When it comes to my blog and thinking and writing about things of interest to me (and hopefully others), I obscenely violate of the best practices that I enthusiastically promote to all those I work with – “generate ideas, quickly share them, iterate, optimize, repeat”.  Well, I’ve decided to stop violating this practice and share an idea that I’ve had rattling around in my head for quite a while: Productonomics. The idea is not especially revolutionary or even very original (the title may make some of you cringe – it even does me sometimes, but hey – it’s catchy). It may be that I am just collecting a sub-set of ideas or putting a slant on concepts that have permeated my industry for a long time, but I think that my approach narrow and unique enough to add some insight and value.  Most importantly, I have found this way of thinking to be very useful and productive in a very practical day to day kind of way. I strongly believe that that all companies and “product people” can benefit from taking a step back and looking at problems through different lenses, and the lense that micro-economics provides is very powerful and insightful for those of us who need to make decisions on a daily basis about “what people want and how we build it”.

I got so excited when I started to pull together these ideas that I went out and registered the domain and had all these delusions of grandeur of having the “Productonomics” blog taking off and getting me a book deal or something… well – for now, I still own the domain, but I’ll just post here on quiet little timjmitchell.com and set the categories of those posts to “Productonomics”.

A very good post and some really interesting insight, IMO, from The Heretech a few weeks ago about A Grand Theory of PM and its useless pursuit (also cross-posted here at Forrester Blog) .  I couldn’t agree more, in that the information economy we live is is just too complex and dynamic to try and nail down solid “truths” about product creation.  In fact, I advocate for methods and process that are, in themselves, designed to be MORE dynamic than the products we develop and not less, as is the case now.  If you think about it, the moment you create an MRD, it is probably out of date — there is already a new competitor, a new social networking dynamic, a new API, or a new technology that either you don’t know about or don’t yet understand.  Tom Grant’s opening salvo says it all:

When you’re start working in an unexplored field of study, such as PM in the technology industry, it’s tempting to propose the Grand Theory Of Everything (GTOE). It’s also the worst possible time to develop a GTOE.

I do, however, believe that “theory”, as a general  tool is very important, not so much for  “explanatory power“, but as guiding principle, analytical aid, and in a sense, an intellectual “port in a storm” when things get really complex and decision making becomes very hard.  I have been threatening for some time now to begin writing about my views on how economic theory (specifically modern micro-economic theory) is an excellent aid in product creation and decision making (its coming, really), and Tom alludes to the sociologic Middle Range Theory as a theoretical guiding principle, which I think is a good and relevant theoretical framework for PM work.  Theory has to be part of a PM’s tool box, and that theory, frankly, should come from a wide and not a narrow area of knowledge. Ultimately, if one can turn to Thorstein Veblen or Elinor Ostrom for inspiration rather than chasing down an arbitrary goal set for clicks on a new feature, then I think one’s decision making might end up more consistent and oriented towards the long run and quality outcomes (of course, selling that kind of thinking across the organization might be tough). Start-ups and small, fast-moving companies don’t really have th time or the resources to be drawing on a ton of empiricism for their decision-making.  Yes, we all need to measure certain things and use the empirical data to make decisions, but we have to be realistic about what we can measure, and more importantly, what real decision producing meaning we can glean from the data. Tom also points to the problem with lots of arduous up-front research:

If someone can figure out why even the most meticulously written and reviewed requirements don’t stop some tech companies from making products that their users don’t like or can’t understand, that’s a big contribution to our little field of study

Indeed, Tom. I am actually going to take a stab at this, but even if I’m not successful, I firmly believe that the era of the 20 page MRD was dead at least 5 years ago. We aren’t philosophers, us PM types, but can certainly use their wisdom from time to time.

I have to partially borrow the title of (my friend and former colleague) Eliot Van Buskirk’s article on Wired.com for this post:  Music: Too Expensive to Be Free, Too Free to Be Expensive.  I need to borrow it, because when it comes to the state of digital music business models, this phrase nails it more than any I’ve heard in a long time. I’ve worked on both the consumer and the “rights-holder” side of this business, and the institutional barriers in the music industry have always been, in my view, the biggest obstacle to progress — for all parties involved.

Advertising was supposed to be music’s magic bullet, enabling fans to get the free music they’re going to find anyway while contributing at least something to copyright holder coffers. That dream is fading fast. As legitimate sources for free on-demand music dry up, fans will likely head back to file sharing networks, which is bad news for everyone involved in music — except for, perhaps, hard drive manufacturers.

