A Branding Lesson From Richie Bobcat

I had to get some concrete removed from the backyard and hired a demolition company owned by a gentleman called Richie Bobcat.  Product marketing teams and brand management teams can learn a lesson or two from this gentleman.

Image is from Richie's web site

His name is Richie Bobcat. His main tool is a Bobcat. He is a two man business and operates the Bobcat himself.

He has a website with the address www.richiebobcat.com.  His name and his website are well advertised on his bobcat, his truck and his shirt. He manages his business so well and does such a clean job that I had to write a post about him. If you have demolition work in the Southbay area, give him a call.

Advice from Don Norman The Author of The "Design Of Everyday Things"

Today I gate crashed an Illinois Institute Of Technology alumni event at the IDEO offices in Palo Alto at the invitation of @enricgili. When I walked in, there was a gentleman with the name tag "Don Norman". I shook hands with him and he asked me what I do for a living. I told him that I am a product manager at SAP and I am designing this cool new thing called Career OnDemand. He said "Good that you are with the product team because corporate design teams don't work.". The dean of the design school talked to the group after a while and he said "Many of you (the design school alumni) do not have the term design in your title....and that is a good thing"...implying that designers need to move away from dedicated teams and embed themselves into product teams where people who build the products are.

After meeting a few more cool people, I said to Enric, "The name Don Norman sounds very familiar. Who is he?". He said "He is THE Don Norman, the author of the book "The Design Of Everyday Things". I then realized that the Professor just taught me a very important lesson in under 30 seconds with simple worlds. Did i tell you that conversation is the best learning technology on earth. You just have to make sure you are at the right place at the right time with the right people.

Here is a video of Don Norman delivering a TED talk.

The Success Of Your Product Depends On The Feedback You Get And The Number Of Iterations You Make

The success of your software product does not depend on the duration of design or the number of people you assign to it. The success mostly depends on the number of times you have iterated the product based on feedback from potential users. As simple as it may sound, this is the secret of successful software product design.

We make what customer want to buy

The co-innovation process we follow for the design and development of Career OnDemand enables us to make what customers want to buy. We create elaborate prototypes that reflect our hypothesis and show it to customers. If no customer shows interest, we just do not make it. We are working with tens of customers who already love what we have designed for them. We don't plan to sell. We plan to make things so incredibly useful, that customers will want to have it. We may not get everything right. But we are pretty sure our approach is right on. It is working very well so far.

SAP Career OnDemand at HR Technology Conference

Many of my colleagues will be at HR Technology Conference this week.

1. The most important session will be David Ludlow's first public preview of SAP Career OnDemand. Heike Kolar, @hkolar the Solution Manager for Career OnDemand will demo the product. This is the demo you do not want to miss. http://www.hrtechconference.com/agenda.html#hcm3 You will see a demonstration of the live product.

2. Eduardo Salamanca de Diego @esdediego and Sven Denecken @sdenecken from  Career OnDemand co-innovation will be there. They are the best people to talk about how SAP Career OnDemand team co-innovates with customers and partners. If you would like to co-innovate with SAP, please talk to Eduardo. You can reach both of them via twitter.

3. Chief Product Owners Joachim Foerderer and Bertram Wiest will be there as well. They are the best people to answer execution and release date related questions. Tobias Dosch, the Senior Vice President responsible for the development of Career OnDemand will be there. This is a great opportunity for you to talk to senior executives who manage people with their fingers on the compile button.

4. You can interact with the product in the demo machines at the SAP booth. Go ahead and take a sneak peek at Career OnDemand.

Thank you. Please let me know what you liked and what you did not. I will appreciate your feedback.