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.

The Boston Product Management Association (BPMA) will host a Career Night on Sept 18

Being the Director of Program Planning for The Boston Product Management Association, I couldn't resist putting in a plug for the Career Night and networking event starting at 5:30 pm on September 18, 2008 at Oracle Corporation in Burlington, MA. Leslie Ament, the BPMA Director of Employer and Recruiter Relations put together a strong panel of senior-level human resources executives and recruiters to speak on "Memorable Candidates: How They Got the Offer or Promotion." This is a particularly relevant topic at a time when many area companies are cutting costs by freezing hiring, reducing staffs, and eliminating departments.
BPMA is a professional association dedicated to the career development of product management and product marketing professionals, and is a not-for-profit, membership-based association that offers both local events and a comprehensive set of online resources. Membership is comprised of product professionals such as product managers, product marketing managers, product planners, brand managers and other professionals engaged in the management and development of products or services. BPMA offers many opportunities for professional growth and development - including monthly professional development programs.
The senior human resource and recruitment professionals participating on the panel are:
Senior HR Experts:
-- Patricia O'Neill, Senior Vice President, Human Resources, ATG
-- Michael Quinn, Vice President Talent Management & Development, Thermo Fischer Scientific -- Lynne Milbury Tartaglia, International HR Director, iBasis, Inc.
-- Diane Condon, Director of HR, Phase Forward
Senior Recruiters:
-- Dora Vell, President of Vell & Associates
-- Kristin Motta, Director, CM Access.
-- Larry Kahn, Vice President of Recruiting for New Dimensions in Technology
-- Carla Marcinowski, Vice President, Sally Silver Companies
Moderator:
-- Judith A. Miller, Esq. has successfully helped individuals and businesses resolve employment issues for more than twenty years.
Location and Registration Information
When: September 18, 2008
Time: 5:30 -9:00 pm
Who should attend: Hiring managers, job seekers and employment professionals
Click for preregistration:
I hope to see you there.

Do we have time for beauty?

When will we make time for something extraordinary?

I heard a great story on All Things Considered tonight during my drive home. Today, the Washington Post's Gene Weingarten won a Pulitzer prize for feature writing for his story about what happened when he recruited Joshua Bell, one of the most accomplished classical musicians in the world, to appear incognito in a Washington DC metro station, playing some of the world's best music on a Stradivarius violin with an estimated value in excess of 3.5 million dollars. This performance was arranged as an experiment -- In an ordinary setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty overcome routine? The anonymous virtuoso performed for 43 minutes as over 1000 commuters passed by, with only a handful pausing for more than a moment. Bell promised not to “cheap out” on the performance: He put feeling into the performance, playing with enthusiasm, he leaned into the music and arched on tiptoes as the music soared. Here’s an excerpt from the article describing what happened. You can hear a recording of the performance and view video clips at the Washington Post website.

Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.

A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened.

Things never got much better. In the three-quarters of an hour that Joshua Bell played, seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute. Twenty-seven gave money, most of them on the run -- for a total of $32 and change. That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look.

When interviewed after the performance, Bell said hadn't known what to expect, but for some reason, he was nervous.

"It wasn't exactly stage fright, but there were butterflies," he says. "I was stressing a little."

"When you play for ticket-holders," Bell explains, "you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted. Here, there was this thought: What if they don't like me? What if they resent my presence . . ."

Toward the end of the feature, Weingarten philosophizes about what happened;

In his 2003 book, Timeless Beauty: In the Arts and Everyday Life, British author John Lane writes about the loss of the appreciation for beauty in the modern world. The experiment at L'Enfant Plaza may be symptomatic of that, he said -- not because people didn't have the capacity to understand beauty, but because it was irrelevant to them.

"This is about having the wrong priorities," Lane said.

If we can't take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that -- then what else are we missing?

My mind jumped immediately from the radio story to an article I had read yesterday in the Sunday Parade Magazine about the Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.


In September of 2007, Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, who has terminal Pancreatic cancer and expected to live for just a few more months said goodbye to his students and the Pittsburgh college with one last lecture called "How to Live Your Childhood Dreams," on his life's journey and the lessons he's learned. The Wall Street Journal called it "the lecture of a lifetime" and those who have seen it more than agreed. The video is long, but very worthwhile. I sent this link with the complete lecture video to each of my kids and my siblings. I'm offering prayers for Randy and his family as they face this very difficult challenge. Please remember them in your prayers as well.

In yesterday's Parade article, Randy Pausch recalls his childhood experience of the first lunar landing.

I was 8 in the summer of 1969, when men first walked on the moon. I was at camp, and we campers were brought to the main house to watch the moment on TV. But the astronauts were taking a while, and it was late. The counselors sent us to our tents to sleep, and we missed the first walk.I was peeved. I thought: “My species has gotten off our planet and is in a new world for the first time, and you people think bedtime matters?”

I'm making an effort to hear the music, smell the roses, and experience the people who come into my life every day.

Peace,

Boston Product Management Association Promotional Video

Jerold Gefland, principal owner of Boston Digital Video shot and produced a short promotional video for the Boston Product Management Association. The video provides a glimpse of the March 20 meeting where the featured speaker, Steve Johnson of Pragmatic Marketing provided an update on Product Management in 2008.

I made a brief appearance in the video along with several of my fellow board members. Check out this two minute video and see what BPMA is all about. Let me know what you think.
Best,
Chuck

Silicon Valley Product Management Association Newsletter

Ivan Chalif, a Senior Product Manager at Strong-Mail Systems wrote an insightful titled, "I am NOT the CEO of my Product" in the March /April issue of the Silicon Valley Product Management Association Newsletter. He outlines several reasons, such as his lack of control over staffing / resource decisions and macro level strategy. He concludes that the product manager's role is much more like a Chief Operating Officer (COO) than a CEO. While the COO has some strategic responsibility, the role is more focused on tactical, and short-term operational management, which means he is responsible for the development, design, operation, and improvement of the systems that create and deliver the firm’s products/services. The COO is more involved in the day-to-day operations working in a roll-your-sleeves-up and get-your-hands dirty function, which is more aligned Product Management activities.

You can register here for free email updates from the SVPMA