August 2006

Today, the Cranky Product Manager brings you the “Cranky Observation of the Day.”  Are you ready?  Here goes:

99% of the time, he (and it’s almost always a “he”) who utters the phrase, “I’m a visionary”…

• …possesses no more vision than an ant lost in a sugar box
• …is fundamentally unorganized and lacks a basic ability to execute

Usually these self-important weenuses are disproportionately in Product Marketing, although some are in Product Management.  They’re the incompetents who are unable to use their own products and — worse — have no plans to ever learn how to do so, proclaiming such things to be minor “details.”  Yet, somehow, they feel qualified to direct product direction and speak on behalf of customers within the company.

That phrase, that idiotic proclamation, is meant to excuse the speaker from doing any actual work, and to try to foist the execution of these so-called “big ideas” on the listeners, at least for the day.  No doubt, the next day, there will be yet-another-vision to inflict on others.  If there is one thing these wannabes all share it’s lack of focus.

Don’t misinterpret the Cranky Product Manager.  There are TRUE visionaries out there. They are rare. They have unique abilities and foresight, coupled with an ability to inspire. However, the Cranky Product Manager has yet to ever hear one of these genuine articles EVER boast of their vision as their defining characteristic nor claim they were too “big picture” to bother doing as well as thinking.  The proof of their imaginations and foresight is in their actions, not in their self-delusions.

{ 6 comments }

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Thanks a bunch, you a-hole British terrorists.  Now the Cranky Product Manager has to figure out how to get her $60 face cream, not to mention the rest of her makeup and toiletries, back to her Blue State without incident.  As if the bed bugs weren’t enough for one week.

Apparently, the TSA ban on liquids and gels only applies to carry-on luggage. Regardless, though, the Cranky Product Manager finds the mere thought of checking bags to be physically repulsive; she has not done it in over 5 years.  Only slightly less repugnant is the prospect of being forced to use nasty peach-colored, masculine-scented, hotel-provided hygeine products on all future business trips. Egad. What will happen to her skin and her hair?

Already the Cranky Product Manager’s imagination has gone into lurid overdrive, imagining a future of traveling without her treasured 32-ounce bottle of water.  No more lip balm on those dry international flights. No more monster-sized lattes aboard those 6am, but wake-yer-ass-up-at-4am-
no-wait-better-make-it-3am-now-because-of-the-fraking’-terrorists, flights.  Sharing a seat row with someone deprived of deodorant for a week. Being seated next to a 3-year-old without a sippy cup of apple juice. The horror.

Perhaps the Cranky Product Manager should give up on visiting customers.  Make them visit her instead.

Yeah, right. A Product Manager who does not visit customers. Sounds like an unemployed Product Manager, doesn’t it?

{ 4 comments }

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

You will be happy to know the Cranky Product Manager has checked out of that vermin-infested Red State Hilton Garden Inn and is now at the substantially more upscale Red State Sheraton. Alas, the rate is now $260 a night (ouch), almost double the price of the former accommodations.  Seems like a steep price for a quasi-hick town in the middle of the country. After all, it ain't Manhattan. Or even Charlotte, NC, for that matter.  Ah well, at least there aren't massive critter nests in the seams of the mattresses.  Yes, she checked.

All of the Cranky Product Manager's clothes and luggage are currently being laundered and cleaned by the Red State's finest dry cleaner (which advertises itself as a Christian-owned business, thank goodness…wouldn't want any heathens touching the Cranky Product Manager's threads).  In the interim, the Cranky PM is indeed using a plastic grocery bag as a briefcase and is sporting a swanky(!) new outfit from Wal-Mart.  Polyester….mmm. How she loves it.

And a shout out to Bob of ack/nak for his most helpful advice.  If you ever get a bed bug infestation, he's the man to call. Seriously.

{ 2 comments }

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

Frequent travel to customers and satellite corporate offices is a fact of life for the Cranky Product Manager. She has super-elite status with many an airline and hotel chain.  Over the course of her 10-20ish year career, she has probably spent around 700 nights in hotels.

