Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch, who became a YouTube phenomenon with his "Last Lecture," died Friday of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47.

He gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. As of today, the YouTube video has been viewed 3,241,377 times. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals.

What would you do differently if you knew you had only a short time to live?

In case you didn't see it, the Cranky Product Manager rails against a sales guy who has a title of product manager. With product managers like this, no wonder the rest of us struggle to get credibility with developers and others.

The fastest way to lose credibility (and about a 10% reduction in salary) is to say "I'm not technical."

I had dinner on Monday with the organizers of ProductCamp Toronto. ProductCamp is a collaborative unconference about Product Marketing and Management. The camp will be held on a Saturday in October. Details to follow.

As I ranted elsewhere, an unconference is about real people discussing about real topics rather than vendors making pitches. I'll be there, speaking on product management in an agile world. Whether you're agile or not, the techniques of agile can make you a better product manager.

ProductCamp only works if you get involved--that means speaking or leading a roundtable. Add your proposed session here or learn more at ProductCamp Toronto.

Quick! Which is better? Keeping your customers or losing your customers?

They say that it's ten times cheaper to keep a customer than to get a customer. (At least, that's what Ryan said on The Office.) Why do we lose customers? It's not price; it's not features; it's not any of the reasons we hear from sales people.

In The reason customers leave, Kristin Zhivago explains,

It's hard enough to get customers. In tight times, the last thing you want to do, after you've gotten a customer, is to lose them. Not a good idea. But, it happens all the time to lots of companies. Why?

One reason. Yes, that's what I said: ONE reason. In every situation, for every type of product or service, in all the thousands of customer interviews I've conducted, it's obvious that there is really only one reason why customers leave. The reason:

"You stopped caring about me."

(It's true for employees too.)

In our frenzy, particularly in economic downturns or company mergers, there's so much to do and so little time to do it. So we focus on the urgent instead of the important. Isn't it odd that the same clients seem to have emergencies time after time. Maybe they've learned that the best way to get attention is to cry "Wolf!" and your company responds.

(It's true for employees too. I knew a guy who quit with great fanfare every year. And every year, the VP of International Sales would woo him back with more money and more perks. What lesson did he learn?)

Have you contacted 100% of your customers this year... without asking them for money? Maybe you need to spend some time maintaining customer relationships.

What are you doing this year (and next) to keep your customers?

PS. Another incredible comment in the article. Kristin wrote: "...in all the thousands of customer interviews I've conducted..." Talk about being able to speak with authority. This lady has some serious NIHITO.

If you've known me for a while, you probably know that my son plays for a fine band, The Alternate Routes. For some weekend fun, you'll want to download their newest offering The Watershed EP. These songs lean a little more bluesy than the alternative rock of Good and Reckless and True. Both sets of songs are great. Download 'em and recommend 'em to your friends!

Phil Myers, president of Pragmatic Marketing and co-author of Tuned In, was interviewed on Fox Business. Watch the video here.

If you haven't read the book yet, maybe you can win one! Our friend Heather Hamilton at Microsoft is giving away copies of the Tuned In book on her blog. Just come up with the new tagline for the top of her blog. Check it out here.

My friend Jim Geisman is offering his Software Pricing Workshop next week at The Hyatt Harborside Hotel in Boston. He explains,

Pricing is important today because products change frequently, competition is intense, and software development and delivery costs are shrinking. New software business models, such as on-demand/SaaS (Software as a Service) delivery, are threatening traditional software companies. Whether you adapt to these new models or address them another way, a tactical pricing error will hurt your company.

You gotta worry about products where you have to create the need. Ugh. You can do it, but it's hard and takes too long. In "What are you selling? Product, category or need?", Gopal Shenoy puts it this way,

A product sell is basically where a prospect walks in and says “Give me this product” - the customer knows that the product solves a well known problem.

PS. Gopal, congratulations on becoming a US citizen!