That paragraph elegantly sums up what I see as a summary of the core institutional issues of the music business. The revenue generation happens so far away from the consumer experience that the two don’t recognize each other anymore. This model worked for a long time while the entire creative, intellectual property, manufacturing, distribution, and retail channels were in the control of a few large entities, because, well, that’s how oligarchies are. The industry’s bent towards “rent seeking” models, however,  grew old and tired and then the internet came along and put them all out of their misery.  Understand that I lump labels, publishers, and performance rights agencies together into the word “industry”, and rightly so, because this disaggregation of rights is a big cause of their woes.  I’m going a bit beyond the scope of Eliot’s article in discussing the various rights owners and their motivations, but it applies when you are a consumer company who must consider the cost of entering a business involving music (and I ‘m not even talking about up front costs and guarantees).

In a recent MidemNetBlog post titled “A Delicate Balancing Act“, Ted Cohen is sympathetic to both sides of the   “music industry vs. tech start-up” predicament, and he alludes to the cultural differences between tech entrepreneurs and industry types:

Having been on the label side, I understand the desire AND need to extract value from assets. In my current ongoing work with start-ups, I appreciate their passionate desire to do something innovative with music. These two goals shouldn’t be at odds with each other, and yet they are. The ‘asks’ by the rightsholders are frequently substantial, the expectations from the start-ups are often unrealistic. Neither side is really listening to each other, they are each focused on their own immediate concerns. Understandable, but not very productive.

The expectations for start-ups are often are unrealistic, but innovation is like that, and ultimately, “explaining” the music industry to someone with a good idea and a grasp of the demand side of the equation doesn’t solve the problem. The cultures do need to understand each other better, but the institutional structure of the music industry and the high costs that it creates in comparison to the questionable (and perhaps, now, unknowable) demand is a really, really big problem.

Don't bring a knife to a gun fight, but you don't need a nuke, either

I believe that I have reached the saturation point with regards to news, commentary, and punditry regarding the financial crisis, the war, our botched foreign policy, and a litany of other ills – - I think we are all there. The “never waste a good catastrophe” faux-optimistic cliché isn’t much help, but it does ring true for me, and I figured it was an opportunity for me to put it to good use.  Other than taking time off from working in order to have the leisure time to sit around and think about this stuff, I figured it was also a chance to examine the relevant life and professional lessons that might be gleaned.

I watched President Obama’s inaugural speech, what I was most impressed with was his pragmatism, and I think that America is seriously jonesing for a healthy dose of pragmatism (as opposed to blind faith, dogmatism, etc.).  The other night on 60 minutes, again, I was impressed with his pragmatism – - at one point, Steve Croft gave him a bit of a hard time for laughing, but I would argue that in the face of partisan bickering from all sides, what could one man do but laugh. A lot of people talk about Obama’s competence as a major reason for their affinity to him and his message, and here’s to that, but pragmatism, I feel, is always a key ingredient in building competency.

So what do I mean by pragmatism?  Well, in general, it seems the consensus is that there are two major definitions: the dictionary definition of the word (“a practical approach to problems and affairs”) and the philosophical movement surrounding the work of men such as Charles Pierce, William James, and John Dewey in American in the late 19^th century. The two meanings, while different in terms of the level of complexity and provenance, are quite similar in practical terms (yes – practical… forgive the sort-of pun).  The definition I like the best is the first line on the Wikipedia Page for Pragmatism – a quote from William James: “Pragmatism is the philosophy of considering practical consequences or real effects to be vital components of meaning and truth.”

Competence and pragmatism seem linked to me, and I often think that pragmatism is a prerequisite for competence.  Once in a while, you may encounter someone who seems effortless in their competence and success without showing any signs of pragmatism – - they seem to float above any need for a pragmatic approach and they forge their reputation and empire on ideals and brains alone – - they appear to never to have to make a trade-off.  I’m not saying they don’t exist, but my feeling is that they are just very good at making it look easy (the best at anything always do).

Its always so easy to look at a problem or a challenge through the lense of emotion, religion, cultural bias, or even superstition – we are wired for that.  Real competence is to look ahead the reality of consequences and understand that principals are very important, but only if positive results are ultimately achieved.  If there was ever a time for pragmatism – - man, this is it.
“I want to conquer the world, Give all the idiots a brand new religion…”

-          Bad Religion