Warm Greetings to everyone!

I'd few queries, which I would like to discuss with everyone.

We all know that, "Product Managers" are CEO of their respective products and are responsible for every aspect of those!

My query is simple, assume a case where, you are a product manager, and dealing with some products targeted to enterprise customers and not the desktop users. (For example, you've a product in the enterprise infrastructure management)

However, while doing your job, one fine day you've come across a new product idea. (UREKA!)

For better understanding assume, it's about creating a new portal/site!

Now, this might be some kind of product, which is targeted towards desktop users rather than an enterprise.

In this case, the company you are working with does not deal in the area where you could tell to your company about new idea and even if you tell about your idea, your company doesn't want to divert their focus other than enterprise products/customers.

Could some one tell me, in that case how to take this further?

-          What are the options you've, to see your idea becomes into a reality or a successful product.

-          Whether would you recommend to approach a Venture Capitalist for new startup company by your own (obviously, you should have confidence in your idea)

-          If yes, what are the steps you would take to approach VC and convince?

Since here, you don't have anything, other than your vision / idea about product.

Yes, we may give some supportive details about Products / domain / market / segment /

competitors and all market research/etc.….

Can someone guide me, on what different ways you can materialize such idea?

Thanks and Best Regards,

-Yogesh Hublikar

Taking the Bugs Out of Product Lifecycle & Corporate Alignment: How
Trend Micro Leveraged Requirements Management to Keep Computer
Threats at Bay for its Customers

Staying ahead of worms, blocking viruses at the gate, and keeping a
watchful eye on spyware requires constant product updates, bug fixes
and on-the-fly changes. For Trend Micro Incorporated, a $660 million
provider of virus protection software, waging war on computer
threats is a never-ending battle. Much of this responsibility falls
on its product management team, who is charged with developing
threat management software and instantaneous updates for its
worldwide corporate and individual users.

As if that wasn't challenging enough, the company also decided to
embark on a top-down re-engineering of their product development
process in order to become more market-driven. Trend Micro's product
management team was at the center of this effort, and their
experience shows how other software companies can align their
product-building efforts with corporate initiatives — and make
personal productivity gains at the same time.

Read the rest at:
http://www.featureplan.com/pdf/TrendMicro-CaseStudy.pdf



The Basics of Agile for Product Managers, with Laureen Knudsen –
Free Webinar on the Product Management View, April 26 (or as a Flash
recording within week of event):
http://www.featureplan.com/community/categories/webinars/



And finally, don't forget to register for the upcoming Product
Management conference in Boston May 23-25.  Program details
available at:
http://www.smpevent.com/program.htm

Just a reminder of this month meeting at 7 pm this thursday April 5th
2007;

Title: "Product Management in an open-sourced world"
Location: Calgary Technologies, Room 2&3
Date: April 5th, 2007
Time: 7:00 pm sharp
3553 - 31 Street NW
Calgary , AB T2L 2K7

Guest Speaker: Brian McKinney
President and Chief Chief Executive

Brian McKinney founded ICEsoft Technologies Inc. in December 2001. He
is a leading entrepreneur and executive whose focus is on the
development of enterprise level software. Prior to ICEsoft Brian
co-founded AudeSi Technologies Inc. along with Steve Maryka and Terry
Sydoryk. AudeSi, which developed Java-based management solutions for
embedded devices was sold to Wind River Systems in March of 2000.
Prior AudeSi, Brian was responsible for Nortel Networks Consumer
Product development initiatives. During his time at Nortel Mr.
McKinney oversaw the development and commercialization of over 60
consumer products. Mr. McKinney holds a BSc. in Physics and
Mathematics from the University of Victoria and an M.ASc, in
Engineering from the same institution.

Warm Greetings to everyone!

I'm new to this group.  

As we know, the aim of this yahoo group is targeted towards discussion/sharing knowledge related to "Product Management/Marketing".

I'd few queries, which I would like to discuss with everyone.

Here we go!

We all know that The "Product Manager" is called as "Internal Customer" within any organization

Or some people even call them "Voice of Customer"!

Here query is, when any product manager makes any visit to any customer site, his/her agenda would generally move around following points –

-           Trying to find out the domain customer is working? Kind of product/services they are using? Finding out their satisfaction level?

-           Trying to find out pain areas/ problems / difficulties of customer's current environment?

-           Trying to find out the new features, which they would love to see in the next releases? Finding out what kind of value addition they would like to see?

-           Etc… etc...

My point is does any one know any standard and "Generic" template, where we can grab all customers' inputs in a single document very systematically rather than a Wilde method of noting discussion points or grabbing customer feedback from "Minutes of meetings" and use it while creating our own MRD.

