My passion for Product Camps is no secret. Since attending my first one in November 2009, I have gone on the road to enjoy additional events as well as organized a few, bringing me to the grand total of being an attendee at 12 Product Camps. (That is, until the 2012 year where I hope to go to some more!) Each one was fantastic and I loved learning from, teaching and networking with all of the product professionals I have had the pleasure of meeting over the past few years.

Now it’s my turn to pay it forward.

As many of you know, for the past several years I have done some “side projects”, aka consulting work. Sometimes this was my primary income; sometimes it supplemented a salary from a company. While doing this work I have operated under the business name HarborLight Partners. It is through this business I am starting a new program – a Product Camp Scholarship.

A scholarship to attend a product camp? Yes. The scholarship is being offered to help new, first-time attendees with travel expenses when their companies do not so that the individual does not have to bear the whole expense out of pocket. (I’ve done that 8 times, and it can add up.) The scholarship is not enough for airfare or to stay at a 4-star hotel; but, if you need help with a tank or two of gas, or one night at a reasonable business hotel, and that will make the difference in your attending, then this program is for you.

I am not looking to have the major product vendors contribute large dollar amounts so that more people can attend. The vendors do a great job of sponsoring the events, and when you add it up they spend quite a lot of money on our community. Rather, this is a micro-scholarship program designed by the product professional community FOR the product professional community. Why? Simple. All too often we have no one to turn to for support in our companies, being an isolated team of one (or a few); but, product camps offer us a support network where we can turn for continued learning. That is what this program is designed to support.

The form for first-time attendees to apply is available here. It’s a 5-minute process. If you are considering attending your first Product Camp, now is the time to apply. Requests must be received 2 weeks in advance of the Product Camp date.

When you do attend remember to do so with a purpose. If you want to propose a session, read this short blog post about presenting at a Product Camp.

Money will be awarded as it is available. There are no guarantees of amounts or the duration of the program. I have seeded the fund with a beginning balance. But, to keep offering the scholarship, more money will be needed. I am committed to adding to it as I am able; but if you have been to a product camp, see value and want to support the program and pay it forward, there is a link here where you can add your micro-donation to the cause. (This is not an official non-profit scholarship fund. There is no tax deduction available.) Even those $10 donations can add up fast and make a difference when the product community comes together.

Now’s the time to start applying! I hope that past attendees of a Product Camp see value, come together as a community and join the cause. I also ask the product community to help promote this program. It’s not about me – it’s about us. Come join the fun! I’ll see you soon at a product camp. (And, thank you.)

All over the web and in all the product management communities, there are articles and discussions about gamification. If you’ve been offline for a while, gamification is about applying design and development efforts to software in a way to make it more engaging, more “fun.”

Not only have whole applications been born under the premise (i.e. Foursquare), but gamification has also had great impact in some of the more traditional business software, (ie. Salesforce.com) allowing for more interaction and amusement when performing daily tasks.

I’m all about having more fun in my interactions with technology, and can truly appreciate making the more mundane less so; but, I believe sometimes we have taken the concept of gamification too far.

Not every piece of software or every interaction within should be designed around fun. Stanford professor Elizabeth Corcoran, in her book on the subject,“The ‘Gamification’ Of Education”, suggests that the gamification of businesses and virtual worlds is creating an expectation among people that real-life interactions follow simple mechanics and some disillusionment when they do not. Are we making our software more of a toy than a productive tool?

I recently heard of a software company’s UI meeting, held to introduce the upcoming planned release to the internal audience, where the  discussion quickly went from what the planned for now to the planned for later. In the “planned for later” talks, the designers were sharing their vision for the upcoming UI changes, which were focused on including more opportunities for social interactions. The problem? No one had talked with more than 1 or 2 current customers to find out if this is what is truly needed or wanted.

Conversations need to start with the market, not just customers. Does your market want to play a game when they are in your software? Will it help them do their job better? More effectively?

