Being a Great Manager
From time to time I like to read books or articles on how to be a great manager, so that I can find ways to continuously improve. Tonight, I instead decided to reflect on the qualities I’ve tried to emulate in my [best] managers past [and hope that I've succeeded]. It’s a good way to make sure I’m not slipping, and to continue to find ways to improve. Here’s the short list of advice I’ve given myself:
- The best leaders consider themselves support for their team, rather than “bosses”
Rather than give orders, ask for suggestions and try to gain consensus. Look for the signs people give off when they need help to make progress. Help them solve their own problems, or give them access to the resources and support they need to succeed. Being an expert in what your team does is a huge bonus, but recognizing that members of your team may know some aspects better than you do is even more important. And when the team screws up; focus on how to fix it, followed by how to prevent it from happening again, rather than getting angry. In fact, let the team come up with solutions on how to prevent it from happening again. Course-correct with evidence-based suggestions; not by using a stick. - Lead by example
Show excitement. Be the first in the office, and the last out. Work collaboratively, and work hard. Show the team you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty and do some real work.
- Be organized and proactive
Plan ahead as much as possible. The more lead time you can give your team on a project, the less you’ll have to give your team frustrating last minute urgent tasks.
- Be patient, and not reactive
Don’t respond to frustrating situations immediately unless absolutely necessary (kind of like the rule of not sending e-mail when you’re angry). Don’t freak out when people screw up. The last thing anybody needs after screwing up is a lecture. Offer support, suggestions and alternatives; not criticism. - Always support your team with outsiders; but make sure you fix problems from the inside
If you want everyone to see your team as great; tell them how great they are. Focus on the positives when talking with outsiders. When the team does fail, take responsibility, and talk about what you’ve all learned from the situation, and the actionable changes that you’ve put in place to prevent a repeat. However, don’t let problems fester unaddressed within the team. If you focus with outsiders on the negatives of the team, that’s all they’ll see. Be your team’s cheerleader!
There’s certainly more, but I think a short list is most effective. What did I leave out that should have made the top 5? What would you add for the remainder of the top ten?
Social Dying
The Way It Was Then
8:00 AM
Celebrity sent to hospital
10:00 AM
Celebrity pronounced dead
6:00 PM
Local TV announces death
Next Morning
Story printed on page 9 of the local newspaper
The Way It Is Now
8:00 AM
Celebrity sent to hospital
9:30 AM
Celebrity news site announces celebrity death
9:31 AM
Traffic on Twitter begins to explode with suspicions of drug related cardiac arrest
10:00 AM
Celebrity pronounced dead
10:30 AM
Rumors of other celebrity deaths spread on Twitter and other sites
10:45 AM
Celebrity tributes to dead celebrity begin
11:35 AM
Cable news networks announce death on network
12:00 PM
Cable news networks announce death on their web sites
RIP Rocky Mountain News
I’ve never held, in my hands, a copy of the Rocky Mountain News. I’m a tree-hugger and happy to watch the disappearance of more printed materials. BUT…I love media, and more importantly, I love people. Today we mourn the loss of an online publisher as well, not just a printed paper. And more importantly, we empathize with even more people who have lost their jobs.
If you haven’t had a chance to watch the video and slideshow on the website, http://rockymountainnews.com, you must. It will tug at your heart strings. The video is hosted by a couple now unemployed, with young children. The slideshow includes photos of employees who brought their kids to work, getting the bad news with their children on their lap. It really hurts.
While printed newspapers are definitely on their way out, digital news has hit an extreme lack of innovation, with many of these news sites turning into complete commodities. They all look the same. Header, standard banner ads, list of news, maybe some video, disappointing search, and maybe some links out to other sites. The content is largely the same as the content available on competing sites. The holy grail of local continues to be elusive. I hope the news industry gets innovating, because we need to save real journalism. UGC is taking off, but it’s no replacement for news bureaus with real journalists.
Rocky Mountain News and rockymountainnews.com, rest in peace.
News in 2015
Will newspapers still exist in 2015? Here are my predictions:
- Printed newspapers will be virtually gone.
- About 35% of newspapers will still be available, but primarily as content providers, rather than print distributors.
- The majority of news will be consumed on a handful of social news portals, platforms similar to Facebook but specializing in news, allowing layout flexibility and hyper-localization. It will not be Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft.
- These portals will monetize with a combination of advertising and subscriptions.
- Subscriptions will come in different forms: All content, all content from certain content providers (formerly known as newspapers), and subscriptions limited by usage quotas (# of articles, etc).
Your thoughts? Am I on track? Is my timing about right? Am I way off base? Please post your predictions, and feel free to post links to your posts on the topic.