Bottom line, what I asking is, does any one know any better way to "Record customer's voice" so to have a point-to-point clarity and we can use full out of it while creating MRD.

Thanks and Best Regards,

-Yogesh

Please note that the next Calgary Product Management Association will
be  held on April 5th.

Location: Calgary Technologies, Room 2&3
Date: Feb 15, 2007
Time: 7:00 pm sharp
3553 - 31 Street NW
Calgary , AB T2L 2K7

Guest Speaker: Brian McKinney
President and Chief Chief Executive

Brian McKinney founded ICEsoft Technologies Inc. in December 2001. He
is a leading entrepreneur and executive whose focus is on the
development of enterprise level software. Prior to ICEsoft Brian
co-founded AudeSi Technologies Inc. along with Steve Maryka and Terry
Sydoryk. AudeSi, which developed Java-based management solutions for
embedded devices was sold to Wind River Systems in March of 2000.
Prior AudeSi, Brian was responsible for Nortel Networks Consumer
Product development initiatives. During his time at Nortel Mr.
McKinney oversaw the development and commercialization of over 60
consumer products. Mr. McKinney holds a BSc. in Physics and
Mathematics from the University of Victoria and an M.ASc, in
Engineering from the same institution.

Hello Calgary Product Management Association,

I wanted to introduce myself and my book to you, "Software Product
Management Essentials: a practical guide for small and midsize
companies".  The book debuted in April of 2003 and we just released
a 4th anniversary printing after selling over 10,000 copies
worldwide.  I have been presenting to groups including Feature Plan
(via webinar) and here in my (U.S.) area, The Boston Product
Managers Association.  The Feature Plan and BPMA presentations are
both archived as well and I am happy to share the slides from that
presentation. Perhaps I can offer some articles or other information
to your group remotely if interested.

If you are interested in the book, I welcome you to the website:
www.swproductmanagement.com.  Feel free to use the code SPME5 to get
$5 off. If you order there, you also get free access to the
templates online.  The book is also available on Amazon and
Barnes&Noble.com as well but no free templates there.

Thanks for this opportunity to post this message.

Sincerely,
Alyssa


Alyssa Dver
Type @ Consulting
Product Management & Marketing
Author,"Software Product Management Essentials"
www.swproductmanagement.com
508.881.5664

Hello,
Here are the top Webinars that were reviewed as flash or podcast
over the last 30 days.  If the links are too long to view in your
email, you can find all past and future Webinars posted at:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/

Agile Methodologies: How Product Management's role is shifting with
Laureen Knudsen at HP
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2007/01/agile_methodologies_how_
produc.asp

Pragmatic Marketing 2006 Compensation Survey Results with Steve
Johnson
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2007/02/pragmatic_marketing_2006
_compe.asp

Understanding Requirements Concepts with Roger Cauvin
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2007/01/understanding_requiremen
ts_con_1.asp

Building Effective Product Roadmaps with John Milburn
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2007/02/pragmatic_roadmapping_al
igning.asp

Please drop in to the Product Management View to check out past and
upcoming Webinars and Blog postings.

Don't miss the upcoming Webinars held every Wed at 12:00 EST:

Feb 28 - Surviving Product Management - Linda Gorchels, Director,
Executive Marketing Education, University of Wisconsin
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2006/07/surviving_product_manage
ment.asp

Mar 7 - Information Supply Chain: Aligning diverse teams to minimize
time-to-revenue for high-tech products - Saeed Khan, VP Product
Management, Avokia Inc.
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2006/07/information_supply_chain
.asp

Many of the top Webinar speakers are now confirmed to speak at the
SMP conference in Boston May 23-25, details available at:
http://www.smpevent.com/

Regards,

Russell Foy
VP Sales and Marketing
Ryma Technology Solutions Inc.
Office Phone:   +1 905 709 3503
Mobile Phone:  +1 416 627 6370
Fax:                +1 905 731 0841
foyr@...
http://www.featureplan.com

I agree. Pragmatic gave us a heavy dose of this during
the 2 day course and Tom was adamant about it as well.
I guess the trick would be to get this customer
feedback without having to change company culture
completely (as that would be very difficult.

The second phase of this would be to set up customer
advisory boards that provide feedback on a continuing
basis and help develop customer focused products.

