On the heels of introducing “Productonomics“, I figured I should go ahead and post something relevant, and this article caught my eye a few weeks ago from Silicon Alley Insider: Facebook Has Zynga By The Short Hairs — But It Needs To Be Careful. Yes, of course I appreciate any business article that can refer to pubic hair, but it speaks directly to the kinds of “broad spectrum” econ-based concepts that we all need to be thinking about as we build products.  I have always felt that when developing products, you aren’t JUST dealing with the current marketplace and what you think users want… you are mightily constrained by “what you have to work with”, and many times those constraints matter more than we think.

Its easy to examine at our “product arsenal” and determine the following:  “I have X many designers, developers, and project managers, and I have these tools and technology providers – ok, go”. The problem with that line of thinking is that, in a sense, we are creating an experimental environment that is doomed to provide a false reading of our reality… a  reality that is a complex system with lots of moving parts. We really need to think about the business and competitive environment that our company exists  in, and in many sectors, the business development and legal efforts may have more impact on your decision-making than anything else (just ask anyone building digital media products).

The article discusses the buyer-supplier hold up problem, and in my mind, its an insightful view into the relationship of Zynga and Facebook – - or any app developer to platform provider relationship (iPhone and Android App developers, take note – - – same situation).  A Product Manager, looking at their options from a pure “user advocate” position, might opt to say “well, our users love our game on Facebook, and it works well on Facebook, and we can develop many more features if we stick to one platform, and overall, the product will be better”.  That actually might be a true statement, but past the short-run, if the the party that provides the platform has too much leverage, the product can suffer severely from restrictions that you didn’t bargain for – - or more likely, the profits of your company suffer severely from leverage that you gave up (and then the product suffers from lack of resources).

So what conclusions can a Product Manager draw from this lesson? Perhaps another micro-economic principal is helpful to throw in to understand their situation: Interdependence.  A popular buzz-word thrown around these days to describe the positive side of interdependence is “ecosystem”, but its the same idea. We don’t live in a vacuum with our users, and our companies don’t operate in a static world.  We need to think ahead, and plan for “scale” and all that — but relying on your intuition to make the right guess is pretty damned risky – - I think the lesson learned is for us product people is that we are advocates of users, yes, but also advocates of flexibility.  The real value of Farmville is the game itself, and Zynga might lose some short-term market-share by building in some “flexibility”, but in the mid to long-run, they will be better off with a healthy if not slightly competitive relationship with Facebook and a product that can evolve regardless of the platform or distribution environment.  That discussion will will probably manifest itself in a “we need to give up short-term feature-improvements for longer term flexibility” discussion… not the easiest one to have. Clearly, though, its the conclusion that Zynga drew: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/70086.html.

Recently, I’ve been trying to sort out my social media universe (insert joke here). Anyway, the last time I really thought about this stuff (maybe a year ago?), there a few and options, and now the bad news is that there are endless  options.  What I’m really talking about is managing multiple services and identities,  and  figuring out which service does what the best and how it all comes together.  I’ve come to a some conclusions for myself on how all of these pieces fit together, and it might be helpful for others to see one persons’ approach.  The first one to figure out is the two big ones, and how they should or should not interact.  Basically, I’m getting tired of seeing status updates posted twice in FB because people have their accounts linked, and I’ve stopped it, but for more reasons that just the annoyance factor.  I think I’m violating some kind of twitter etiquette by blogging about it – which is what Fast Company said Scoble said, but the post they link to on Scobelizer doesn’t actually say that… but really, I couldn’t care less, but you know there are rules, I guess.

Facebook vs. Twitter

The first real issue I had to resolve for myself  was to understand the relationship of these two services for me, and how to change my social networking behavior to match an optimal usage of each.  What I discovered (after 2 weeks in a sensory deprivation tank) is that Facebook = Fun, Twitter = Work.  That’s really an oversimplification, but its accurate.  Ultimately, it boils down to the nature of how each network is built, and the fact that I’ve been on Facebook much longer. The reality is that I like to use Facebook mostly socially to engage with (and joke around with) my friends.  Some of the things I say and do on Facebook I wouldn’t necessarily want broadcast to the world, which is what Twitter does best, IMO.

