Each week I scour articles, wading through the dogs, and bringing you the best insights to help product managers and innovators be heroes.

 

Rocky Mountain ProductCamp returns to Denver – Friday, Nov 4. I love ProductCamp. It is a valuable time to learn from experienced product managers, on topics that the participants themselves choose. I’m glad to see it returning to Denver. If you are in Colorado, you should be at ProductCamp. Register here… https://www.eventbrite.com/e/rocky-mountain-productcamp-2016-tickets-27103754058

How do product managers get better – learn from Ellen Chisa’s advice. Ellen shared this presentation at the Colorado Product meeting and posted everything she talked about. She describes a framework for how product managers can craft a personalized approach to improve their product skills. Check it out at https://blog.ellenchisa.com/learning-in-product-6cb06292a98c

Finding distribution for your retail product. Finding distribution channels can be challenging, but these tips can help… (1) attend trade shows, (2) talk to retailers, (3) ask for references, and (4) talk about your product to distributors. Read each at http://www.business2community.com/product-management/find-best-distributors-product-01651711

Writing user stories for API calls. User stories is a tool for expressing requirements. They have the benefit of clearly stating the user (who), the objective (what), and the reason (why). But, APIs don’t fit into this format neatly. Here is a suggestion for applying user stories to technical interfaces… http://onproductmanagement.net/2016/09/

Take the survey – are you an innovation defender or challenger? Are you playing to your innovation strengths? We are either naturally a defender or a challenger. The good news is that effective innovation requires both. Find out which is the better fit for you in this survey… http://www.forbes.com/sites/strategyand/2016/09/19/innovation-requires-both-challengers-and-defenders-which-are-you/

There is no single path for innovation, but here are 6 tips. (1) Seek out problems, (2) choose problems that suit your capabilities, strategy and culture, (3) identify the innovation strategies most likely to solve the problems you face, (4) leverage platforms to access ecosystems of talent, technology and information, (5) build a collaborative culture, and (6) understand that innovation is a messy business. Read all 6 at http://www.forbes.com/sites/gregsatell/2016/09/16/6-things-every-organization-needs-to-innovate