBook on social brand management, The Social Marketing Construct.  Never would have gotten done without them.
97. When I am actually able to see a movie in the theatre.
98. A funny text message or Tweet which pops up when I’m in a meeting.
99. When I happen to actually pack the right clothes for the right climate
100. Any opportunity to share, listen and be with people I care about

Just like the last time, I probably have another 100 things I should be thankful for…. What are you thankful for?  Have a great holiday and be safe!  Cheers!

~jon

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