Global Product Management Talk

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

I am wrapping up a 3-month road trip through the Northeast of the U.S., allowing me to meet many innovators and product managers. I had a few experiences, including visiting Niagara Falls, that rekindled an interest for me in historic innovators, including Nikola Tesla, often thought of as the person behind how electricity is created and distributed.

I went looking for a Tesla historian that could help us understand this innovator and what we as modern innovators and product managers can learn from him. My search led me to award-winning author, Bernie Carlson. Bernie wrote Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age and is well recognized for his research on Tesla as well as other historic innovators. He is a professor and the Director of Engineering Business Programs at the University of Virginia.

In the interview you’ll hear about Tesla and what we can learn from him, including:

navigating creativity,understanding illusion and storytelling to sell your ideas,which modern innovator shared characteristics with Tesla, andthe balance of invention and business skills innovators need.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

This podcast is named The Everyday Innovator and I call the people who listen Everyday Innovators. That has meaning. Everyday Innovators see the world a little bit differently. We actively look for problems and unmet needs, recognizing that those are opportunities to create value for customers. Our mental wheels are constantly spinning, thinking about how we can make existing products better and create new products that wow customers. In short, where we find our most energy and satisfaction is creating products that customers love.

So, when I saw a new book titled, Deliver Great Products That Customers Love, I knew I had found a kindred Everyday Innovator and I asked him to talk with us.

The author of the book is Valerio Zanini. He has created products and led product teams for Fortune 500 companies including Cisco and Capital One, advised several small and medium businesses, and founded a Product Innovation, Design Thinking and Agile coaching practice called 5D Vision. He also has an awesome Italian accent, which you’ll hear in a moment.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode: 

There are several thousand product managers on LinkedIn and many of them are women. However, I noticed that few product VPs are women.

About the same time, I attended a “Women in Product Management” panel at Rocky Mountain Product Camp, moderated by Shaughnessy Speirs. Afterward we discussed how few product VPs are women and how it would be valuable to have a panel discussion focused on women in senior product roles.

Shaughnessy ran with the idea and organized another panel a few months later for a conference called Denver Startup Week and I had it recorded to share with you. Four leaders joined the panel.

Shawna Barnhart, Product Management Leader and Former VP of Product at Artifact UprisingHolly Vezina, Director of Product at APR ConsultingJenn Dearth, Product at StediAnn Koerner, Adjunct Professor of Product Management at DU and Former VP of Product at GutCheck

Our moderator, Shaughnessy Speirs, has been a product manager in several software organizations with depth in agile software development and business analysis.

This is a longer discussion. The panel responds to Shaughnessy’s questions for the first 30 minutes and the remaining time they respond to audience questions.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

I have a special episode for you. I believe that as product managers and innovators, we have a responsibility to help prepare the next generation of innovators. I’ve explored this topic in a few past episodes and it is time to do it again. So, this episode is about encouraging you and providing you with ideas for helping future innovators.

For this discussion, I traveled to a study room on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I met with a new student, 17-year-old Kyle Markland. While being accepted to MIT is a significant accomplishment itself, what Kyle is known for is his robotic video tutorials. He is a kid teaching kids. His story is an inspiration to Everyday Innovators, as we can also encourage an interest in robotics and other STEM topics, as well as innovation in general, by sharing our experiences.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

I’m still on my road trip of the northeast U.S. and made a stop in Bristol, Pennsylvania. What took me to this small town was a video series called The Small Business Revolution. This is a reality show where small businesses in small towns get help from business experts, and I have become a groupie, visiting each town where the series has been made.

Season three was just launched and you can find it along with the previous seasons on Hulu or at www.smallbusinessrevolution.org.

Product managers and innovators are the heroes of companies, creating products customers love, and in turn generating revenue that pushes the economy forward. That’s what being an Everyday Innovator is all about. And, small business owners are the heroes of small towns.

I love the stories that this video show examines, and the story behind its creation also has good lessons for Everyday Innovators.

