New Ask a Good Product Manager Answer
I’ve answered another question for Jeff Lash over on Ask a Good Product Manager. It’s one that I’m quite familiar with and have dealt with (and probably will continue to deal with) throughout my career, as most PdMs.
“How can I persuade others who have more industry experience?”
Go check it out and post some of your thoughts / follow-up questions experiences in the comments!
Why Mahalo
One of the most frequent questions I get is: “why do you use / like Mahalo?” Well, I figured it was time to address this in some more depth.
First, those that discover (for the first time - and maybe beyond) that I use the product over Google are quite surprised. It’s almost like a “how could you abandon Google?” type response. Well, the truth is, I’m not. But we’ll get to that in a little bit.
Really, it comes down to believing in what Mahalo is all about as a product more than anything. Sure I use Wikipedia. Could I rely on it for day-to-day information? No. Sure I read a ton of RSS feeds, but can I rely on those to provide with answers about a bunch of stuff (really, anything) throughout the day? No. Does Google mesh both of those things (current + news) — yeah, kinda.
But not in a way that completely satisfies me.
Let me fill you in on what I deem to be the 2 secrets of Mahalo.
- It’s not trying to be all information to all people (Google)
- Their guide notes (shown in the screenshot below)
This little blurb of text provides me with Wikipedia type information, but in a fast and easily referenced way. This is especially true when you get to the homepage. This is human-monitored and managed information, folks.
So this should cover why it’s better than Wikipedia, even though Mahalo makes no promise to be a Wikipedia replacement. It it did, I’d surely be less interested. But I see these two things I’ve mentioned already as key time savers throughout my day.
Now, if you look at the screenshot above carefully, you’ll notice a section called “Help Build.” I’m not going to get in to the intricacies of the Mahalo Greenhouse. But certainly, one of the best ways I got hooked as a user was when they rolled out Mahalo Social. Yes, I contribute regularly.
I actually started, and contributed, several links to help build the product management page, as I’ve mentioned on this blog before. And you know what’s funny? I actually want to submit content. When I see a spelling error on a guide note, for example, I want to draft a quick message on the message board for that page to let the guide that created it know. Why? Because I’ve actually received timely responses that are well-spoken and seen results.
You don’t get this from Google. Mahalo knows it’s capital intensive to run a people-driven content business like this, but it’s imperative. Regular old, unimportant users like me actually get to see there is stuff going on behind the scenes and they really do care about the quality of the content they are creating.
One of the other great things is their browser plug-ins that make it drop-dead simple for shmoes like me to easily supply them with content.
Now, this is only the direct and immediate type stuff that you get when interacting with the product. And I can’t lie - I know there are certainly critics out there. Any product will have them. But anything that really saves me time and helps me to find the content I’m looking for quickly is a big winner in my book.
Oh, and how have I not abandoned Google? Well, for any page / search term Mahalo doesn’t recognize or have yet, they will show you Google results. Perfect.
Presentation This Morning
I had a presentation this over via conference call; from my point of view, it went great. I’m going to get some survey results later in the week that could either prove me to be somewhat right or completely off the mark.
Jeff Lash was kind enough to contact me about taking part in an ongoing session he organizes for the product management teams at Elsevier. We decided that I would discuss working with development; a subject I am quite familiar with from my time in start-ups to this point in my career, and having started out as a developer myself.
One of the interesting things I noted was that even though I’m a start-up guy and Elsevier is a much larger organization than what I’m used to, the concepts all held water. Some language was different or org structures were different, but 99% of what I wanted to say was still true. Very cool stuff.
In the same style as my talk with the Product Management View, I kept my deck very, very minimal. I figure, unless I’m face-to-face, I don’t want to have distracting pictures and other “hilarious” bits in there. Just the facts. 3-4 points or less per slide. When I get going, I’ll only use the slide headers as guidance. Sometimes I’ll reference points on the slide itself, but usually, I just keep it pretty loose.
You can download the deck if you are interested in checking it out.
Anyway, enough about what I like to do during presentations. The group that joined in on the call was amazing - they had some fantastic questions and really seemed to get something out of it. To the best of my knowledge, no one fell asleep, which is a metric I like to use when gauging my success of speaking to a group.
I know there are some PMs reading this out there. I encourage you, a lot, to contact Jeff Lash to discuss taking part in his sessions. It’s a great experience, Jeff is a super smart and nice guy, and plus you get to talk about something you (hopefully) really love - product management.
Thanks again for the great opportunity, Jeff!
Product Management Surveys
I wanted to send up a quick post (I’m working through some longer, more thought-out ones at the moment) regarding the great work Tom Grant over at Forrester is doing with their Product Management division.
I’ve stepped through both of the surveys they have up currently - they are well thought out and will surely produce some great data points for us all to use. I encourage everyone to swing by and answer the questions. The two that are currently up are:
I’ll post links to more of them as they become available…
Ask a Good Product Manager
I wanted to draw some more attention to a new blog that Jeff Lash has launched called Ask a Good Product Manager. Jeff is doing some great things for the community (and is a great PM) and made me realize I need to get my blogging butt back in gear here.
Also, as an aside, I will be at the PM seminar in Toronto tonight for the TPMA. If you are available to come / are in the area, look for me — I’ll be there eating a lot of pizza.