Babar

> One of the topic areas that would be very valuable
> would be in
> relation to obtaining direct market or customer
> input.  This topic
> is discussed quite regularly and seems to be one of
> the areas most
> companies and product managers struggle with.
> Perhaps we could have
> someone present how they've succeeded in this area
> and what
> approaches have worked best (focus groups, user
> forums, sales calls,
> etc).
>
> Regards,
> Dallas
>
> --- In
> CalgaryProductManagementAssociation@yahoogroups.com,
> "Doug
> Gutzmann" <dgutzman@...> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> > Tom Hodson of SMART Technologies shared a
> thought-provoking
> presentation
> > last night showing how market-driven companies
> effectively expand
> the
> > Product Manager's scope to cover complete "brand
> management".   The
> > challenge went out to Calgary's Product Managers
> and their
> organizations
> > to become more successful by pulling the whole
> go-to-market value
> > proposition into focus, rather than strictly
> focusing on product
> > features and attributes.  Tom provided a
> compelling case for the
> > pay-offs of this approach.
> >
> > Now a call for input: what topics would you be
> interested in
> addressing
> > at future Product Management Association meetings?
>  Do you have any
> > general subject areas or specific responsibility
> areas you would
> like to
> > see discussed?  Are you looking for input on
> dealing with process,
> > technical, or interpersonal challenges in your
> job?  Please
> respond so
> > speakers and topic areas that help you in your
> career are planned
> for
> > future meetings.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Doug Gutzmann
> >
>
>
>




________________________________________________________________________________\
____
Never miss an email again!
Yahoo! Toolbar alerts you the instant new Mail arrives.
http://tools.search.yahoo.com/toolbar/features/mail/

One of the topic areas that would be very valuable would be in
relation to obtaining direct market or customer input.  This topic
is discussed quite regularly and seems to be one of the areas most
companies and product managers struggle with.  Perhaps we could have
someone present how they've succeeded in this area and what
approaches have worked best (focus groups, user forums, sales calls,
etc).

Regards,
Dallas

--- In CalgaryProductManagementAssociation@yahoogroups.com, "Doug
Gutzmann" <dgutzman@...> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
> Tom Hodson of SMART Technologies shared a thought-provoking
presentation
> last night showing how market-driven companies effectively expand
the
> Product Manager's scope to cover complete "brand management".   The
> challenge went out to Calgary's Product Managers and their
organizations
> to become more successful by pulling the whole go-to-market value
> proposition into focus, rather than strictly focusing on product
> features and attributes.  Tom provided a compelling case for the
> pay-offs of this approach.
>
> Now a call for input: what topics would you be interested in
addressing
> at future Product Management Association meetings?  Do you have any
> general subject areas or specific responsibility areas you would
like to
> see discussed?  Are you looking for input on dealing with process,
> technical, or interpersonal challenges in your job?  Please
respond so
> speakers and topic areas that help you in your career are planned
for
> future meetings.
>
> Regards,
> Doug Gutzmann
>

Hi Niall:
    you are correct it is based on Pragmatic Marketing Framework
Cheers
Mark
--- In CalgaryProductManagementAssociation@yahoogroups.com, "Niall
O'Driscoll" <nodrisco@...> wrote:
>
> That's the software that's based on the Pragmatic Marketing Framework
> right?  It was mentioned several times in the Pragmatic training I
> attended.  The company I'm working for considered purchasing it, but
> in the end decided not to go with such a solution.
>
> I'd be interested in it.
>
> N.
>
> --- In CalgaryProductManagementAssociation@yahoogroups.com, Marc Saks
> <marksaks@> wrote:
> >
> > In one of the CPMA meeting; Some CPMA members showed interest in
> Ryma software called Feature Plan;
> >   I was wondering if there is an interest to have Ryma present their
> Feature plan software in April;
> >
>

That's the software that's based on the Pragmatic Marketing Framework
right?  It was mentioned several times in the Pragmatic training I
attended.  The company I'm working for considered purchasing it, but
in the end decided not to go with such a solution.

I'd be interested in it.

N.

--- In CalgaryProductManagementAssociation@yahoogroups.com, Marc Saks
<marksaks@...> wrote:
>
> In one of the CPMA meeting; Some CPMA members showed interest in
Ryma software called Feature Plan;
>   I was wondering if there is an interest to have Ryma present their
Feature plan software in April;
>

Hi guys,

Any way you can post this for the group?  There's some great
information in it.

Thanks,
Niall

Just a reminder that we will be meeting at 7pm today. Tom Hodson is
our speaker tonight, who is the President & Chief Operating
Officer at SMART Technologies. Tom's presentation is titled

"Brand Strategy and Execution- Think Big Win Big With your Customers"



See you all there.

