TechnoBrands

Since the product manager “owns” the product, especially ensuring that the product meets the expectation of all stakeholders, it is essential that product management leads the way with respect to ensuring that any product being developed is environmentally friendly and is part of a sustainable overall model.

Recent regulatory changes – within the last 5 years –  which are designed to force manufacturers to be accountable for implementing basic environmentally responsible behaviors (RoHS, WEEE etc.) are decades overdue.  Unfortunately the implementation of some of these directives are “knee jerk” and their actual effectiveness remains to be proven out.  Government regulation should only be the last resort – it is up to responsible designers and marketers to think ahead.  We need to integrate a set of best-practices for product management which takes into account the real cost of end-of-life of a product and which looks at not only the whole product, but the whole product life cycle.

My name is John and I’m addicted to technology.  My entire working life has been absorbed in creating technology products: from wireless telecom equipment (subscriber equipment and infrastructure)  and  enterprise application software development, to consumer electronics stuff (karaoke players).  I’ve pretty much done everything that you can do in a career with respect to hardware and software product development and product marketing.  Since I’ve been blessed with the richness of the experience of my career, I feel a need to contribute to the state of best-practices in the science of product management and product marketing (in other words, to allow others to learn from my mistakes). 

That said, I have to admit that there is already lots of good information available with respect to product management and product marketing and, although I usually have an opinion on most things to do with product management and product marketing, I’d highly recommend work done by others (I’ll publish a good list of references here soon). 

There are two areas which I feel are not covered well by others and which I intend to focus my blog effort around:  i) sustainability as a key element of product development and ii) “product management for the rest of us”, how to apply product management and product marketing best-practices to small technology businesses which do not have sufficient critical mass to have a “product manager” on board.

I will endeavor to create an engaging and informative monthly posting which will help to improve the state of these two areas.  Comments are welcome (however I do reserve the right to edit them and use them to further my cause – after all, this is my blog).