Today is “Cyber Monday” and no doubt you are wondering what type of elaborate Christmas present you should buy your favorite product manager. Keeping in mind, of course, that you better give a WICKED AWESOME present, given that product managers never get awards and hardly ever get thanks. You need to make up for years of wrongs here. Fortunately for you, the Cranky Product Manager has a few suggestions.
Behold her list of gizmos that make her product management life a bit more bearable – things that the Cranky Product Manager honestly uses almost every single day and swears by. And yes, they are nearly all gizmos. Because she is a geek at heart. Most support the business travel lifestyle that PMs take part in 25-50% of the time.
First, a BlackBerry. The Cranky Product Manager likes the BlackBerry Curve the best, but will admit the Storm looks cool. Why BlackBerry? Because it is so much easier than a laptop at dealing with the onslaught of >200 daily emails that come in at all hours of the night and day from all corners of the world. When her Cranky Kid wakes up screaming “MOMMMMYYYYYYY” at 3 am, she goes help him find his stuffed monkey, and then handles about 10 emails. Awesome-ness. Oh, while the Cranky Product Manager loves her BlackBerry (she’s been loyal for many years), she knows some PMs prefer the iPhone – also an excellent Christmas gift.
Next, the Cranky Product Manager recommends this handy little MP3 voice recorder (with a built-in USB stick) and its companion telephone microphone and case. The CPM uses it to record all interviews with customers (with their consent) – both in-person and over the phone. The telephone microphone fits in your ear, and then you hold your phone to that ear. Anyway, this gizmo is the secret of the Cranky PM’s credibility with Development. They think she has a photographic memory because she is able to recall all manner of obscure detail about customer problems and use cases. Not so – the CPM just listens to these recordings over and over during her commute. She’s got those customer issues memorized.
Another excellent present for your product manager is a telephone headset for his home phone. More than likely, he has many late night conference calls to Asia, early morning calls to Europe, or both. A headset would greatly improve his mood as he takes these calls in his pajamas and prevent neck pain.
Want to improve your PM’s mood even MORE during the above-mentioned early-morning and wicked late conference calls? Get her a decent espresso machine. Because the Cranky Product Manager has a kid and no time for that elaborate espresso ritual – grinding beans, packing grounds, steaming milk, cleaning the damn machine, etc. – she recommends a Nespresso machine that uses espresso pods. Push one button and out pops a very good cup of espresso in about 30 seconds. If the Cranky Product Manager wants a latte, she presses one button on the silver frother thingie to get perfectly foamy milk.
OK, PM-LADIES-IN-DA-HOUSE, listen up. You need this rolling laptop bag. Someone should buy you one for the Holidays. The Cranky Product Manager loves this bag so much she writes it creepy fan mail and draws “CPM+Sassy Laptop Bag” in tiny hearts on her book covers. Why? Because 1) It comes it colors besides black (green! red! orange! pink! tan! blue!), 2) It’s roomy – it can hold TWO laptops, a mess of power adaptors plus papers, 3) It’s wicked durable – the Cranky Product Manager has beat up on this bag for years now, and 4) It fits under an airplane seat.
Next – an iGo Everywhere power adaptor, with the combo wall/airplane/car charger and tips that can charge your laptops, phone, iPod, etc… Lightens the load and has a nice long extension cord.
A BlackBerry keyboard. Help your favorite PM get some real work done like editing documents -while stuck waiting on the airport tarmac.
Also recommended is a roll-aboard suitcase that can deal with the abuse of traveling 5-6 days a month for years on end. Alas, the Cranky Product Manager cannot recommend such a suitcase at this time. Her case with the 10 year warranty gave it up after just 3 years.
Now go and make your favorite Product Manager’s Christmas a good one. Just remember to include gift receipts in case you end up giving the real-life Cranky Product Manager something she already has.
Oh, OK. The Cranky Product Manager knows you have no intention of buying an elaborate gift for your product manager. Oh well. She had to try. She does ask one thing, though. Give your PM a nice card thanking him/her for all the hard work. Product Management is so often thankless and unappreciated – it means a lot to us when others notice how hard we work and how passionate we are about our products.
Have any other recommendations of good presents for Product Managers? Leave them in the comments. (No spam, please.)
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Don’t just get the CPM a headset. Make it a wireless headset, for those 3am Mommy duties + conference calls, where you need to walk the baby around the house constantly. Personally, I like the Plantronics Calisto Pro, since the same headset can be used for my landline and cellphone.
My wife totally believes this headset is mutated to be a part of my head.
I highly recommend Tumi roll aboard luggage. The higher end pieces use “ballistic” nylon that I swear never dies. I’ve been using mine 25 days a month for 18 months now and it still looks nearly new.
It is a bit of an investment, but I think worth every penny.
Good timing. I had worked on such a list for DW so she can shop for me. My ideas on the website link.
