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There are three things I would like to share, from my last three product management jobs. All three things are incredibly useful when thinking about your product and I'm using them almost every day.Perceived Option Value: I learned this from my boss at Day Software, building content management systems for enterprise customers: Customers don't pay for the effort you are putting into a feature, but for the value they are getting out of the feature. That's customer value. In reality, as customers are buying products with only limited information, what counts (at least in the short term) is actually the value the customer is expecting out of the product. This is perceived value. To make matters even more complicated, customers are frequently buying features they are never actually using and are happy with it. Why? Because they have the ability to use them when they need them, without going through another sales (and decision) cycle. They keep their options open, which is a value in itself. This is perceived option value. Understanding what the perceived option value of your product is will allow you to correctly assess the importance of features that are not frequently used and at the same time protect you from overshooting features that are frequently used.Job Stories: while working on integrating Adobe Marketing Cloud, I've been seeking for ways to clearly communicate requirements and the value of a feature to engineering and product marketing stakeholders without resorting to cliched and ineffective user stories user stories. When I found User-12029336623460145138's introduction to job stories I put them into work immediately with great results.Opportunity Values: the most recent addition to my personal Product Management Toolkit came at Blue Yonder when I've been looking for a way to incorporate quantitative feedback into feature prioritization and roadmap planning. On the Intercom blog, I saw this great blog post introducing the basics of opportunity scores, which are based on Tony Ulwick's framework of Outcome-Driven Innovation.One of the cornerstones of being a successful product manager has been to look for inspiration and mentoring within and outside of your organization. Reading blogs such as Des Traynor's or User-12029336623460145138's are a great way to learn when your product management team is small, but ideally you have the greatest learning opportunity by joining a great product team and learning from your colleagues.I should mention that I'm hiring product managers right now, so if you are interested in predictive analytics, enterprise SaaS and automating decsions based on machine learning, get in touch. If you also have experience in retail or internet of things, definitely get in touch.

There's a short answer and a long answer to this question. Here's the long answer...Ideas from people external to the company and employees are a distraction unless they are part of a process to help deliver a business strategy, moreover a particular part of the business strategy.Asking anyone to suggest anything they think may improve the business ultimately leads to despair as there is no rhyme or reason as to why some ideas are better than others. The management then usually switch to novelty gift giving in order to keep a failed process in operation.The most effective way to implement ideas (or innovations) is to inform all those participating as to its purpose and ask for specific solutions to diagnosed problems. This often leads to very creative ideas that are useful in other areas of the business. It can also make the whole process much more rewarding for those involved.For this to work, there usually has to be an over communicated business strategy. The strategy has clearly identified business challenges and departments and tools have been aligned to deal with the problems. The culture of the business must be one of acceptance to new ideas and innovation and the staff hierarchy of needs must be met.If an ideas is to be a great idea it must create change in the business. A culture of acceptance of change needs to be in play. If you just want ideas on how the company car park should be arranged then you'll never create game changing ideas/innovations.All of this sits on top of a bed of technology, that includes the ideas software you asked about...sorry it took so long to get to the punchline.We use Propulsion - (*declared self interest. I own the company)If you're really serious about getting ideas from others (it's called co-collaboration or open innovation) once you start the next set of challenges will be around how to select the best idea. There are arithmetic methods that reward ideas that have close alignment with strategy, highest commercial return and shortest time to market.Finally you need to consider how you'll kill off ideas that aren't working without poisoning the culture of creativity you're trying to create.If you're to take one piece of advice from this post it is this. Technology is not the answer to innovation. It's a small part of it. Don't implement the technology unless your business/team/collaborators are ready.If you want more information, send me a message.

The answer to this depends a lot on the age of your company’s online presence.If you have a brand new website with no organic rankings you will need a mix of digital marketing activities to get things into gear.Pay Per Click (PPC) ads such as Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads or Facebook ads will drive immediate traffic and business if your website is set up to convert those leads.Local SEO will be a priority to ensure your local online presence is set up and your local citations are accurate. This drives your local customers to your website and physical location. This is a list of 50 top local citation sources that you can start with to build your citation portfolio.(SEO) Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing, long term digital marketing strategy that will, over time, increase your organic rankings and eventually replace or reduce your PPC ad spend.Adding a blog or article section can be part of your overall SEO strategy to add authority to your website. Here are 5 SEO tips for blogs.Social media marketing can start with simply setting up your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn pages and posting regularly.For new online presence this combination is important. If you have been around for a while online then you may not need to PPC as much and can concentrate on your Local SEO to ensure continued citation accuracy