Back to Snow Land

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I am back to snow land(Boston) after spending a month in Bay Area. Going from the sunny weather of California

to cold weather of Boston

was very depressing. I landed in JFK and started driving to Boston yesterday evening. Final semester at MIT and so looking forward to running back to CA :).

How to be a good product manager

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Product Manager is one of the most versatile roles in any organization. Product Managers have to deal with developers, marketing, legal, finance and designers. Its a role which touches every aspect of the product evolution. The most challenging part of this job is the fact that there are no direct reportees to any product manager. They need to carve a niche for themselves through influence rather than authority. What they need to do is to understand and bring together different lines of thoughts from different teams together to create a single successful product.

This becomes quiet challenging in technology companies. Most of the successful product managers in my experience come from strong technical background. This is important because the most difficult part of their job is to deal with developers. While raising a feature request they need to understand a developers point of view. Its also important for them to be able to relate their technical expertise to gain respect and influence among developers and still be able to appreciate and evaluate the creative and the artistic side of the product.

Any company would want their product managers to have the right product instincts and creative sense. Its not simple to develop product instincts over a day. Although a few people have natural instincts in analyzing products and knowing what would work and what will not, for most of them this is developed over a period of time. You need to analyze the market, understand their needs, and see how products should be developed to meet these needs while generating profit for the company.

While preparing for product managers role, take several good technology products and see what makes a product fail or succeed. Read case studies because that helps you in understanding the market. Try to take failed product for the company you are interviewing for and see why it failed, how it can be improved and what changes you would recommend.

So what attributes make a good product manager.. Below are some of my thoughts

• Needs to have a deep business understanding. 
• Should be able to communicate across multiple departments and multiple levels in a company.
• Very analytical and scrupulous while analyzing product features.
• Deep technical understanding.
• Strong customer focus and marketing acumen.

China's remarkable growth and India's missed opportunities

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A good article(http://money.cnn.com/2011/01/10/news/international/china_magnus/index.htm) on china's rising economic and political dominance on international stage was published on CNN. It claims that the  China's remarkable achievements over the past 20 years were in part due to rapid globalization, which are  now at risk due rising tide of currency, trade and inflation. 

I can't help but wonder why did India not exploit all the opportunities it had in the last two decades? What exactly went wrong? Why didn't India not capitalize on the amazing once in a century opportunity, it was handed over by the talented engineers and outsourcing wave.

I believe India lacks many fundamental infrastructure and policies to rise to the world stage irrespective of all the opportunities. As it is said luck is opportunity meets the preparedness, India was simple not prepared. The evidence of shortsightedness is also visible in their entrepreneurial success. Most of the companies who have succeeded from India are in the service industry. In spite of all the knowledge base, opportunities and resources, India never truly created products which competed on international stage.


Take for example Infosys. It created a product called Finacle for core banking in 1999 and after over a decade, it only constitutes less than 3% of it's revenue. With all the financial backing and technical know-how it is still not able to make Finacle a world leader  in financial industry. 


Well, I do not plan to answer this question tonight, but just continue wondering. 

The Content dilemma

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In the world of internet, digitization of information is important. There is a lot of content floating on the web but to associate it with credibility and filtering it out of the irrelevant information has been the business model for many companies. Think about Quora. This new startup which created waves in the technology world, started a network where people could ask questions and be assured that the information given to them is backed by someone credible. It hence was able to distinguish itself from Yahoo! Answers which was hit by its own popularity and people started posting too much content which made it difficult  for users to use it effectively. 

Article from one of my co-founder recently titled "Clearing the clutter from Google" highlights the same issue. Too much content is as bad as no content. Its important for internet domain companies to realize that with the amount of content which exists now in web, its impossible for search engines to filter the relevant stuff, and this calls for the growth of social networks. Rise of twitter specially in the context of Tunisia highlights the fact that people are using these social networks to get news which comes from some one they trust or "Follow".  This news has a lot more relevancy than reading a random blog on web. 

As such, I believe there will continue to be growth of companies who can filter signal from noise and form networks which helps filter information. 

User Interface Design vs. Visual Design

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As a product manager, I have been reading a lot about design issues lately.It took me a long time to comprehend just how important(even more than engineering) design is for success of the product. No matter how great your engineering team is, it needs to be told on what to build.

I often debate what is more important, User Interface Design or Visual Design? Truth be told, both are equally important, but if I had to choose one, I would lean towards usability design. In essence the interaction of the user with your product and how easily he gets to do what he intends to do with the product is supremely important.

You could have an OK visual design, but a great user interface design and have a hit product on your hand. Good example is Google itself. But no matter how great your visual UI design is, if the product is not well designed for user interaction, it will not have a long shelf life.

I am trying to use many of these principles at Faqden Labs and I will continue writing about my experiences and thoughts.

If you are at MIT, 6.831 is an amazing course on User Interface Design( http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.831/2011/handouts/gr1-analysis/gr1.shtml)

G-Lab vs. China/India Lab - MITSloan

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I am writing this for the benefit of future SDM cohort who plans to take one of the Action-Based Learning course at Sloan.


G-Lab: Students work in a team of 3-4 students with a start-up company, culminating in an on-site 2 or 3 week internship. These companies are generally small and entrepreneurial. Onsite internship is during the IAP for 3 weeks at locations in Asia, New Zealand, South America and the Middle East.

China/India Lab: The partner companies could be startups or large enterprises. Example: Reuters Corning etc. In China Lab, two MIT students work on a team with two Chinese students.  In India Lab, teams consist of four MIT students.  The onsite is over SIP and spring break.  The China/India Lab teaching staff hold an information session in October and details the application process.  The application process consists of writing a few essays and then an interview.


For more information contact Michellana Jester, who is the director of Action-Based Learning at Sloan.

Media Labs and Course 6 Schedule for Spring 2011

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I am back in school mode and trying to focus on graduating. Last couple of weeks, I had been so involved with Faqden Labs, that I could not concentrate on either RA or finalizing my class schedule. I am hoping to load up on courses from both Media Labs and Course 6. Primary objective is to take necessary courses for building product manager skills.

1. 6.813/6.831  User Interface Design & Implementation(http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.831/2011/handouts/gr1-analysis/gr1.shtml)

2. 6.083: Building Mobile Applications (http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.083/)

3. 6.868/MAS.731J: Society of Mind (http://web.media.mit.edu/~dustin/6.868/)

4. MAS.533  Imaging Ventures ~ Cameras, Displays, & Visual Computing Innovation & Entrepreneurship(https://stellar.mit.edu/S/course/MAS/sp11/MAS.533/)