Luke Hohmann, with his company Innovation Games, does great work in promoting playing collaborative games with your customers to build  engagement. He states that engaging customers in a well-designed Innovation Game frees them up from the constraints of typical focus-group sessions and delivers deeper, more accurate information than is available through online surveys or other tools.

There are some very successful elements that need to be copied.  Gaming elements do and should belong in SOME software. Luke’s reasons and use make sense. In consumer-facing sites, I support using gaming elements to make the site more engagement, building more loyalty, etc. In business programs,  I can no longer remember the “old” training programs where you didn’t even see your status on the module much less your achievement. Gaming made training more fun. But, once you start entering the enterprise software realm, gamification is an area that needs to be evaluated carefully.

Looking in from the outside, gamification elements that are added in by designers because they are the latest and greatest, will quickly get subjected to the sideline and prove to be a waste of your time and effort. In the competitive software market, time and effort need to be focused on those areas which deliver the differentiation. And, it might not be about the game.

In several online forums/blogs recently, there has been a lot of talk and discussion about “how often do I update this?” “Change that?” “Do this?” There was a specific thread that was related to a question about a product roadmap, but I’ve also seen the same question about web content, marketing communication pieces, customer visits and other outward facing activities. Our product professional peers are looking for some schedule so they can plug the activity into their calendar and update x, y or z regularly.

But, a calendar appointment is not what is needed to address the challenge.

The only way you know how often product management and marketing artifacts should be updated, and how to share the information, is to know both your organizational culture and your market. You need to understand the beat and rhythm of your business.

Let me try and explain. Beat is part of rhythm. When you clap to music or tap your foot on the floor, you are following the beat. The beat is steady.  Rhythm is the pattern of the notes, which make up the melody. Rhythm is made up of patterns of sounds (notes) and silences (rests); it can vary throughout a melody.

To effectively develop and present a roadmap, it needs to be collaborative. But, how often do you update? How often do you share? The answer lies in the beat of your business.

So, you ask, how do I actually determine the beat of the business?

Try looking at some of these questions:

• When does your organization do strategic planning?
• When are goals developed and shared?
• Who looks at the product goals to ensure that they are aligned to the new business goals? When?
• Are goals periodically updated? When?
• Are there any patterns emerging?

This will be different in every organization and sometimes even by the different markets served by the products and business. By understanding when planning happens and when goals are set, you can then confidently check your existing roadmap, and other plans, against the updated information and goals.

Know that different stakeholders have different needs and views of the business. Sales might want the road map updated frequently and only really care about next quarter. Investors might be more interested in a 5 year view. Marketing may need to change their schedule for planned campaigns quarterly. It’s about knowing the beat of the stakeholder within the rhythm of
the business.

Looking in from the outside, the key to successfully updating the information, in a way that meets the needs of each stakeholder, is to communicate the right what to right whom, at the right time to enable their beat so it works in the greater rhythm. Successfully done, this will have everyone playing the same tune.

It’s fall, and Product Camp season began last month starting in Atlanta, New York and Salt Lake City. But, the real camping season picks up speed starting this weekend with upcoming events in So. California (Orange County,) San Francisco, Seattle, Rocky Mountain, Chicago, Minneapolis and welcoming Nashville. (Apologies if I forgot any.) Make plans to attend a PCamp near you by visiting the “master” schedule list at: http://www.productcamp.org/schedule/

If you are planning to attend – and there really is no reason you should not attend at least one - or present or simply don’t understand the concept and why you should engage, please visit some of my past posts on product camps on this site:

• http://www.outsideinview.com/2011/03/pcamppurpose/
• http://www.outsideinview.com/2010/08/so-you-want-to-present-at-a-product-camp-really/
• http://www.outsideinview.com/2010/08/jump-right-into-pcamp-the-water-is-fine/
• http://www.outsideinview.com/2010/08/pcamp-season-is-back-a-4-step-primer-to-take-action/
• http://www.outsideinview.com/2010/02/this-one-time-at-product-camp/
• http://www.outsideinview.com/2010/01/top-10-reasons-why-you-should-attend-pcampmn/

Looking in from the outside, it’s time for product professionals – both management  marketing types – to take control of their own careers and growth. Product Camps are OUR venues to do both

(and women, ping me to discuss the “Rainbow Chuck Initiative!”)

