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

 

4 steps for using social media to improve products – lessons from GM. (1) Centralize your social media team, (2) Give your social media team the resources they need, (3) Keep it simple, and (4) Be active listeners. GM had the first and extremely successful full-time consumer research department in the auto industry in 1933. Today they are becoming masters at using social medial for market and consumer research. This Harvard Business Review article shares details https://hbr.org/2016/02/how-gm-uses-social-media-to-improve-cars-and-customer-service

The right way to share your product concept with your boss. This article is lacking detail, but the overall theme is important – product managers need to be properly prepared before sharing a new product concept with supervisors. Many organizations have a natural resistance to new ideas. Overcome the resistance with clear customer insights, market trends, and deep understanding of the problem being solved. Read more at https://www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=12214

Product managers often come from engineering or marketing backgrounds, and sometimes they are English majors. I’m always interested to hear how people become product managers. There’s not a single career track to product management and it’s not an established major in college. I was particularly interested to read this interview about how Jennifer Pugh became a technology product manager coming from an educational background in English: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lolita-taub/who-says-english-majors-c_1_b_9237284.html

3 steps for conducting a lean innovation workshop to generate ideas. I’m not a fan of events that box innovation into a one-time event for an organization, but some companies have used them wisely to jumpstart an innovation culture. Creating a workshop with lightweight process, resources, and technology is a wise start – read how at http://www.computerworld.com/article/3032502/it-management/3-steps-to-a-lean-innovation-workshop.html

Do you need a product manager or a growth hacker for product success? Startups and others are turning to growth hackers to increase interest in products and grow a customer base. Sean Ellis first defined the term as someone “whose true north is growth. Everything they do is scrutinized by its potential impact on scalable growth.” While they operate between product development and marketing, they are not product managers. They are typically employed for web-based products where they work to convert visitors to users. Read more at http://smallbiztrends.com/2016/02/what-is-growth-hacking.html

What FastCompany learned about innovation by identifying the world’s 50 most innovative companies. FastCompany concluded that global innovation is more robust than ever. In doing their research to identify the most innovative companies, they also collected lessons about innovation. This article describes 15 lessons, including (1) organizations can learn, (2) Amappooglebook leads the way, (3) tech has no monopoly on speed, (4) streaming can’t be stopped, (5) the mobile game is just beginning, and 10 others at http://www.fastcompany.com/3056039/15-lessons-of-innovation-for-2016

A new online product in 24 hours – how Bryan Harris did it. Bryan gave himself a 24 hour challenge – create and sell a new product in 24 hours. He used an appropriate amount of planning that involved 3 phases: (1) figuring out what to build, (2) build it, and (3) market it. He also used some lightweight project management via Trello to stay organized and track progress. See the details at http://blog.videofruit.com/24-hour-product-challenge-january-2016/

Frugal innovation is taking center stage. The digital revolution, best known as the internet, has created infrastructure for new innovation that efficiently uses resources. Airbnb and Uber are classic examples, but there are others in education (Khan Academy), healthcare (telemedicine), banking (mobile payments) and more. Read about the examples at https://hbr.org/2016/02/tackling-big-global-challenges-with-low-cost-innovation