Best Human-Powered Uses of Twitter
Twitter is a great tool, still lacking business model. What I hate about Twitter is that a huge percentage of tweets are about Twitter. What I love about Twitter is that it’s an open canvas; a new medium for creativity and USEFULNESS. I’ve seen Twitter used as a platform for news, customer service, “interactive” PR, and even an author’s new medium. What is the best human-powered use of Twitter? Please send your nominees, and we’ll hold a vote. As you comment, I’ll bring the nominee list up here. Please recommend. And please share this link to get as many quality nominees as we can.
PLEASE nominate a use, and if possible, a tweep:
140-character short stories / @arjunbasu, @twirledview @mrichtel
Breaking news situations / (If you have a list of accounts, comment and I’ll link)
Google's New Math
Do you see a problem here? How does Google get away with this? I’m pretty sure that if I made this mistake at work I would catch all bloody heck. But then again, I’m not Google.
[polldaddy poll=1362581]
Why I'm Late to the Blog Party
I’ve been in the web publishing industry for a dozen years, and yet, I hadn’t started blogging until…well…a couple weeks ago. Sure, I thought about it. I even dabbled with LiveJournal as a personal open journal, but stopped abruptly when I realized my ex-girlfriend shouldn’t have been reading my outpouring of pain from losing her.
As a software development manager and product manager, I had plenty to blog about, but I chose not to. I’m not the best writer (although I’m far from the worst), but that didn’t stop me. Why did I wait until now?
It’s simple. Who would want to read my blog? And if I got a ton of readers, would I just be duping them? Could I live with that? Sure, I felt that I was very good at what I do. But was I an “expert,” and wouldn’t blogging be inappropriately declaring myself as one? How much experience did I have? Was my opinion or experience relevant?
But in this new age of social media, loaded with blogging, microblogging, user-generated content, social bookmarking, etc., I’ve finally realized I missed a very important point. It doesn’t matter if I’m an expert or not. The beauty of this world is the ability to spur conversation and thought. It doesn’t matter so much whether my opinions or “right” or “wrong,” but instead it matters that it triggers thought.
This is why all of these Twitter ranking services make me a little ill (although I’ll admit that I always know my Grader Twitter grade). Self-proclaimed experts are the worst kind, and unfortunately, the most common kind. So, while I certainly believe that I’m great at what I do, I’ll let you decide whether or not I’m an expert. And if you follow me on Twitter, thereby increasing my Twitter Grader or twitterrank, does that make me an expert?
No, it does not.
But should that stop me from blogging?
No, it should not.
And so, here I am. Please send me your non-expert blog links, and I’ll be happy to add you to my blogroll. And please, let me know what you think about what I’m saying here. That’s the whole point. Waiting for your comments…
Four Keys for Traditional Media Companies to Tackle Digital Ad Networks on the Web
I just read Did Standards Kill the Online Ad Business by Saul Hansell on nytimes.com. It is true that standard ad sizes lowered the cost of entry for digital ad networks, but these networks would have emerged and succeeded even if standards weren’t formalized. Informal standards would have been dictated by the largest publishers or ad networks. The success of ad networks has everything to do with their business models, and nothing to do with standards. Furthermore, the online ad business is far from killed; it’s maturing. Ad networks simply makes sense, on a medium where publishers are plentiful, and not limited by bandwidth over coaxial cable, printing, or distribution costs. With the large quantity of publishers, mostly with a relatively small share of Internet reach, ad networks become necessary. Most publishers can’t afford large sales teams, and don’t have the distribution to pull in scalable deals.
I would argue, though, that many large traditional media companies have brought this tough competition on for themselves. Many of them have turned to these same ad networks to back-fill the ad inventory they were unable to sell-out with their internal sales teams. Why would a large advertiser pay a premium to buy ads on a premium site when they can pay a tiny fraction of that amount to get their ads on the same site through the ad network? These publishers can typically block specific advertisers or industries on these ad networks, but unless every major publisher issues such a block, the savvy advertisers will continue to find cheap ways to get their message out using these standard units.
Here’s how traditional media companies can beat the effect of digital ad networks on the web:
- Deliver a product people truly want to your audience. Migrating newspaper content to the Internet is simply not compelling enough to accomplish this goal. You need to differentiate yourself from an overcrowded set of publishers. And stop with the one way broadcast, already! Engage your users! Lucky for you, many advertisers still want their message on premium brands only.
- Deliver innovating ad products that really pay off for your advertisers. This is difficult, because many advertisers are still not savvy enough to go after custom solutions. Additionally, these solutions can be very costly. That said, if you can show a few success stories, you can make it happen. The bottom line is that you need to help your advertisers accomplish their goals if you want to keep them.
- Don’t be so rigid, try something new and take a chance. Go out on a limb and try something that you’ve never tried before and can’t guarantee success with. Just be sure to measure success, and have a plan in place so that you can make adjustments from what you learn. Again, differentiate yourself!
- Be and early adopter for all new media platforms, including social media. Rich Sanchez? ’nuff said.
