by Joe Johnson Gift giving season is upon us. You’ve finished all your shopping, right? Right?! Okay, so maybe not. But it’s not too late to find the perfect gift. Musing over some spice cookies and mulled wine, it struck me that excellent gift shopping shares a lot of parallels with excellent customer research, which makes [...]

Ah, spring!  Time for new growth and limitless possibilities, and any product manager worth his or her salt would be remiss to pass up the opportunity to bring new innovations to market to spur growth.  The most successful new product launches uncover a real but unarticulated customer need.  But, especially in crowded categories, the earnest [...]

Many organizations start by creating a product or offering without first figuring out who their market is, or whether a market exists at all. So they end up stuck trying to figure out how to sell said product. Having a good product is not enough (Betamax, anyone?) — you should have a pretty good idea who your target customer will be before you invest valuable time and resources in product development.