Bah, Tumi is over-rated. Their ballistic nylon falls apart as fast as the moderate priced luggage, and their hardware is spotty in quality at best.
I made a mistake buying what the “flight attendants” use, TravelPro. THeir luggage lasts because they never ever have to check their bag. I unfortunately, often have to check my luggage, and the first time I did, the zipper pull got broken off.
I am still looking for quality, bulletproof luggage.
What I did buy recently was a Sony eReader. I love to read (I almost never watch TV on the road). I used to raid the used book stores in town for my Sci-Fi fix, but I would often exhaust my bring alongs, and not be able to replenish them. No longer a problem, I can load this thing up and read for months on one memory card. Highly recommended.
Geoff
Oooh, Adrian. Good idea about the wireless headset. The FREEDOM the CPM would enjoy freed from headset cords. She’s going to drop a few hints to Darling Husband about this one.
Geoff, the CPM’s dead-after-just-three-years bag was a TravelPro. Agreed, it’s not a quality brand. The Cranky Product Manager was entertaining getting a Tumi or a Victorinox suitcase. Interesting to get both viewpoints on Tumi. Anyone have anything to say about Victorinox (the Swiss Army brand)?
Me again, and hate to be a passionate Tumi fanboy, but I have nothing but the best experiences.
@GTA – I very rarely check a bag, using a tri-fold roll aboard garment bag currently, so I can’t say much about performance when checking luggage. I do know that Tumi is happy to replace things like broken zippers. My lovely wife brought her 6 year old backpack with a broken zipper in to Tumi and it was fixed at no charge, and pretty quick. I’m more confident in Tumi’s “lifetime guarantee” than I am in most brands – and the lost luggage finder program supports this (I actually returned a piece to someone because of this once).
What I can say, is that my Victorinox roll aboard started showing serious signs of wear after about 6 months of twice monthly use, while my Tumi has held up remarkably well over 18 months of much heavier use. YMMV, of course, but my 18 months of rolling around San Francisco, New York and a variety of other places every week take a pretty serious toll on luggage and my Tumi pieces have held up remarkably well.
@CPM, and others – please let us know if you find something incredibly rugged. The next frontier is probably steel mesh reinforced Kevlar!
BK
Victorinox is a nice durable bag, but just a tad heavy for the *frequent* traveller. I have a High Sierra bag. It’s very light – not as durable, but cheap enough that you can replace every few years with an updated edition. I especially like the fact that mine has a “charging hole”, allowing you to keep your laptop plugged into your charger, find a power point in an airport and just plug your bag in.
Now, why do airports provide so few power points. smaller airports like San Jose have power all over the place, but try finding one in (say) Chicago.
My other suggestion is a portable media player. By the time the middle of the month rolls around, I’ve seen the airline movies at least six times, to the point where I turn off the audio and start injecting my own dialogue. An iPod Touch, PSP or Archos thingy is ideal. Also, some noise cancelling headphones. I have a set of Sennheiser PXC300 – cheaper than the bose ones, and half the size when packed as well.
For carry-on use, my Victorinox computer briefcase and sort-of backpack is holding up well after 1.5 years of abuse and plenty of travel. I’ve put it through the acid test of three cross-terminal full-out connecting flight sprints while it was worn as a backpack. I had my doubts that the single clip holding the top of the backpack strap would break off, but so far it’s hanging tough.
Only one part of the interior liner is torn, but otherwise it’s really doing well. I really like the magnetically-closed pouch for holding frequently accessed items like my wallet, tickets, keys, iPod, etc. (shh, don’t tell anyone)
As far as checked luggage, I prefer to buy cheaper stuff and plan to replace it every couple of years. Better to do that than buy something really expensive and get mad each time a new dent or scratch appears, or worse-still, have it never show up at my destination. Also, I never buy black checked luggage — sure, it’s cool and it’s what everybody else has… Wait….
After getting the handle replaced on my Tumi roller for the 3rd time in 2 years (yep they are happy to do it, but 3 major failures in 24 months is not something I can live with), I gave up.
Sadly, my company is tight on the policy of doing laundry, so I often have to travel heavy enough that I can’t carry on, thus the heavy abuse. I am beginning to believe that even anvil cases can’t handle the abuse that luggage handlers dish out :-( (you should see the gear that came out of an Anvil case at this show I am at now. The PC is “bent”. I am amazed that it started up at all.)
I agree on the black bag comments. Too often they all look alike. I have a groovy copper colored roller that is easy to spy coming off the carousel.
I know several people with Victorinox backpacks that are satisfied. Being a Mac person at heart, I recently bought a booq bag (www.booq.com) and it seems to be holding up remarkably well. I travel probably 2 weeks a month, and have been to Europe twice, Asia 4 times, and Japan three times this year, and it has been solid. I can recommend it highly.
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