The show is produced by Deluxe Corp and I caught up with their VP of Public Relations, Cam Potts, to discuss the making of the show.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

Creating a new product starts with excitement and the thrill of doing something different. The launch of the product is surrounded by cheers. For many product managers, it is the best part of their work. But between the project start and the launch is where the hard work occurs. It is the messy middle, full of rocky terrain that is woefully underestimated and misunderstood.

The Messy Middle is also the name of a new book by my guest, Scott Belsky. Scott is the chief product officer of Adobe and founder of Behance, the leading creative network used by more than 12 million professionals. Scott has guided many teams through the messy middle of new product projects and ventures. In the interview, we’ll address a few of the topics from this book, including:

Build your narrative before your product,Make one subtraction for every addition,Do the work that needs to get done—even if it’s not your job, andIdentify what you’re willing to be bad at.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode: 

I am on a road trip through the northeast of the U.S., talking with innovators and product managers. At the encouragement of a friend, I took my two kids to visit The Henry Ford, a museum of innovation near Detroit. It was created by Henry Ford as a tribute to his friend Thomas Edison. It’s an amazing place to learn about things I love — inventions and innovations. I’m bringing you a small slice of it in this episode, discussing a few innovators with a focus on three:

Thomas Edison,Steve Wozniak, andSteve Jobs.

My guest is Dr. Kristen Gallerneaux, Curator of Communications and Information Technology at The Henry Ford. Kristen is responsible for the development of collections and experiences relating to computing, sound, broadcast, graphic communication, office equipment, photography and motion images, and other such areas related to technology.

She is also an artist, with her media being sound. She recently released a new book from MIT Press titled High Static, Dead Lines: Sonic Spectres and the Object Hereafter, which is a literary mix tape exploring boundaries in sound, culture, and belief.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

I’m currently on a tour through the northeast of the US, visiting product managers and innovators. On my way, I stopped in Minneapolis and found an incredible innovation case study at Deluxe Corporation.

You’ll hear from Chris Clausen, Executive Director, how this company that is more than a century old is avoiding being disrupted by embracing innovation. He’ll share:

why they had to innovate,how they discovered the new product and market opportunity,how they decided what to build and what to buy to make the product a reality,that the innovation was viewed by many in the organization as cannibalizing their main business, much in the same way as Kodak viewed work on digital cameras as cannibalizing their core business, andhow they used customer testimonies to sell the innovation internally.

It’s a fabulous story with many lessons. The written summary of our discussion is at www.TheEverydayInnovator.com/194.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

Being a good product manager requires a diverse set of skills, including communicating, influencing, design, technology, product process, and business acumen. New product managers and not-so new product managers have lots of opportunities to make mistakes. When you can, it is better to learn from the mistakes of others. That is why I invited Cole Mercer to join us and discuss common mistakes and how to avoid them.

Cole has a very popular course on Udemy for people wanting to get into product management or who are brand new to it. He also is creating training on LinkedIn Learning for new product managers.

I also want to tell you about the fastest growing conference for software product management. It is coming up soon, Oct 2-3, 2018 and you still have time to register. It’s called INDUSTRY and they have several product experts (many you will know from listening to this podcast) lined up to share their experience. Everyday Innovators can register for the conference for 30% off. Just use the code EverydayInnovator when you register. Find all the details at www.INDUSTRYconference.com.

Now to the discussion for avoiding product management mistakes.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of...

The Everyday Innovator with host Chad McAllister, PhD.

The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers.

About the Episode:

Creating products customers love. If you are like most product managers and innovators, that is your motivation to do great work — the work of product management. It is our common thread and a distinguishing characteristic of Everyday Innovators. Every day we are looking for problems we can solve in ways that create more value for customers.

That means we have to understand customers’ problems, what they want to accomplish, what they want to avoid, and how they want to feel. When we are doing our job really well, we know our customers better than they know themselves.

Part of that job is asking customers questions – the right questions that help us discover information that ultimately leads to products they will love. This is an area Rachel Wynn knows a good deal about. She is a product manager and communication expert I met at Rocky Mountain ProductCamp in Denver, Colorado. She joins us to share her guidelines for asking great questions, which are organized into a framework of three areas, which she calls:

Grace,Bias, andPivot.