Thanks
Babar

Date: Feb 15th 2007 (Thursday), 7pm

Guest Speaker: Tom Hodson
President and Chief Operating Officer (COO)

Tom is considered a thought leader in strategic management and is
also recognized as one of Canada's top sales and marketing
executives. He speaks frequently to corporate audiences on business
strategy and a wide range of sales management and marketing topics.
Tom joined SMART in 2006 from Optimé International, a consulting
firm serving Fortune 500 companies specializing in the areas of
strategic customer management, marketing and business integration.
In his capacity as executive vice president and managing partner, he
led large-scale projects in the areas of post-merger business
integration, customer marketing and strategic account management.
Tom has worked with a who's who list of blue chip companies and his
leadership has helped transform the efforts of numerous companies
including Cadbury Adams, Heinz, Pepsico, News Corporation, Molson-
Coors, Yellow Pages Group, Schick-Energizer and Nestlé to name a
few.

Previous to Optimé International, Tom spent 16 years at Procter &
Gamble (P&G) where he worked in a variety of roles from entry-level
to the executive rank. He was widely recognized at P&G for his
outstanding leadership skills and was consistently ranked in the top
5% of his peer group in North America. His business results at P&G
reflect an ability to deliver strong growth in very complex and
competitive environments. He received one of Procter & Gamble's
highest honors - The President's Club Award for a record of three
consecutive years, given for leadership, innovation and outstanding
business results.

He is the co-author of the well-respected business book entitled `A
Blueprint for Winning with Today's Customer' which has received
strong reviews across North America and the United Kingdom. He has
been interviewed on both radio and television on business subjects,
most recently on CBC, CITY TV and Inc. Magazine.

Tom holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Queen's
University in Canada.

Topic: TBA

Location: Calgary Technologies, Room 2&3
Date: Feb 15, 2007
Time: 7pm sharp
3553 - 31 Street NW
Calgary , AB T2L 2K7

Jana Taylor from Divestco would like to inform the CPMA members that
Divestco has the following position:

http://www.divestco.com/html/careers_97.php

The Product Management View Newsletter
A newsletter for software product managers and marketers
Winter 2007
*********

New lineup of speakers announced for the Product Management View
2007 Webinar Series

Check out the latest group of speakers for the Product Management
View Weekly Webinar Series for the start of 2007 at:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/categories/webinars/

Learn about the latest, up-to-the-minute product management and
marketing issues from accomplished industry leaders, authors,
speakers and trainers.

Here is a sample of the upcoming webinars that you won't want to
miss:
• Agile Development Methodologies: How Product Management's Role is
Shifting, Laureen Knudsen, Hewlett-Packard Corporation
• Pragmatic Marketing Annual Benchmark Survey Results, Steve
Johnson, Pragmatic Marketing
• Understanding Requirements Concepts, Roger Cauvin from the Cauvin
Blog, http://cauvin.blogspot.com/
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Product Managers, Alyssa Dyer,
CEO of Wander Wear Inc. and  author of Software Product Management
Essentials
• Surviving Product Management, Linda Gorchels, Director, Executive
Marketing Education, University of Wisconsin and author of The
Product Manager's Handbook (2006)
• The Bottom of the Sales Cycle is NOT the Contract, Jim Foxworthy,
Instructor, Pragmatic Marketing.
• Pragmatic Roadmapping: Aligning your Product Strategy with the
Market, John Milburn, Instructor, Pragmatic Marketing
• And many more!

See past webinars in the archived Webinars section, available for
download in flash or podcast format at:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/categories/webinar_archive/

So now there's no excuse not to take advantage of these amazing
educational webinars, sponsored by FeaturePlan.

Register for the upcoming Product Management View webinars today at:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2005/11/webex_login.asp

----------------------------

Software Marketing Perspectives (SMP) 2006 Conference - Boston, MA
If you only go to one event all year, make it this one

The SMP event, being held May 23-25, 2007 in Boston, MA, will bring
together software and service company executives to discuss new
business models for delivering software products and services, and
strategic directions in product management, market management,
marketing communications and public relations. Attendees will learn,
network and strategize.

The event will feature top experts and practitioners in technology
product management and marketing.  To register, or to get more
information on this don't-miss event, visit http://www.smpevent.com/

----------------------

Don't forget to blog!  http://www.featureplan.com/community/
Be sure to check out The Product Management View blog to see the
latest and greatest in the product management community.  Explore,
read, post, comment, submit, and share your ideas with your fellow
technology product managers.

----------------------

Message from the Product Management View Sponsor, FeaturePlan:

Hot on the heels of the launch of FeaturePlan web interface is
FeaturePlan On-Demand, the requirements management software built
for Software Product Management – view the new 5 minute demo at:
http://www.featureplan.com/

FeaturePlan is doing double-duty by sponsoring and attending at
Product Management Association meetings around the world.  Be sure
to come by and say hi!

