Marc Lesser: Accomplishing More By Doing Less

I'll make time to watch this Google talk.

Boston Product Managment Association Career Panel

The Career Panel and job fair organized by Leslie Ament was a memorable event. Space was tight, because the room was at capacity - breaking all past BPMA attendance records. The panelists were articulate, informative and sometimes humorous, keeping the attendees deeply engaged.

My favorite gems that came out of the panel were:

Sally Silver: Employers are looking for knowledge, skill, experience and accomplishments. Attitude and preparation, confidence and energy are the keys to communicate these characteristics.

I'm not sure if it was Lynn Tartaglia or Dora Vell who said: "Never turn down a job that you haven't been offered." They both talked about being willing to explore opportunities - you never know where they might lead.

Sally Silver: You cant be a buyer and a seller at the same time. If you want the job, you need to be a seller first. After convincing the employer you have the characteristics to succeed, is the time to become a buyer and let the employer convince you to join the company.

Lynne Tartaglia: How to stand out: 1) Capture my attention & leave me with a unique and memorable idea. 2) Convince me you know the technology without killing me. 3) Know what you want- keep in mind employers pay for value.

Dianne Condon, Patricia O'Neil, & Sally Silver: Develop relationships with hiring managers. Although they are busy and hard to reach, when they need help, recruiting is their top priority.

Great job by Leslie, George, Ferenc, Jon, Karen, Sarela, Jane, and the entire BPMA team who pulled this together!

photos by BPMA member Doug Bonin. Visit Doug's Flickr page for more

Understanding and profiting from variability

Malcom Gladwell’s TED talk “What we can learn from spaghetti sauce” articulates a fundamental shift in science and economics from old school thinking. Until recently, the focus was identifying universal rules or the best single solution to a market problem. Over the last ten to fifteen years, the revolution in science and economics has been to understand variability and seek clusters of solutions that provide a better fit across the population and better satisfy market needs. In the past, scientists, psychologists, economists tended to seek universal rules that govern how everyone behaves. The recent trend is away from a single optimal solution toward understanding and taking advantage of variability.



“What we can learn from spaghetti sauce” describes how Howard Moskowitz learned to apply Rule Developing Experimentation (RDE) the systematic process of designing, testing and modifying alternative ideas, and products in a disciplined way so that the developer and marketer discover what appeals to the customer, even when the customer can't articulate the need.