For me, Facebook is (or at least I’d like it to be) for friends, sharing links photos and videos, and frankly, for joking around.  I have discovered that my Twitter profile is, in a way, much more important for me as a public communication tool and identity.  Anyone can see my Twitter account and follow me (spammers aside), and I like it that way. As an internet professional, I must maintain a discipline (much as I must on my blog) to not divulge or say anything that would be harmful to the company I am working for (and as a result myself), but also, as an internet professional, I believe its imperative for me to share information and be an active and integral part of the internet. I would guess that more people will see a Tweet from me before they ever see my blog, my LinkedIn profile, or my Facebook profile. For me, Twitter is about acquiring knowledge, promoting what I do, and sharing ideas.  Those are some big concepts for 140 characters or less, but it seems to be the best platform. I think a lot of other people agree with me, and I see a lot of posts out there that share the same idea, like this one from Cogblog:

“Because Twitter is for sharing information with the world and Facebook is for interacting with friends, Facebook has an inherent virality that Twitter does not have in their current model. “

I know there are a lot of twitter fanatics out there who are adamant that it shouldn’t  be used primarily a “broadcast” tool very actively and dynamically, as is expressed in this post on Twittip.  For the record, they are right in that Twitter is a much more compelling service if used as two-way communication, and I’m starting to actually figure this out…  the “Lists” feature and the now intergrated Retweeting are going a long way to make the communication aspect more compelling.

I came to the conclusion that Twitter is really good at being a big part of and promoting my blog. Using http://Twitterfeed.com, I pull in items I have “shared” from in Google Reader, and now I have a very clean and flexible way of sharing articles via Twitter. Then, with the Twitter Tools WordPress plug-in (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/) I can auto-generate a blog post whose contents are a weekly digest of my Tweets Example: http://timjmitchell.com/2009/11/20/twitter-weekly-updates-for-2009-11-20/. This solves another problem… I have decoupled Facebook from Twitter, since I hated having to hit both networks with the same post. Once a week, I simply share my digest blog post on Facebook – - there is still integration, but its much lighter weight, and it promotes my blog and Twitter account in a much better way. I also display my Tweets directly in one of the side panels of my blog, I have a large “origami bird” follow icon always present, and every post has a “Tweet This” button provided by the “Tweet This” WordPress plug-in (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-this/). Twitter is now the primary way in which I promote my blog or communicate with other bloggers. I often forget to set up proper Trackbacks, and Pingbacks are becoming too un-trusted and associated with SPAM. Twitter is natural for not only promoting a post, but also for directly commenting or indirectly commenting via your own blog posts via @replies #tags, or even direct messages. I also simply cross-post to my Tumblr blog from WordPress, and again, I allow my entire Twitter stream to appear on my Tumblr profile… this is a no-effort way to promote my blog and Twitter profile to another online community.

The title of this post is probably a bit too specific. It should really say “why all people who build and work on web and software based products should blog”, but that’s a mouthful. In a recent post,  I alluded to some of the reasons I’ll discuss below:

…it behooves me to have a well organized site where I can not only express ideas, but where I can tinker, experiment, and otherwise play with whatever social media or web detritus I might want to understand.  A blog these days can be very technically sophisticated, and with all of the plug-ins, social media integration, and SEO capabilities now available…

I felt like it was an interesting enough nugget to pursue and expand upon.  The main purpose of my post isn’t to point out what I consider to be the “obvious” reasons for blogging, and these are, in my view:  sharing ideas, communicating with people in your profession, increasing your professional profile, scratching a creative itch, doing something productive while drinking, etc.  I’m sure there are many eloquent articles and posts out there espousing these benefits. My interest was in how blogging helps people in the “Product Management” world better at their jobs.