Sponsoring and attending:
Raleigh, North Carolina:  Triangle PMA, January 18, 2007.
Herzliah, Israel:  ILPMA, February 7, 2007
London, UK:  UK PMF, March 21, 2007

Attending:
Silicon Valley, CA – SVPMA: February 7, March 7, April 4
Boston, MA – BPMA:   January 18, March 15, April 19
Toronto, ON – TPMA:  January 30, February 27, March 27, April 24
Atlanta, GA – TAG Product Management: January 18, 2007

Note: All PMA website addresses are posted on right side of PMV Blog

-----------------------

Register for The Product Management View Newsletter and Webinars at:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2005/11/webex_login.asp

Date: Jan 25th 2007 (Thursday) , 7pm

Guest Speaker: Shawn Abbott, Principal & Director SpringBank
TechVentures

Shawn Abbott has been a Principle and Director of SpringBank
TechVentures since its inception in 2000. Shawn will focus on deal
origination and deal analysis, particularly from a strategic and
technology perspective.
As a technologist, entrepreneur, executive, venture capitalist and
educator, Shawn Abbott has over twenty years experience in the
information technology business.

As President of Rainbow Technologies (NASDAQ: RNBO) commercial
operations, he consolidated three divisions, built a management team
to return the US$70 million business to profitable growth, and
positioned it for a successful sale in 2004 at nearly one-half
billion USD.

As corporate Chief Technology Officer, he was responsible for
technology strategy and instrumental in the creation and leadership
of a new business that quickly grew to US$10 million revenue per
quarter.

Prior to joining Rainbow, Shawn established and built the AND group,
which pioneered the encryption-based CD-ROM software distribution
system used on several million discs. Under his leadership, AND was
consistently profitable and grew to twenty staff before sale.

Shawn has served as a board member on half a dozen private and
public companies internationally. he is an accomplished public
speaker, having presented at more than one hundred conferences on
Internet security and business topics, and taught software design
courses in several countries.

Shawn is the primary inventor of "USBKeys", holding a key patent in
the area. He has written numerous articles and feature pieces for
industry publications, and contributed the chapter on hardware
cryptography to McGraw Hill's, "ICSA Guide to Cryptography".

Shawn currently chairs the Banff Venture Forum. Shawn holds a B.Sc.
in physics from the University of Alberta and has done post graduate
study at the University of Calgary, Stanford, and UC Irvine.

When not working, Shawn can usually be found flying a helicopter or
playing the piano.
Topic: TBA

Location: Calgary Technologies, Room 2&3
Time: 7pm sharp
3553 - 31 Street NW
Calgary , AB T2L 2K7

Just a reminder to join us at the Kilkenny Wed. evening to meet your
fellow CPMA members before the holidays.  Details below.

Networking Event – Wed. Dec. 20th, 7:00pm

Join us at CPMA's first ever networking event at the Kilkenny Irish
Pub! It will be a social evening of fun and entertainment with other
CPMA members.

The Kilkenny Irish Pub
Brentwood Village Shopping Centre (behind Blockbuster)
Phone: (403) 284-4404
Fax: (403) 210-1062
#500-3630 Brentwood Rd NW
Calgary , AB T2L 1K8

One of the Pragmatic Marketing mantra's in class was "Are you describing your product in terms of its features or its benefits?"  Too many times you look at a draft of a product's data sheet or a white paper to review and it's a case of "feature vomit". Or maybe 2 or 3 benefits, and then it devolves into a feature list. That's because often Technical Product Managers and Systems Engineers just can't wait to tell you about their features, Features, FEATURES!! It's reminds me of the Grinch hearing all that noise, Noise, NOISE down in Whoville. It's annoying and it's boring. Even Microsoft for YEARS would list programs by their features. Look at tools for your hard drive under control panel and you'd find a choice called "Disk Defragmenter". So if your mom ever saw that I'm sure that would resonate with her since everyone knows what computer hard disk defragmentation is all about……yeah right. It took a decade and the release of Windows XP for the "Disk Defragmenter" choice to be replaced by:

"Rearrange items on your hard disk to make programs run faster"

Who doesn't want their programs to run faster? Everyone gets that.

Yet often when we do write benefits statements, they fall into the same old tried and true categories like "Save Time", "Reduce Costs", and "Increase Revenue". That can be "white toast for breakfast" boring as crap too.