Being an egotistical individual, the Cranky Product Manager considered herself to be an “expert”  business traveler within North America.  Nothing, she thought, could shock her anymore.

She was wrong.

Last night, at the Red State Hilton Garden Inn, the Cranky Product Manager encountered that species known as Bed Bugs, insects that she heretofore had likened to and orcs and Klingons.  Alas, she discovered that bed bugs are very real, very disgusting, and their bites are profuse and very itchy.  That is why she screamed at the top of her lungs at 3am, no doubt waking up dozens of hotel guests in the process.

The hotel has relocated her to another room (as if only one room is infested!), but now the Cranky PM must figure out how to not take these bed bugs home with her. God help her if her own house becomes infested with these vile creatures.

Does this mandate the burning of her suits and travel clothes?  The immediate disposal of her trusty Travelpro roll-aboard suitcase and favorite laptop bag?  Must she fly back to her Blue State haven clothed in garments bought at the airport and with her laptop inside a plastic grocery bag?

The Cranky Product Manager requests your advice. In a very serious, urgent way.

Help. Please.

{ 3 comments }

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...

The Cranky Product Manager has many personality failings.  Foremost is crankiness (big surprise there), second is pride, and third is a lust for fame.  Combined, these character flaws form a potent and dangerous cocktail that makes her intensely dislike a certain class of people: those whores, those streetwalkers in disguise, those hookers with the hearts of stone.  Yes — you guessed it — the Cranky Product Manager is referring to those sluts-for-hire, the technology analysts.

To avoid being sued, the Cranky Product Manager will refer to her least favorite yet most prominent technology analysts by the pseudonyms “Gardener” and “Forrest Ranger.”

Let’s rewind to some time ago.  The Cranky Product Manager had individual sit-downs with the Heidi-Fleisses-in-training for each of these firms.  The supposed goal of these meetings was to get some consulting advice from these man-whores: what do they think of our product strategy, how could we improve it, etc…

As if.  As if the Cranky Product Manager or her company (or any company) would ever take strategic advice from these ‘hos.  Those supposed “analysts” are too vested in making their lazy predictions of the future come true, so they can play the part of the business genius with clairvoyant powers, instead of the egomaniacal plagarists they are.  If they haven’t already placed your company in their Magic Qu@drant or Le@der Wave, then their interests are AGAINST yours. UNLESS… unless you can make their jobs infinitely easier by doing their job for them.

Let’s come clean with the REAL goal of these meetings, implicitly known by the Forrest Rangers, the Gardeners, and — of course — the Cranky Product Manager.  The Cranky PM’s company generously paid the whores, the Cranky Product Manager (playing the part of the John in this scenario) then met with each Brothel’s most highly paid call-boy and spend an hour selling him on her view of the industry, the market opportunity addressed by her product, and why her product will win — all with a bevy of supporting research, industry statistics, and beautiful yet information-rich powerpoint slides.  The goal, known by all and voiced by none, was to get the Forrest Ranger or Gardener to then regurgitate the Cranky Product Manager’s research — verbatim, preferably — in “planning assumptions” and advice notes for the Brothel’s “other” paying customers: the IT departments of the world’s largest companies.

Of course, it worked as predicted (with 0.8 probability). The analysts / ho-bags — lazy if nothing else — faithfully republished the Cranky Product Manager’s slides, full of compelling graphs and thought provoking methodologies, as if they lovingly created them on their own instead of plagiarizing them from a vendor. Then, the IT departments of the world’s finest companies paid premium prices for this “unbiased” research and believed much of it.  Hopefully, as a result, they will buy more of the Cranky Product Manager’s product.

All this is exactly the outcome the Cranky Product Manager originally sought.

So why does it smart so much when she sees her research and analysis published under a highly paid prostitute’s byline?

(Furthermore, isn’t the Cranky Product Manager, not the analyst, the hooker? Or maybe she’s the pimp?  And the customer is the one getting f*$#ed here…  This analogy is breaking down rapidly…)

{ 2 comments }

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...