Why Good Ideas Fail
I certainly have my own theories on why good software ideas fail when rolled out to the real world. As a product manager, I believe I know why good ideas fail. Here are some questions to answer if you think your good idea is failing:
- Does the idea solve a problem that causes a real frustration for users?
You may have a good idea, and it may solve a real problem. But do your users care enough about the problem to use your product? Perhaps solving the problem just isn’t worth any effort or change in behavior for your prospective user-base. If this is the case, you’re toast. - Does the solution require a larger investment from the user than the existing alternatives?
It may be difficult to see this in your own product, but perhaps it’s just too darned hard to use. Or perhaps it takes too darned long to accomplish a task. I’m getting frustrated just thinking about this one! It’s common to start with a simple solution that balloons by the time you get to completion, making it harder for users than what they were doing before. Perhaps it’s time to go back to square one, and look for an easier solution. - Was a prototype of the idea tested on real users before and throughout development?
Launching an entirely new product without prototyping and user testing throughout the process is like playing darts for the first time. Good luck! Do you really want to find out your execution was awful…after you’re done, or after a huge investment of time and money? Better late than never, try it now. - Did somebody else do it significantly better before you got to market?
Notice that I didn’t ask if someone else did it first. I asked if they did it better and first. It’s time to start thinking of versions 2 and 3, because you need to play leapfrog. Fast. - Were enough resources put on the project to make it succeed?
I’ll admit I’m not a big tennis fan, but I have heard of no man’s land. It’s that area in the middle of the court when you can’t get to the net, but you can’t back to the baseline. If you don’t stand in the right place, you don’t stand a chance to succeed. If you can’t commit to the right resources and the right amount of resources, you’re going to fail. You can either scale back on your goals, or pony up. Commit. Or quit. - Has the idea been given a true chance to flourish?
Don’t give up so fast. Some ideas just need time to catch on. Which leads to the next point… - Was the idea aggressively marketed to the right segment?
Some people believe the right solution will market itself. I believe that may be true, over time. But marketing is more than just consumer marketing. You need to make sure you target the right potential audience for your application. Demographics (age, gender, income range…), verticals, etc., who’s going to use it? How are you going to make sure they know you have a solution to their problem? Now you know who they are, just make sure you tell them. - Do all of the stakeholders buy in? Completely?
If not, change stakeholders or cut and run. - Did you define success and failure before you launched?
How can you succeed if you never defined success? Do it now, and lay out your goals for today, tomorrow, next month, next year, and the next three. Hurry! - Is it priced right, or is there a real revenue model?
“If you build it, they will come,” but can you afford for them to come? Are you asking too much from people? Or did you think at all about how you will make money? Some companies, like Twitter and Facebook, use the technique of building audience first, and getting a business model later. This could work. But then again, it could not. Get yourself a business model, or fail.
Disagree with any of these? Have some ideas of your own? Please share, I’ll keep this list updated. Perhaps you may even have some suggestions to get a bad idea to succceed!
Update 2/27/2009 – Check out a good related post by Seth Godin, Three things you need if you want more customers.
On Twitter, Everyone Knows You're a Dog
I’m feeling inspired, after ready Marty Cagan’s “Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love.“ Marty describes some clear best practices for success when creating a new product, or updating an existing product. He references segmentation, and points out the importance of using personas when planning features and releases. I finished the book last night, and I immediately started to think about whether or not I truly know my user base. Truth be told, I don’t know as much as I need to about the users who come and quickly leave. But new tools such as Twitter and Facebook make it possible to understand your users better than ever before.
Peter Steiner created a famous cartoon, captioned “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Well, this is simply not true anymore.
Copyright Image from New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner.
Take Facebook, for instance. I know more about my real life friends than I ever did before. Just the other day, on Facebook, I got notified with what must be quickest spreading Facebook content ever; “xxxx tagged you in the note 25 Random Things About Me.” I read, in awe, that years after being the best man at his wedding, I still didn’t really know him. And here I was, learning more about a real life friend.
Twitter has a tremendous amount of following. People follow complete strangers to get them to follow back. People follow others they think might be interesting, and yet others that are accepted thought-leaders. If you analyze someone’s posts, you can quickly learn a great deal about them. And some tweeple’s fingers are like loose cannons, allowing you to even learn about their personalities. Take this rant from a well-followed Tweep, for instance. With some tools doing some basic analysis on a user’s tweets, you can learn an awful lot about this user.
This is where social media and social networking start to close the gap between a publisher and it’s users. With new features such as Facebook Connect, site publishers are gaining a lot more access to this valuable insight available based on users’ contributions to your site, and to others as well. This insight will really help to identify one or two of the personas you will undoubtedly need to create to ensure you’re building your product for the audience.
Truth be told, on the Internet, everyone knows exactly who I am.