The struggle is to QUANTIFY your benefits and make them tangible to your prospects in a way that relates to an issue they are having or an opportunity they want to seize. Take it a step further and if you can quantify a benefit using a customer reference point, it will lend so much more credibility to your claims. My own customers are doing a much better job of this when they talk about their products than I am talking about the platform we sell them. Often it's easier to just go with "beige colored" benefits than to try and quantify them and get everyone that thinks they have to approve messaging to agree on the numbers.

"We make it faster"... How much faster? Did you save 10 minutes on a 40 hour task or did it take you 3 months beforehand and now it only takes you 2 days?  Without number this is a boring, boring, boring...

"We reduce costs" ......Will I save $100, $1,000 or a million?

"Asterisk saves call centre operator R4.5m" (In this headline, Asterisk, which is a VOIP solution, quantified the savings and named the type of prospect they hope notices this as well)

"We make it smaller"

How much? 10% or 99%?

I had an ERP vendor state that that software appliances reduced their final build size 99%. We had other data points as well but we to date have never made any attempt to quantify it in our public messaging and I can't figure out why.

I could say "Reduce the size of your builds by up to 99%" would that grab someone's attention? Make them say "No Way!"? Make them "click through" on an ad to see if that's bunk? Get an analyst to return your call or even write a piece on how you did that? 

"We make it simpler/easier..." or what if you could say "What used to take a team of 4 outside consultants 2 weeks to assemble we can now do in-house in less than 2 hours".

"Improve results" …how about

"How Segway Achieved 95% Dealer Adoption with Salesforce PRM" (A webinar title I saw yesterday)

In the first year of a company this may be harder due to lack of true customer references but you could at least reference tests you have run and make some projections. (Be prepared to defend them though later in the sales cycle or your credibility is shot permanently with that prospect).

Product Managers, who should be regularly interviewing customers face to face or voice to voice (NOT in an email) should be obsessed about asking them to compare the "old way" with how they do it now using your product. You'll find they may not come right out and give you numbers so propose a number "Did it cut the time in half?" and it will often get the conversation moving. You get serious bonus points if you can get them to contrast your product vs a competitor's. One I saw yesterday for Zimbra (a collaboration suite provider):

"VMware and Zimbra reduced my total cost of ownership by 5X compared with the cost of Microsoft Exchange."

Any customer that lets you publicly slam a big competitor deserves at least 1 piece of every type of sales swag you have with options for any new swag you produce for at least a year.

Find a way, any way, to quantify what you give customers and prospects will be more likely to click through, ask how, tell a friend, keep the conversation going and hence keep the sales cycle moving in the right direction.

If you have what you think is a great or horrid example of benefits driven collateral, ads etc, please send them to me…

Keith Boswell

kboswell@...

Networking Event – Wed. Dec. 20th, 7:00pm

Join us at CPMA's first ever networking event at the Kilkenny Irish
Pub!  It will be a social evening of fun and entertainment with other
CPMA members.

The Kilkenny Irish Pub
Brentwood Village Shopping Centre (behind Blockbuster)
Phone: (403) 284-4404
Fax: (403) 210-1062
#500-3630 Brentwood Rd NW
Calgary , AB T2L 1K8


Please confirm your attendance bu send an email to msaks@...

This is a reminder for Wednesday's Product Management View Webinar.

Assessing and Managing Risks of Product Portfolios with Ruedi Klein
from Lucent – Wednesday Nov 29th at 12 noon EST (-5 GMT.) Additional
details on the session are available at:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/categories/webinars/

For details on how to connect and to register to receive a weekly
email reminder of upcoming Webinars, visit:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2005/11/webex_login.asp

How to connect to the Webinar:
Login Wednesday before 12 noon EST (-5 GMT) at:
https://featureplan.webex.com/featureplan/onstage/g.php?
d=356000489&t=a
OR (if link does not work)
https://featureplan.webex.com
The event number is: 356000489
The password is:  featureplan
You can dial in toll-free at 1-800-605-5167 or internationally at 1-
719-457-0339.
The listen-only code is 6548181#.

Couldn't make it to one of our webinars?
Visit our Webinar Archives section and download the flash or podcast
files of the webinars you missed at:
http://www.featureplan.com/community/categories/webinar_archive/

Finally, we are looking for speakers for next year.  If you would
like to submit a presentation, please email me the topic,
description and you bio.

Regards,


Russell Foy
VP Sales and Marketing
Ryma Technology Solutions Inc.
Office Phone:   +1 905 709 3503
Mobile Phone:  +1 416 627 6370
Fax:                +1 905 731 0841
foyr@...
www.featureplan.com

It is at 7:00 P.M

tyrone_chou <tyrone_chou@yahoo.com> wrote:

I got an email about a Kick-off Meeting at Calgary Technologies
(details below). Does anyone know what time it's set for on Nov. 30th?

