It is not really funny but... Sharper Image has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing declining sales, three straight years of losses, and litigation involving its Ionic Breeze air purifiers. Yes, I can see these are bad issues.

But maybe it's as simple as selling products that are possible but stupid doesn't work in the long-term. People don't want what they don't want. And no amount of perfume can overcome the stench of a pig product.

Our annual product management survey reveals that a typical product manager has three products to manage. The number of products per person tends to be higher in older companies but perhaps that's less a function of age and more a function of product revenue. Maybe the relevant comparison is revenue instead of products.

My friend Saeed at onProductManagement is running a survey to get some numbers on this issue. He writes,

After reading my article, “You can never have too many Product Managers“, the person asked me whether I knew of any published numbers that provide guidelines for the number of product managers a company should have relative to its revenue.

What do you think? Come offer your experiences to the survey. Saeed will post results on his web site soon.

Personas continue to be a hot topic in our training classes and in the blogosphere. Kristin Zhivago fears we might be hiding behind personas instead of getting to know actual customers.

Kristin is right as usual; nothing can replace the value of interviewing a real person. And you can see a lot more in an onsite interview than you can hear in a phone interview.

I'm frequently asked about surveys and phone calls and telemarketing and a dozen other methods for not visiting clients. Why is it so hard for product managers and marketers (not all of course, but many) to visit customers and non-customers?

Personas are a powerful tool to convey market information in context for marketing and development. But those who create personas must be grounded in the market. Interview some people before you begin.

Michael has some interesting additional thoughts.

Some new info on agile and politics and roles:

• Barb Nelson explains The Politics of Agile.
  
• Scott Sehlhorst extends the idea in Specializing Generalists and the Politics of Agile.
  
• Join us today for our webinar on Using User Stories for Effective Product Requirements.
  

It's cheaper to keep an existing customer than to win a new one. Satisfied customers are more loyal customers. And it's easier than ever to spread the word about a poor customer experience. SearchCRM offers this article with stats on the value of customer service.

In Where’s My Laptop?, Dee Chisamera reports:

How much is a laptop worth these days? Well, according to a lawsuit against a local Best Buy local store in D.C. area, $54 million! Raelyn Campbell is an unsatisfied customer, who took her broken laptop to the “Geek Squad” at Best Buy, together with a warranty, due to hardware malfunctions, and never saw it again.

Chisamera continues,

Why $54 million? Raelyn Campbell, 37, said she is perfectly aware of the ridiculous amount, but if this is the only way to draw attention to the consumer property and privacy rules of Best Buy, so be it, and at the same time, because $54 billion is lost every year because of identity theft.

As they say: satisfied customers tell a few friends; dissatisfied customers tell everybody.

Netflix has long been a good example of finding the weakness in the competitor's strength. They have leveraged the power of the web with a centralized inventory and a partnership with the post office.

Techdirt writes,

You really have to hand it to Netflix. Every time some new (big) entrant enters the market and prognosticators insist that Netflix is going down, the company has managed to keep on chugging along -- while the competitors eventually capitulate.

Wal-mart tried to copy the Netflix model, turned it over to Netflix, and then dropped it entirely. Now Amazon has abandoned their Netflix-like service too.

The best competitive strategy is to leverage your distinctive competence while undermining your competitor's strength.

Why is a Product Manager like the office photocopy machine? Find out on The Indomitable Spirit of the True Product Manager.

Dennis Yang comments on the state of telecommuting, providing some really good links to supporting research. He writes,

Although studies have shown that telecommuters are happier and less stressed, the happiness actually comes not from the telecommuting itself, but from the higher flexibility and autonomy afforded by telecommuting policies. By not chaining workers to a desk for 8 hours a day (which has also been shown to stifle productivity), employees are afforded the flexibility they need to mold their job around their busy lives, and not the other way around.

In Practical Product Management, I challenge product managers to allocate one day a week to be productive. What are you doing this Thursday?

If you are in Silicon Valley, you'll want to come to Barb Nelson's presentation on The Politics of Agile at the Silicon Valley Product Management Association (SVPMA) on Wednesday February 6th at 6:30PM.

Whether a start-up or established company, building on-premise or on-demand products, the politics of being a product manager in an agile environment can be one of the most challenging parts of the job. Join this session where we will examine what you need to know to become an essential part of the agile team without becoming the victim of a methodology inflicted on you.

For the first time ever, NASA will beam a song -- The Beatles' "Across the Universe" -- directly into deep space at 7 p.m. EST on Feb. 4.

The transmission over NASA's Deep Space Network will commemorate the 40th anniversary of the day The Beatles recorded Across the Universe, as well as the 50th anniversary of NASA's founding and the group's beginnings. Two other anniversaries also are being honored: the launch 50 years ago this week of Explorer 1, the first U.S. satellite, and the founding 45 years ago of the Deep Space Network, an international network of antennas that supports missions to explore the universe.

Feb. 4 has been declared "Across The Universe Day" by Beatles fans to commemorate the anniversaries. As part of the celebration, the public around the world has been invited to participate in the event by simultaneously playing the song at the same time it is transmitted by NASA.

I dunno; silly publicity stunt or kinda cool? I'm not sure. It's a success if it gets a new generation talking about science.

In related news, NASA has determined that 12 percent of its engineers and 21 percent of its scientists are now eligible to retire, and estimates that in 2011, 28 percent of its engineers and 45 percent of its scientists will be eligible to retire.

Product managers in the St. Louis area should make plans to attend the first meeting of the St Louis Product Management Association on Wednesday, February 13, 2008, at SAVVIS. The first official meeting of the St. Louis Product Management group; to help define the goals of the group, establish logistics (e.g. when to meet, what topics to cover), and meet other product managers.