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

Product managers salary is up with average at $138K. For tech jobs, those in product management are paid higher than other roles. See the annual salary data for tech jobs in the 16 biggest markets at https://yourstory.com/2017/02/hired-techies-pay-in-usa-and-globe/

Product management is about always learning, which means mistakes will be made. This is the story of what happens when a new feature resulted in a 20% increase in customer conversions but also a high increase in customers leaving. Check it out at http://www.mindtheproduct.com/2017/02/product-management-making-mistakes/

How designers differ from product managers. Designers, especially in the form of UX, are common on product teams. They are responsible for many aspects of a product, but they are not product managers. Read about the differences at https://giffconstable.com/2017/02/the-difference-between-design-and-product-management/

How product managers can motivate product teams. Product managers rarely have real authority over the members of a product team. Even if they did, using that authority to motivate is often ineffective. Instead, they need to find productive ways to influence. Learn more at https://leadonpurposeblog.com/2017/02/13/supercharge-your-teams-motivation

The difference between product management and project management and why you need both. I was one happy person the first time I was a product manager on a project that also had a project manager. The project manager focused on the tactical work that had to get done, allowing me more time to focus on the customer problem. Read this perspective at https://mobacommunity.com/blogs/entry/Product-Management-vs-Project-Management-do-you-need-both

McDonald’s product managers have developed a straw just for shakes. McDonald’s is in need of innovation to find new value they can deliver to customers. I would never have guessed that included reinventing the straw, but they did. I’ll be interested to see how they leverage this… http://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/mcdonalds-unveils-a-silly-new-tech-innovation-thats-actually-kinda-cool.html

Better products are those that reduce cognitive overhead. Cognitive simplicity is what product managers are after. This is a measure of how easy your product is to understand.  Read the insights from Google Photos product lead at http://firstround.com/review/cognitive-overhead-is-your-products-overlord-topple-it-with-these-tips/ 

Innovation must be constrained by trends. There may be someone in a garage somewhere making the ultimate portable CD player, but we already know it will fail in the marketplace, which has moved past CD players. Trends matter and need to be considered in the design of products. Read more at http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomfgoodwin/2017/02/12/innovation-is-the-art-of-defining-boundaries

10 things to learn from the most innovative companies. This year’s list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies provide some insights into innovation. Read the top 10 at https://www.fastcompany.com/3067450/most-innovative-companies/what-you-can-learn-from-the-worlds-most-innovative-companies-of-20