Congratulations on creating the product marketing roadmap. Congratulations on discovering and creating metrics that show how you are progressing on that roadmap. But, now you have to communicate this information. The roadmap has no value if it is not shared.

The delivery of the roadmap is a critical element to illustrating the value that product marketing brings to the table. But, if you deliver this “document” by email, hoping that the various readers will a) take the time to read it thoroughly and b) understand the content without expectation, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

Communicating your roadmap requires collaboration. Your roadmap first needs to be shared with the product management and marketing teams. If the product marketing roadmap is the bridge between the directions developed by these groups, start by sharing your guide here. Look to these teams to validate your information and challenge your metrics. If one team has made changes on their plans, this is when it may first surface to you and you should make the adjustments. These two teams are your friends, their approval and support will go far.

Once you have the support of product management and marketing, take it to your leaders. But, don’t send it over email. Email is not a good communication method for sharing and discussing strategy.  Since the concept of a product marketing roadmap is new and may require some background information presented, email is definitely not the right tool.

The best way to introduce this new item is to do so through a regularly scheduled leadership meeting, whatever it may be called. Ask to get on the agenda for 30 minutes. Request the time on the agenda so that you may “share the value of product marketing” with the leadership. Since this is not a typical item on the agenda you will most likely get the time requested – if not for any other reason than curiosity. Whatever the reason, when it is accepted, take the time!

During the meeting, start your leadership presentation by explaining what the product marketing roadmap is and how it was created (briefly and not in detail) through using the product roadmap and the marketing plans. Then proceed to show the dashboard you have created which illustrates the movement of the items on the roadmap. Finally, close with the commitment that you will update your dashboard on a regular basis (monthly or quarterly) and would like to come back to the meeting to share the updated information. Ask for feedback on the dashboard. Are these meaningful metrics? Any additional metrics that they would like tracked? By including them and asking for input, they are accepting your roadmap.

If product marketing doesn’t stand at the table and show strategic value, no one else will do it for us. Strategy is difficult enough for organizations to see and touch. Through developing a product marketing roadmap, you have delivered a strategic tool. Looking in from the outside, if you don’t share this tool properly, disappointment will set in when you don’t have successful adoption of what you shared. If that happens, your commitment to making this a strategic asset will fail.

In my recent post on product marketing roadmaps, we discussed how to get started creating your road map and how it serves nicely as a bridge between other department plans and efforts such as marketing, sales and product management. Once you’ve created your product marketing roadmap, you have to actually use it as a guide to strategic activities. And, if you are going to use it, you need to know that the efforts are moving toward success. You have to look at measurements which gauge the progress of the movement.

How? Put the measurements for each of the elements on the roadmap in one place, a visual representation that tells you everything is working together the way it is intended. Create a dashboard.

The key to success with this is two-fold. First, you shouldn’t be engaging in efforts that you can’t measure. Second, you need a tool to validate your team’s efforts and ensure that they are heading in the right direction. The dashboard becomes a great communication tool for you to share with the leadership team, proving the value of product marketing. So how do you get to these metrics?

What are the metrics you should be looking at?

The answer is “depends.” You need to look at what is relevant and meaningful to tell your story and support your efforts. If you have an element of your new roadmap with a focus on planned strategic initiatives you could look at milestones, leadership acceptance and engagement of team. Know that strategic initiatives are longer term commitments and your metrics will probably not show amazing results until you are at the end of that implementation cycle and you look backwards. If your roadmap has a focus area that includes market segmentation or engagement, you could include the number of market visits, number of win loss analyses completed, number of customer stories complete, efforts that support the brand awareness, which may already be measured through marketing activities.

