Long Term Mutual Prosperity

According to Michael Hoseus, Executive Director of the Center for Quality People & Organizations, and co-author of TOYOTA CULTURE, the heart and soul of the Toyota Way, to only be in business to make money is the lowest level of maturity that exists for a company. Long-term mutual prosperity is a goal shared by the company and the employee that brings the two together, and establishes a consensus, trust, and long term commitment to success that becomes the shared purpose of work. While the company targets profit, growth, and sustainability, and the employee seeks job stability, growth, and their development, the two can come together forming a mutual commitment around long-term mutual prosperity.

Happy New Year,
Chuck

My employer, SIMULIA, featured in the local TV News

With Rhode Island leading the nation in unemployment (currently 9.3%), the NBC news affiliate in Providence filmed and broadcast a segment on my employer yesterday to highlight a high tech company that is bucking the trend. The clip includes images of our offices, and showing our software. I work directly with the people interviewed. Subham, Susan, and Ken. You can view the video by clicking the image above or at http://www.turnto10.com/, but I don't know how long the video will be available online.

Best,

Chuck

Steven Fransblow's presentation on building innovation dynasties at BPMA

Steven Fransblow of Innosight gave an eye-opening talk this week at the Boston Product Management Association November meeting on the JOBS™ approach to successful innovation.

The JOBS™ blueprint focuses on four key issues:
J: Job - What is the problem to be solved for a specific consumer and set of circumstances?
O: Objective - What are the functional, social, and emotional metrics of purchase and use?
B: Barriers - What are the financial, skill, time, access, and behavioral obstacles that prevent the job from getting done satisfactorily.
S: Solutions - What are the products, services and compensating behaviors that can overcome the barriers, achieve objectives, and satisfy the requirements.

One of Steven's key points was that successful innovation does not mean making "perfect products". It means making products that delight customers without overshooting the requirements which often leads to schedule delays, cost overruns and uncessesary complexity that detracts from successful adoption.

In addition to books published by Innosight, and an MIT Sloan article, Finding the Right Job for Your Product Steven provided the following free online resources for more information.

Strategy & Innovation: Innosight’s newsletter focusing on strategies for business growth.

Innosight’s blog highlighting recent disruptive innovations

Best,
Chuck

Charter for Compassion

3-1/2 minutes of inspiration worth watching. It came to me from TED Ideas worth spreading.

I Voted

Product Camp Boston coming in 2009 - update

Updated Dec 11- 2008: The date and venue have been set. February 28, 2009 -at Microsoft Startup Labs, Cambridge, MA. Check the wiki for updates.

I'm helping some BPMA members promote Product Camp Boston. The target time frame is the end of February 2009. Your vote will help decide the exact date.

ProductCamp is a collaborative gathering of Product Management and Marketing professionals who come together to learn, share, and interact with their peers. ProductCamp has no attendees, only participants. Everyone who attends is expected to actively participate in leading a session, round table discussion, speaking on the topic at hand, or volunteering.

Bar Camp has been around since 2005 - they tend to focus on technology, social networking and other topics, although Bar Camp might be of interest to some Product Mangers, our field is not typically a primary focus.

The first Product Camp was in Silicon Valley in Q1 - 08 followed by Austin Texas in June. Product Camp uses the Bar Camp format while focusing on Product Management Topics.

Get involved. It promises to be an exciting day!

keywords: ProductCamp Boston, PCamp, Product Camp

Marc Lesser: Accomplishing More By Doing Less

I'll make time to watch this Google talk.