A lot of Product Managers DO blog about their profession and share useful information, and my blogroll has a lot of links that are worth checking out, but here are a few: Adaptive Path, Jeff Lash’s Blog, Silicon Valley Product Group, Derek Morrison’s Blog, and many more… I’m always on the lookout for new stuff.  Back to the task at hand, though — here are some reasons why I think Product Managers should blog.

You get to do it all.

As the blogger, you are a combined microcosm of all the departments and functions that you normally coordinate with.  You are forced to make cross-functional decisions across marketing, content, engineering, and product. This kind of authoritarian power is actually humbling, as you start to recognize your weak areas.  It offers great perspective on your “day job”, and it creates feelings of empathy for your design and engineering co-workers.  I also believe that it hones your ability to see forests and trees all at the same time. Also, for some of us, getting your hands dirty is fun.

Social Media Bootcamp

Creating, updating, and promoting a blog is, IMO, an amazing way to really get in deep and understand how the social web really works.  You get to see interrelationships and integration options that you probably never knew existed, since your regular work is typically focused on a few areas at a time.  I remember that a lot of people were confused about  @replies, early on , on Twitter, but the hardcore blogger weren’t … they saw them as trackbacks/pingbacks for micro-blog posts, which is, pretty much what they are.  Recently, I read a post in Dave Winer’s Blog, where he pointed out:

Meanwhile, TechCrunch has caught onto the idea I borrowed from Steve Rubel, almost. They noted that WordPress was growing while Twitter’s growth has (perhaps temporarily) stalled.  The phenomenon is not, as some have said, the “death” of blogging (I hate that word!) — rather huge growth in blogging at the low-end as NBBs discover its joys through Twitter and Facebook. Perhaps very few of them will want more, but even a few is a lot! Expect a huge surge in medium-range and high-end blogging in the coming years, with products like Tumblr and Posterous and WordPress perfectly poised to capture the growth.

I agree with him, and once you start to head down the rabbit hole of how you can integrate your blog across the social web and how you can intertwine your blog with all of your web identities and application, you become blown away by the sheer number of options, but also the abundance of quality solutions that are really effective and cool.  I was recently working for almost two months straight on social integration to an e-commerce site, and I did a ton of research and testing.  I probably learned just as much from tinkering with my blog.  Which leads to my next reason…

Tinkering

I’ll admit that I like tinkering with my blog maybe as much as I do writing for it.  Our world is now full of multi-platform capable, socially integrated, SEO’d, API using, user interacting products. With even a semi-sophisticated blog, there are a lot of interesting decisions youneed to make about what app, plug-in, widget, social aggregation service, RSS feed, or whatever is right for what you want to accomplish… and that’s after you figure out what you are trying to accomplish with is half the battle.  Since its just your blog, you probably aren’t going to go through the hand-ringing process of MRD/PRD/ Cost Analysis stuff… you are just gonna tinker and see what works best, which is a great exercise for those of us who are sort of paid to do all of that hand wringing, its liberating and enlightening to not have to. From a research perspective,  its really interesting to see how different plug-in developers, who all properly identify a particular need, develop so many different solutions to the problem that add value in different ways.  All of that tinkering really helps you to get grounded really see what the web is, how the software functions, and where is all comes together in the user experience.

Product Marketing

Blog promotion is a great exercise in Product Marketing. Your blog is the sum of all of its parts, and your users may be coming to your blog for a lot of different reasons.  Sometimes its other bloggers just checking out how you’ve done something, sometimes its someone searching for information you’ve covered, and sometimes its someone interested in you.  Your “mix” of advice giving, commenting on other blogs and articles, personal anecdotes, and everything else that can be slapped on a web page is all up to you.  You have to think about your “brand” and how your product choices affect the brand.  Believe me – - as soon as more than a couple of people check out your blog, you are thinking about it. If you are someone like me who is typically being hired for how I think perhaps more than anything, your blog might be more important that your resume to some people.