The metrics will be different for each initiative and will be different for each product marketing roadmap created. For example, you may include success stories – how many do we have now, how many do we need and how many did we create? How old are the success stories? And, the other product marketing team in your company may already have success stories well in control so they did not include that on their roadmap. There is no one size fits all.

There are only two hard rules which apply to any roadmap you create:

1. Don’t include an item if you don’t apply a measurement
2. Don’t try to create all new metrics! Look around the company for what numbers may already exist and repurpose the communication of these numbers to support your efforts. Bring information from your product management team, development team, sales teams, the marketing team and even the leadership group to the table.

Include what is relevant, even if the numbers come from another team. If they support your roadmap plan, make them visible on your dashboard. It’s not about the quantity of measurements you include. It’s not about the origin of the measurement. It is about the quality of what you are communicating.

Looking in from the outside, you’ve already spent the time on putting together a roadmap, now spend the time to find the right metrics and put this all together in a way to bring visibility to how you are progressing … and how product marketing adds value to the product and organization.

The couple is planning their vacation, and decided to take a car on this trip. They were looking forward to the adventures they could encounter along the way and the side diversions that would present as opportunities for exploration. Then it happened. They got lost. She was looking at the GPS but it offered no help for getting them back on track, there were missing roads and turns that they were passing were not present on the screen. Soon enough they saw a sign for the gas station up ahead. And, as you would expect, he didn’t want to stop. “Real men don’t ask for directions,” was his reply.

True, this a notorious stereotype; but, it is based in many stories (and some real research) of the same situation happening over and over. Yet, somehow we keep expecting a different result.

That night, when they were safely in their hotel room (and the anger subdued,) the couple pulled their resources together and re-evaluated where they were and where they wanted to go. What was their goal? How were they going to get there?

What does this have to do with product marketing? EVERYTHING!

If others follow a map, why not Product Marketing?

When our product management peers are planning our product lifecycle, they follow a plan, a roadmap. When our marketing service peers are planning their programs, they follow a plan, a roadmap. So, why don’t we follow a roadmap when we look at our product marketing activities?

The most common reason I hear for why a product marketing roadmap is not being used or followed is that most teams have never heard of one. This is a travesty. It is truly a disservice to yourself, your peers and your product. Worse yet, the lack of a roadmap for the product marketing activities will hurt your business.

A product marketing roadmap is the bridge between the product roadmap and the marketing plan. It gathers information from the product roadmap, and translates these attributes, features and abilities into actions that support the marketing activities needed to enable sales.

Getting Started

Getting started in building a roadmap for product marketing can seem overwhelming. (Taking the first step is often viewed that way.) Try this exercise:

1. Obtain a copy of your product roadmap for the next 4-8 quarters. (You do have one, right?)
2. Obtain your marketing team plans – demand generation, web, social media, events, papers, etc. (Hopefully your marketing group has this organized in one place, in a common format and somewhere that is stored in an location that is easy to share.)
3. Arrange an off-site meeting day – It doesn’t have to be at an extravagant location but you need room for walls, whiteboards, etc. It is best to avoid a home (unless everyone on the team is comfortable there, and it would be totally free of distractions.)
4. Arrange for an outside facilitator. This is someone who does not have a vested interest in the outcome, only that the process flows and all persons involved are listened to, engaged and valued. Companies that run agile product management processes often have coaches and/or trainers you can tap for this resource.
5. Put the product marketing team in the room. Bring in post-it notes, paper, white boards and copies of the roadmaps and plans you collected, copies of your marketing artifacts (sales sheets, etc.) but LEAVE THE COMPUTER OUTSIDE! and TURN OFF PHONES! When we are in brainstorming sessions, technology can inhibit or distract one – or more – person. And, that distracted person is all it takes to lose rhythm and collaboration.
6. Plot out the product roadmap against the marketing plans. Now, look at the gap between the two plans you have plotted. How are you going to bridge the conversation? How do you bring the product, brought to life from the product roadmap, to returning sales, from the leads generated through the marketing plans? This is the content for the product marketing roadmap.
7. Once you have the content of the product marketing roadmap identified, you need to look at your resources and priorities. Then, start plotting out where these content/task areas fit in the new besieged area to accomplish the business, unit and team goals. Fill all this in and you are building your own product marketing roadmap.

