Comments for Mike Urbonas - Product Marketing/Management and Business Intelligence Blog

Comment on “Everything I Really Need to Know About Product Marketing I Learned in Elementary School” by “I Love Tschotskes, Lots of Tschotskes” … Come on, Everybody Sing! « Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Business Intelligence/Personal Branding Blog

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 22:03:58 +0000

[...] Everything I Really Need to Know About Product Marketing I Learned in Elementary School [...]

Comment on Product Managers and Marketers: Ever Feel Like You’re Being Treated Like “The Fighter”? by Mike Urbonas

Mike Urbonas — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:54:34 +0000

Thanks, Roger. Problem solving is important, but I am aware of too many situations in which people readily recognize and celebrate “successful problem solving” but have a tin ear to creativity and innovation.

The overused expression “thinking outside the box” takes on new relevance when you think of “the box” as a well-defined (make that well-confined!) problem for which the expected solution must not question those definitions or confinements: “No, NO, NO, Mr. Henry Ford! We told you to develop a faster horse!

And to your point about problem solving as a potential form of status quo, a culture that reveres problem solving while holding innovation in lower regard, and perhaps even as a distraction, ends up “paving over the cow paths.”

I read this recent blog post on problem solving vs. creativity, and how successful innovation is an order of magnitude more valuable than successful problem solving. Suffice to say I found myself nodding my head a lot while reading it.

Thanks again for your blog post and I look forward to reading more.

Comment on Product Managers and Marketers: Ever Feel Like You’re Being Treated Like “The Fighter”? by rcauvin

rcauvin — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:12:26 +0000

Thanks for posting the link to my blog entry and for drawing my attention to yours! I hadn’t realized you’d already addressed many of the same issues.

Particularly striking to me was your reference to problem-solving versus creativity. Normally, many of us think of problem-solving as a good thing. In fact, Weinberg’s model of leadership emphasizes its effectiveness as solving problems. But your reference brought to mind the fact that problem-solving can often be a narrow exercise in maintaining the status quo (but fixing glitches within it), and thus a disempowering innovation killer.

Comment on Product Managers and Marketers: Ever Feel Like You’re Being Treated Like “The Fighter”? by Mike Urbonas

Mike Urbonas — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:25:34 +0000

Update: Here is a link to a great blog post by Roger Cauvin, on Debunking Leadership Myths for product managers and product marketers. It concludes with an excellent section on how true leaders who find themselves in a disempowering environment (like the ones described above) will work to change their environment, and will not allow themselves to remain in an intractably disempowering environment:

http://blog.cauvin.org/2011/06/debunking-leadership-myths.html

Comment on Point/Counterpoint: Two Polar Opposite Managerial Styles & Personal Brands by Is your Product Like “The Fighter”? Are YOU ? « Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Business Intelligence/Personal Branding Blog

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:41:29 +0000

[...] Leadership that is disengaged from the company’s original innovation and brand equity. Beware of management who was not around and/or not emotionally invested in the company’s original innovations that earned its success and brand equity in the first place. There are many particularly bad examples out there, such as “professional” management teams as described in this past blog post. [...]

Comment on The Impact of Imagination Level on Product Marketers and Managers by Is your Product Like “The Fighter”? Are YOU ? « Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Business Intelligence/Personal Branding Blog

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:36:41 +0000

[...] unfortunate scenario was discussed on this blog in a recent post exploring the Hierarchy of Imagination – highly relevant to this discussion. I suggested in that post that many boss-subordinate [...]

Comment on Play the Product Marketing Game Like a Chess Grandmaster by My Article Published in Pragmatic Marketing Newsletter « Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Business Intelligence/Personal Branding Blog

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:50:12 +0000

[...] is a link to the Pragmatic Marketing article, and a link to the original blog post. [...]

Comment on The Product Manager as CEO-Heir Apparent by The Impact of Imagination Level on Product Marketers and Managers « Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Business Intelligence/Personal Branding Blog

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:44:47 +0000

[...] The further you go up the imagination hierarchy, the more vital your skills of persuasion are. In order for a creative person or someone with “completely unconstrained” Imagination to achieve his vision, he will need to effectively brief others in the organization on the merits of that vision and gain their buy-in, enthusiasm and support (Read more here). [...]

Comment on Be a Dogged (Not Dog!) Product Marketer/Product Manager by The Impact of Imagination Level on Product Marketers and Managers « Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Business Intelligence/Personal Branding Blog

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:44:42 +0000

[...] In fairness to Problem Solvers, creativity needs to be directed carefully. Product manager turned CEO Barbara Tallent warns Product Managers to avoid working on “cool stuff” instead of what customers have already said they need and will pay for. (Read more here). [...]

Comment on Combine Business Intelligence with Business Wisdom by The Impact of Imagination Level on Product Marketers and Managers « Mike Urbonas – Product Marketing/Business Intelligence/Personal Branding Blog

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 14:44:21 +0000

[...] What sets a worker in such a job apart from others is the level of wisdom they bring to their job (Read more here). That said, a person in the Reflex category had better not find himself in a Peter Principle job [...]