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“We all see what we want to see. You have to look with better eyes than that.” -- Lindsey Brigman in “The Abyss.”

Robin the product manager appeared distracted in the weekly development meeting. Finally she sighed and said to the team, “I left for work this morning at the regular time. Just a few blocks from my house, the car stalled and died. I tried to start it again. It would turn over but it wouldn’t start. So, I walked back to my house. But when I got there, I found my husband passionately kissing my best friend. What should I do?”

Wanting to be helpful, a developer said, “You know, I had that problem once. It’s usually a problem in the fuel line. You want to remove the fuel line and clean it out really well. Then I bet your car will start the first time.”

Have you noticed that some people focus on the right answer to the wrong problem? When listening to a customer or a colleague, try to find the root problem in the discussion. It requires better listening skills than many sales people or developers (or product managers) seem to possess.

The history of broadcast and the introduction of the internet gives valuable context to today's development and marketing. TedTalks shares this great presentation by Peter Hirshberg on The Web and TV, a sibling rivalry. In particular, one quote that really struck me was from Nike's head of marketing, Trevor Edwards, who summarizes the New Rules of Marketing this way:

"We're not in the business of keeping the media companies alive. We're in the business of connecting with customers."

Indeed.

The Cranky PM started it by describing different programmers from a product managers view. Ran Arad jumped in with his characterization of product management. He suggests that there are only two characteristics to consider:

• Has technical skills = (True/False)
• Knows what he wants = (True/False)

(Knowing that some product managers can't understand Boolean logic, he also provides a handy chart.)

For another view, see The Product Manager (in the movie Office Space)[NSFW]

Whenever I talk about The Strategic Role of Product Management, I discuss the importance of understanding the technology as well as the business. Many companies split product management into two parts, non-technical and technical (ie., the top and bottom of the Pragmatic Marketing Framework) but this organization style often fails.

No two ways about it: you need to be technical to be a product manager for a technical product.

Instead, most companies evolve to a left-right orientation of product manager and product marketing manager. The product manager is responsible for finding and quantifying market problems; the product marketing manager focuses on taking the product to market. Both roles require technical competency.

For more on roles, download my free ebook, The Strategic Role of Product Management.

Update: Paul Young at ProductBeautiful adds to the discussion in How Technical Should a Product Manager Be?

My friend Rich Mironov is planning a book on product management. I've been reading his Product Bytes since 2002. Scheduled for late 2008, the book collects the most popular Product Bytes columns from 2002-2008 with forewords by Prof Henry Chesbrough and David Strom.

If you’re willing to be a volunteer copy editor or commentator, please download the book and send Rich your notes.

I'm playing with a new tool called UserVoice that brings your customers into the conversation in a clever way. The glob of ideas can be reviewed and added to but most of all, they can be prioritized by customers. I see this being a great benefit to any product manager without overwhelming the IT department. (You'd think we'd have more advanced tools by now, eh?)

Anyway, as you may know, we're creating a new seminar for Living in an Agile World. You can find details here. I've started a User Voice forum for it.  In fact I created a forum for these classes:

Living in an Agile World

Practical Product Management

Requirements That Work

Effective Product Marketing

Pragmatic Roadmapping

New Rules of Marketing

I'll use this feedback to revise and extend the classes and I'll also keep you posted of my success with the tool.

Now go vote! and then consider how you should use this concept for your product.

I've been seeing marketing in everything lately. It's in the way you build your products, to the way you build your web site, to the way you use permission or interruption promotions, to the way you answer the phone (or don't!). Marketing is the promise you make and the promise you keep.

The challenge is that I'm teaching people to be agile and the marketing people are going, "WHOA! Let's put that into a waterfall, shall we?"

 Justin Taylor isn't waiting for the "establishment" to promote his album; he has started a "New Rules" campaign for marketing his new album with this video of Cheesy Little Love Song on YouTube. It's just him and a guitar, no overdubs or loops necessary. And he can PLAY! None of that American Idol preprogrammed junk.

Other videos to enjoy are Andy Mckee doing Africa by Toto and Pino Forastiere playing Fase 1 from Why Not?. Of course another fun video is The Alternate Routes' new song "Asked You Twice" (Also available on iTunes and Amazon.com).

Good marketing takes patience. Build a good product (or song or video) and begin a series of campaigns to spread the word about it. Let people rave about your product and the money will find you.