It’s not that easy

This exercise is not meant to be viewed as simplistic. While it sounds easy enough to accomplish, it requires a strong cohesive team who have the skills and abilities to think strategically yet understand the practicality of the tactics involved. It is not about simply writing a post-it note for an idea; it is about HAVING the idea to write it.

Like a product roadmap, a product marketing roadmap is one that should be revisited, re-evaluated, and re-engineered as plans, products and priorities shift. It’s like a persona in that regard: never think it is done since it has to have a real life that is based on real and evolving dependencies to be useful.

Creating a product marketing roadmap requires commitment, cooperation and patience. It is like a brainstorming session on steroids, and with more at stake since it will affect actions that impact the business’ bottom line. It will leave you exhausted when you do it right. But, it will leave you exhilarated and excited more importantly. You will clearly be able to see a vision of how to make your vision real. You will have a guide to discuss and share. You will have a focal point for when your GPS steers you off track.

Add one for a bonus

Looking in from the outside, in the end, not only will you have the roadmap to help, but you will enhance the value of product marketing in your organization.

(If you or your organization need help to implement this concept, let me know.)

Now it’s my turn.

For more than two years I’ve written for this blog, commenting on topics and issues I hear from fellow product professionals through following on Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Google +, or through meeting at product camps and networking, and from just my friends.

Now it’s your turn.

I have a long list of “agenda” topics which I can keep writing about, delivering my take on issues I see and hear are of interest and/or concern. But, what I care about is what YOU want to hear. What are the topics of interest to YOU. Where could YOU use the most experience, guidance or support? What problems are keeping YOU up at night? Bottom line, how can I help YOU?

I have a quick survey created. It’s 10 questions and takes no more than 3 minutes to complete. Will you please take the pause in your day and complete the survey? It will help me help YOU better.

The anonymous survey can be found here.

Looking in from the outside, I can only be as relevant as you allow, enable and help me be.

Thank you, Jennifer

You have a strong launch process, yet when you begin to measure, sales are no where near expectations. The sales organization shoulders the responsibility for sales, yet many product people carry performance indicators (KPIs) around product success too. And, this is where the blame game begins. To help analyze, product management and product marketing create fancy Excel charts showing sales vs. forecast and ask sales what went wrong. And, the blame accelerates.

In response, sales takes out their Wheel of Blame for a quick spin. There are so many choices, and since the sales teams are in control of the spins at this time, the sales people are practically bullet proof. The wheel is spun and results are returned: quality level is not what the customer expected; the product is on back order or arriving late; it has the wrong features; features are missing; pricing is wrong; competition has cheaper product; the customer is waiting on a special promotional price; and, the list goes on. The wheel goes round and round. The game gets bigger and bigger. The result is the internal blame game creates a toxic work environment.

Why do we do this? We can stop it. Let’s own the prevention of the blame game

1. Awareness – up front, make sure everyone knows what features are included in the product. Inform everyone of the tracking and measurement tools to be used.
2. Research – know your competition and market pricing and know what the critical features are that the market requires.
3. Stay positive – encourage sales, offer help, listen to their legitimate needs and try to tear down any roadblocks
4. Strong leadership – if your senior executives don’t provide it then you, as a product person has an obligation to do what is best for your product.

Looking in from the outside, we all are on the same team with a shared goal – act like it.