It provides freedom to look “outside” for inspiration and answers.

It would be pretty hard, and frankly, pretty pretentious  to casually mention that Locke’s Social Contract theory may have something to do a confusing user behavior being analyzed in a meeting; however, looking at other disciplines is really useful.  My personal “fetish” is economics.  This is partially because it was my major in college and I’ve stayed interested in the field, but its also because the more I think through economic theories (mostly micro)  that explain  people’s behaviors, the more it becomes relevant to my work.  When I can think through and view a problem from a different perspective that is grounded in an established theory, it can often yield really sound insight. I’ll be working on a post soon about how I think that Vincent and Eleanor Ostrom’s theories of rational choice might help explain why digital media piracy “seems ok” in the minds of piraters.  Not exactly something you want to throw out in a strategy meeting, but its useful for me to think about, since a lot of my career has been trying to figure out how to get people to pay for stuff they can easily steal.

There are lot of other benefits, but the downside is the time-suck, and this is where the discipline part comes in.  That’s good for you too.

Ok, so I’m getting my blog going again.  Or… rather – for the first time.

I’ve probably started and abandoned more than a dozen blogs in my time.  Blogger, WordPress, MovableType, Tumblr, and probably a few others that I’ve forgotten, are littered with the skeletal remains of various attempts to enter the blogosphere in a meaningful way. I really made my big push about a year ago when I chose WordPress as my platform of choice, and even went so far as to register some domains, including my vanity “timjmitchell” moniker. Although, as much as I like to hear myself talk, I really had a hard time getting posts started and even a harder time completing them.  Part of that inability is simply life (work, marriage, social, music, etc.) taking up time, but part of it was really  not really understanding why I was doing it in the first place. A quick search on Technorati can yield for you any number of other people’s reasons , but I think I’ve finally come to my own conclusions.

The practical and “hard” answer is that given what I do for a living, it behooves me to have a well organized site where I can not only express ideas, but where I can tinker, experiment, and otherwise play with whatever social media or web detritus I might want to understand.  A blog these days can be very technically sophisticated, and with all of the plug-ins, social media integration, and SEO capabilities now available, a good blog can be a real asset to one’s career. As a product management type, it’s really an interesting experiment to have one property/destination/whatever where there is no “cross-functional-ness” at all – it’s just me, some tools, the web, and my own good, bad, or neutral decisions.  I’m working on a post now that goes into this in more detail, so I’ll spare you more discussion. Ultimately, given what I do, its almost a problem NOT having a blog – - whether or not that says something positive or negative about web-working I’ll leave to others.  At the very least, I own a domain with my name in it and an email address that goes along with that – frankly, that was the main reason I set it up in the first place.

A more metaphysical and “soft” answer is that it allows for a certain type of mental exercise that falls outside of work and/or normal social discussion. Never mind my predilection for using Facebook http://www.facebook.com as mostly a container for funny links and videos or snarky comments on other people’s posts  – - I mean, isn’t that what its for? Ok, Ok, I know that there are meaningful ways it can be used for business, but that’s for another post – - I think Facebook should mostly be for fun, and that’s just me.  My blog has got to be a sincere attempt at expressing sincere ideas. I think being able to post about subjects that I am not an expert on, for example, is a really productive way to remind yourself how to acquire and analyze new knowledge.  So for me – yeah, my blog is professionally focused. You won’t see posts about my vacations or good meals or movies – - there’s nothing wrong with that, but for me, it just wouldn’t keep me interested and blogging.

Oh, I changed the design, too — i had this really frothy japanese-themed look that just wasn’t pro enough… I wanted slick and so forth, but you can be the judge.  I’ll post a screenshot of the old interface and explain later.

Now for the snarky comments back from my friends on Facebook when I start promoting my sincere (and to many, probably extremely boring) posts.  I can take it.  I can blog about it, I guess, too.