Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

If you know that almost infamously classic line, you probably are a lover of the movie Office Space.

It has to be one of my all time favorite movies.

Why have I started this post you may ask?

To try to explain to my family, friends and those that ask me questions like "What exactly is your job?" or "How do you make a living?"

My favorite answer and subsequently most common answer "I do stuff."

My official designation at NetworkIP is that of a "Senior Product Manager." Fancy huh? But doesn't exactly state what it is I do, unless of course you go with the smart-ass answer of "I manage products, duh."

Product Management is a fanscinating and what I would consider to be a better (yet sort of complex) form of corporate management. Shortly after accepting the promotion to Product Manager I figured I should buy a book. Which I would like to make a comment on this idea. When I first started with my previous company I thought the ideal of "Buy a book and read it vs training courses/classes." was just something that was promoted within the company because of it's obvious cost savings. However, after reading a number of books that about the time of the American revolution and Age of Enlightenment.

I have read about Generals in the American Continental Army that were made generals because they had read books on soldiering. There was one guy that ended up being in charge of the artillery not for his experience, but for his readings on the subject. Quite fascinating in today's world. I mean I could read about artillery and soldiering but honestly never feel like I should be a General in charges of troops.

Anyway, so having spent the first 5 years or so of my career. Yeah funny to think of it as a career vs a job. But my career with the idea in my head that if there was something I needed to learn that I should just buy a book, I bought a book on Product Management. I did learn quite a bit about what my role SHOULD be.

Obviously, a text book can only provide the "should" and "could" of how things work. Actual application of such knowledge is up to the individual and sometimes the group (ie the company). I believe that my current company has done an ok job trying to implement the concept of Product Management. However, "Rome was not built in a day." so the work continues.

Back to what it is that I do for a living. Typically a Product Manager is a multi-disciplined individual, someone who can cross over between the different departments that are required to support a product. Now, in the book(s) this is stated as a very hard individual to find. I would agree with that. As someone who has sat on the fence between technical & sales, I can state first hand that it is hard to do both well. And obviously stating only two categories is a understatement. Before moving on, let me just say this. That in a room full of sales, marketing, and business folk I am more often than not the most technically inclined in the room. In a room full of developers and support staff I am more often than not the most marketing and business inclined.

"Jack of all trades, master of none." I have since High School tried to know a little bit about everything. When I attended a journalism conference in Chicago my Senior year I decided this philosophy was best. The more you know and can do, the more valuable you are to a company.

So I do consider myself a multi-disciplined individual the more colorful saying is "Jack of All Trades", except I have become very technical in the last few years. I spent the first year of my career as a Technical Writer, it was my job to produce the software manual. I am more than willing to say that I did not produce a GREAT software manual. I produced a reference manual, a manual that told you the limitations and basic functionality of our software interface. This ultimately was not very glamorous. The software wasn't complete so writing a "How to.." manual is kind of hard. Not to mention that the overall interaction amongst the various parts of the platform weren't known by any one person, one could argue they aren't fully known to any one person 8 years later.

Because of the manuals relationship to customers that led me to helping out with the Sales department. Helping with the Sales dept. led to me helping with the Marketing department. Sales & Marketing go hand in hand. I spent about 6 months or so being sort of a liason between the Marketing department and the Development (R&D) group.

Then I got promoted to Sales Engineering, a newly formed department that was supposed to assist Sales on the technical aspects of software, in part to help ensure that the Development group wasn't constantly being interrupted by Sales folk. Which brings up another quote from Office Space "I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to!".

I have met a few engineers in my day that have the capacity to interact with customers and quite a few that honestly should never be put in front of people you are trying to strike a deal with. There are various reasons, intense personality, lack of personality, personal hygiene, etc. Mind you I by no means consider myself a people person, but I have managed to get some compliments from customers.

A lot of those compliments came from the time I spent in the Professional Service Group, PSG department. My job was more of a consultant and account managment role. We were tasked with getting our customers to be happy with us, the ones that weren't particularly pleased that is, and getting the ones that liked us to like us even more (ie buy more software and services).

Ok, so back to Product Management, I was going over the history of what I have done. I have spent time writing documentation, time building sales proposals, crafting marketing campaigns/messages, training customers, pitching sales deals, project managing, writing technical specs for features/services, invoicing customers, custom development (programming), installing hardware and software, wiring T1s, design databases, attending tradeshows, competitive analysis, support (troubleshooting), and much more.

I by no means consider myself an expert in any of those areas.

Product Management needs not necessarily the ability to perform these actions as part of the job, but knowing what these tasks entails definitely is a requirement. The book(s) often talk about splitting the roles of Product Management into two functional roles. Product Marketing Manager and Technical Product Manager. Again, finding individuals who are GOOD in both Sales/Marketing & Technical stuff.

Now, I have rambled on for a bit. Have I really answered what it is I do for a living? Or did I just give more definition to what "stuff" is?

I am responsible for getting the product developed, tested, documentation written, sales staff trained, marketing message crafted, and support organized. Some of this I have to do myself. I have turned a personal interest in PHP programming into a very useful skill for work. I am not going to quit my day job to go and be a PHP programmer, but I do enjoy being able to say "I only play a programmer on TV."

I prefer to delegate work out, but I will admit I have a tendancy to want to just do it myself. However, learning to teach someone to do something may take more time upfront, but it pays for itself many times over in the end.

In the last two years I have worked on many product. None of them have been widly successful. But each one has yielded lessons for me and I would like to think that I have learned the lessons well.

I will get to prove that soon. NetworkIP is launching a new company soon. Soon enough that I figure it is ok to leak it here on my blog. I mean we have already sent out notice of a name change to our customers.

Our new company is Jaduka. I have a new title. Chief Technical Officer. My boss still introduces me as "Acting Chief Technical Officer" which is fine by me, because I have business cards. Take a look...






So in addition to my Senior Product Manager duties I get to wax poetic about technology and think about the bigger picture.

Ok, so hopefully that answers a little bit about what I do for a living.

If not, just remember "I do stuff." and sometimes I try to describe it as "I do computer stuff."

Not bad for a Journalism major though, huh?



Office Space Quotes
http://quotations.about.com/cs/moviequotes/a/bloffice_space1.htm