Thanks,
Tyrone.

Calgary Product Management Association Kick-off Meeting
CPMA Inaugural Meeting Sponsored by Calgary Technologies

Date: Nov 30th 2006

Guest Speaker: Professor Debi Andrus, PhD. University of Calgary (MBA
Program)

Debi is an Assistant Professor of marketing at the Haskayne School of
Business, University of Calgary . Her research and teaching interests
focus on marketing strategy, relationship marketing, innovation, new
product development and creativity. She is interested in relationships
within and between companies. Debi spends time working with her
students to develop their speaking and leadership skills. She is
currently a business columnist for CBC Radio One. Before pursuing her
PhD at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow , Scotland , Debi
worked for a number of Canadian companies in marketing management
positions including Nortel and Ernst and Young.

Topic: "The Magic and Myths of Developing Marketing Strategy"

Location: Calgary Technologies
3553 - 31 Street NW
Calgary , AB T2L 2K7

---

Everyone is raving about the all-new Yahoo! Mail beta.

I got an email about a Kick-off Meeting at Calgary Technologies
(details below). Does anyone know what time it's set for on Nov. 30th?

Thanks,
Tyrone.

Calgary Product Management Association Kick-off Meeting
CPMA Inaugural Meeting Sponsored by Calgary Technologies

Date: Nov 30th 2006

Guest Speaker: Professor Debi Andrus, PhD. University of Calgary (MBA
Program)

Debi is an Assistant Professor of marketing at the Haskayne School of
Business, University of Calgary . Her research and teaching interests
focus on marketing strategy, relationship marketing, innovation, new
product development and creativity. She is interested in relationships
within and between companies. Debi spends time working with her
students to develop their speaking and leadership skills. She is
currently a business columnist for CBC Radio One. Before pursuing her
PhD at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow , Scotland , Debi
worked for a number of Canadian companies in marketing management
positions including Nortel and Ernst and Young.

Topic: "The Magic and Myths of Developing Marketing Strategy"

Location: Calgary Technologies
3553 - 31 Street NW
Calgary , AB T2L 2K7

I got an email about a Kick-off Meeting at Calgary Technologies
(details below).  Does anyone know what time it's set for on Nov. 30th?

Thanks,
Tyrone.

Calgary Product Management Association Kick-off Meeting
CPMA Inaugural Meeting Sponsored by Calgary Technologies

Date: Nov 30th 2006

Guest Speaker: Professor Debi Andrus, PhD. University of Calgary (MBA
Program)

Debi is an Assistant Professor of marketing at the Haskayne School of
Business, University of Calgary . Her research and teaching interests
focus on marketing strategy, relationship marketing, innovation, new
product development and creativity. She is interested in relationships
within and between companies. Debi spends time working with her
students to develop their speaking and leadership skills. She is
currently a business columnist for CBC Radio One. Before pursuing her
PhD at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow , Scotland , Debi
worked for a number of Canadian companies in marketing management
positions including Nortel and Ernst and Young.

Topic: "The Magic and Myths of Developing Marketing Strategy"

Location: Calgary Technologies
3553 - 31 Street NW
Calgary , AB   T2L 2K7

The Product Management View Newsletter - A newsletter for software
product managers and marketers

Call for Speakers:
Software Marketing Perspectives Conference in Boston May 2007 and
The Product Management View Webinar Series

Call for speakers for two events:

The Software Marketing Perspectives Conference www.smpevent.com May
23-25, 2007 in Boston, MA.  Looking for top experts and
practitioners in technology product management.  Deadline to submit
presentations are November 30, 2006.  Get more information or submit
your presentation at http://www.smpevent.com/callforpapers.htm

The Product Management View Blog and Webinar Series
www.featureplan.com/community  Looking to schedule speakers for
March-June 2007 weekly online webinars.  Qualifications: product
management and marketing professionals who are not only
knowledgeable in these fields, but who also want to share their
knowledge with industry colleagues. Webinars are promoted to over
65,000 product management and marketing professionals.  See who has
already spoken in the archived Webinars at
http://www.featureplan.com/community/categories/webinar_archive/
To submit a presentation, please email me at foy.r@... with
your Webinar topic and biography.

Register for the upcoming Product Management View webinars today at
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2005/11/webex_login.asp

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Don't miss this Webinar!

Enabling Product and Requirements Management Companywide

In this special Webinar, you will find out how to make your product
management process more effective by consolidating incoming customer
and market requirements and creating a central database, tracking
these requirements through multiple releases and then delivering the
context to developers in order to streamline development time.  All
this with the newly-introduced FeaturePlan On-Demand!  Presented by
Rene Bellei, CEO, and Stewart Rogers, Product Manager, both from
Ryma Technology Solutions.  Get more information on Enabling Product
and Requirements Management Companywide
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2006/11/special_webinar_event_no
v_17_2.asp

This Webinar takes place on Friday November 17, 2006 at 12:00pm
EST.  Register today at
http://www.featureplan.com/community/2005/11/webex_login.asp

It will also be recorded and made available on The Product
Management View Blog and Webinar Series www.featureplan.com/community

---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Pragmatic Marketing® Introduces Pragmatic Roadmapping™ course

The new Pragmatic Roadmapping course from Pragmatic Marketing
http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/Seminars/RM/ offers techniques for
communicating product plans, strategy and vision to different
audiences - both inside and outside the company. Learn how to align
your product strategy with the market.

Reminder: Pragmatic Marketing invites you to register for a free
subscription at
http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/Resources/fp_subscriptions.asp to
www.productmarketing.com , the marketing journal for technology
product managers.


---------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------

Don't forget to check out The Product Management View Blog!

Be sure to check out The Product Management View Blog at
http://www.featureplan.com/community/ to see the latest and greatest
in the product management community.  Explore, read, post, comment,
submit, and share your ideas with your fellow technology product
managers.


Regards,

Russell Foy
VP Sales and Marketing
Ryma Technology Solutions Inc.
Office Phone:   +1 905 709 3503
Mobile Phone:  +1 416 627 6370
Foy.r@...
www.featureplan.com

Billy on Open Source summarized the larger picture in his post:

When Oracle announced its entrance into the general purpose operating system market, I was most surprised by the endorsements provided by Red Hat's partners. AMD, Intel, IBM, NetApp, HP, Dell, and several others endorsed Oracle's move into the space. On the surface, this endorsement would seem to indicate that Red Hat has done a poor job meeting the needs of these partners. If you dig a bit deeper, however, it is inevitable that any general purpose operating system company will eventually fail their partners and customers if they are successful in the market.

How to explain this paradox of failure through success? Let's examine the economics of the general purpose operating system business. The goal is to sell as many copies of the OS while spending the least amount of money engineering the OS. The easiest approach to maximize sales while minimizing expense is to engineer a single, one-size-fits-all implementation of the OS targeted at the sector of the market that is willing to pay the most for such an OS. The benefit of this approach is that it is possible (with a bit of luck, some good engineering, and a bit of a lead at the beginning of the race) to pull off the holy grail of software and create a de facto "standard." The downside is that no one gets what they really want.

The reason that no one gets what they want is because the OS becomes a huge compromise - the lowest common denominator across all requirements. Even mighty Microsoft struggles with this issue of attempting to serve all requirements with a single, one size fits all, product. The period between releases of products grows and grows. The amount of new features that distinguish the OS shrinks and shrinks. So much effort goes into simply trying to make all of the old programs and drivers continue to work with all of the new programs and drivers coming into the market that the OS schedule and features become casualties of this work. Another casualty is the relationship with your partners and customers.

When attempting to make everyone's drivers and code work with a single release of the OS, no one's drivers and code work really well. When the schedules and features slip, your partners' businesses are impacted. Your customers planning schedules are impacted. No one is happy. Which explains why Red Hat appears to be a victim of its own success when all of its partners stand up to endorse a competitor such as Oracle.

So what is the answer? Well, I don't think the answer is Oracle using the same technology and the same approach to the market and promising lower prices. Nor do I believe the answer is for Red Hat to simply "try harder." Something needs to change. I believe the change will occur when pervasive virtualization technology splits the operating system into the separate categories of hardware OS and application OS. Then, the only standard that needs to be maintained is the virtual machine format. Each application can arrive as a virtual appliance with its own unique, tailored OS wrapped inside a standard virtual machine. All applications work seamlessly together on the same machine without the requirement for a general purpose, one-size-fits-all operating system.

The signposts of this change are already there if you care to look for them. VMware's revenue and growth rate are off the charts. The hype surrounding Xen is deafening. Microsoft just announced they are opening up their virtualization spec in an attempt to avoid falling further behind VMware. And the virtual appliance hype has gone from non-existent to a continuous, ever louder thunder roll in a matter of only 9 months. And, finally, all of Red Hat's partners stood up to endorse Oracle as a Red Hat competitor because they believe Red Hat should have done a better job serving them. It's time for all of us to take responsibility for this problem and move to a better model. A model where everyone can have what they want, and the operating system providers can be successful without failing their customers or their partners.