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Analysts

Why the USP for Every Technical Product Sounds the Same

by The Cranky Product Manager on August 25, 2010

in Analysts,Development,Marketing,The PM Profession

Watch as your unique selling proposition is ground into gruel, indistinguishable from everyone else's gruel.

Every time the Cranky Product Manager reads about a new B2B startup or product, she gets a sense of déjà vu.

Alas, it's not a glitch in the Matrix. It's because pretty much every single product pitch sounds exactly the same.  Watered down, generic, and 100% free of taste. 

A grinder is at work at almost every B2B software company.  A soul-crushing process that pulverizes the unique, complex, and interesting, into gruel-like messaging that the industry's lowest common denominator (and by LCD, the Cranky PM means the PR people) find acceptable and almost understandable. (see footnote 2)

telephone game girls

Observe as the Unique Selling Proposition of DysfunctoCrank is ground into pasty mush.  (Anyone remember that game "Telephone"???)

What Development Says to Product Management: 

DysfunctoCrank's architecture uses an MPP-architecture, patent-pending modified vulcan compression techniques, Eventual Iron(TM) technology, predictive klingon data cloning,  dynamic resource kirk-ification, blah, blah, and blah.  We tested DysfunctoCrank on clusters to 64 CPUs, and it did pretty well.  We haven't tested on anything bigger.  

Remember, DysfunctoCrank uses a proprietary clustering. We're going to have to rearchitect the entire thing from the ground up if you want to support cloud deployments, and that will take the entire Engineering team at least a year or two.

What Product Management Says to Product Marketing -  For 80% of the use cases, DysfunctoCrank is about 35% faster than anything else out there and can handle double the workload of anything else.  It can scale out and scale up near-linearly, across any number of CPUs or machines, and has best-in-class features for high availability.

DysfunctoCrank can currently be deployed on-premise, but in our next release we are aiming for cloud deployments (although we still have significant technical challenges to overcome).

What Product Marketing Says to Corporate Marketing -  DysfunctoCrank delivers cloud-based reliability, performance, and scalability that no other Crank system today can match. It is the industry's most efficient, cost-effective way to achieve your business goals.

  • All the benefits of the Cloud: Pay only for what you need - start small, add cloud capacity only as needed. 
  • Infinite linearly scalable, supercharged predictable performance, and no wasted capacity
  • Self-healing, managed reliability

What Corporate Marketing Says to the Press and to the Analysts - DysfunctoCloud is a cloud-based solution platform designed to increase your revenue, lower your TCO, and synergize with your efforts to engage users in a virtualized, Social Media Web 2.0, cloud-based world.  Plus it's in the cloud. DysfunctoCloud is CLOUD-TASTIC!!!!

What the Press Says to the World - DysfunctoCloud is just like the cloud-based offerings from vendor X, vendor Y, and vendor Z.  

What the Analysts Say to the World- In our TragicQuadrangle, we're moving DysfunctoCloud a smidge to the right on the "vision" axis, because their cloud stuff sounds kinda seksi. But we're moving them down on the "ability to execute" axis until they buy more of our consluting (see footnote 2) services.

Footnote 1:  Allow the Cranky Product Manager to continue digging at MBA programs: Business school is a similar grinder. At top B-schools, the newest crop of MBA students arrive on campus as a highly diverse group, from all professions and walks of life. Then, just two years later, 80% of the students depart as one of only two varieties: banker or management consultant. 

Footnote 2: Not a typo.

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Harvester Research and Analyst 2.0

by The Cranky Product Manager on August 13, 2010

in Analysts

Oh goodness.  The Cranky Product Manager realizes that this April Fool's send-up of technology analysts has been creeping around the Internet for well over a year.  But, alas, this is the first time she saw it.

Please read.  Very funny stuff. It's about Harvester Research's launch of ForceSales.com, the industry's first Analyst-as-a-Service (Aaas) offering.

The Cranky Product Manager especially likes the Harvester frameworks: the Harvester Fave, the Harvester Magic Kingdom , and the Harvester Market Dream Cycle.  

 

 

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Guest Post: The Cranky Analyst Wants Everyone To Stop Yelling At Each Other

by The Cranky Product Manager on August 5, 2009

in Analysts,Guest Posts

Today we have an excellent guest post from a professional ho-bag.  No, not Lady Gaga, nor Paris Hilton, but an IT Industry Analyst!  You know, one of those coin-operated Gardener / Forest Ranger types.

The Cranky PM feels positively DIRTY publishing this, but it is very excellently written, quite cranky, and pretty durn funny (O-holes!  *snort*).

——————–

Here’s a quick memorandum to Cranky Product Manager, Cranky Marketer, Cranky CEO, and all the other members of the Cranky League. You may be shocked to hear that you have my sympathy…Up to a point. As soon as it starts warping the relationship between vendor and analyst, your collective crankiness means exactly Jacques Merde.

You should take a good look at how dysfunctional families behave, since as a group, that’s how many of you operate when dealing with the outside world. In exactly the same fashion as a dysfunctional family, you pretend that you can conceal your problems from outsiders. (You can’t.) If one of these outsiders takes note of these problems, you denounce them loudly and angrily. (It’s not convincing.) And you refuse help from anyone, not because you might need it, but because the shame of admitting to your problems might cause some beloved, confidence-defining portion of your anatomy to shrivel up and fall off. (It won’t.)

Just like any dysfunctional family, your attention is focused inwards. The tiny world inside your four walls, even if it gets abysmally ugly, can dominate your mind in the same way that a moth can’t think of anything but slamming itself over and over against a porch light. In contrast, outsiders—customers, partners, analysts, journalists—are just an annoying distraction. You want to get any odiously necessary contact with outsiders over with as quickly as possible, because you have to get back to winning that incandescent argument with the obnoxious twit who works on the next floor up.  And you act surprised when people don’t seem to like you.

If you think the dysfunctional family comparison is unfair, let’s take a look at how neurotic your behavior really is. We’ll use a typical pre-launch analyst briefing as a case study.

  • You want to get analysts to praise your upcoming Mega- Über-Super Release Of Ultimate Power And Awesomeness. (Check that box: “Get analyst buy-in.”) However, you wait until the last possible moment to give the briefing, when it’s far too late for analyst feedback to have even the slightest effect on the release. Everyone knows what you really want is validation. When you don’t get it, you act hurt and outraged, like the relatives who ignore you the rest of the calendar year, but there’s hell to pay if you forget to send them a Christmas card.
  • You try to convince the analysts, during the briefing, by talking them to death. Surely, if you keep piling up the words, the collective weight of them will crush any objections. Forget having a conversation, or questions, or even a bathroom break. And why stop talking long enough to show the product, when you can continue describing it in terms of abstract boxes, circles, trapezoids, and arrows in a PowerPoint slide? Or 187 PowerPoint slides?
  • Rather than providing direct access to reference customers, you tell us that you have a case study. Or, to paraphrase, you know a guy in your company who knows a guy in another company who told the first guy that the new product looked pretty good. This standard of evidence works pretty well for the enthusiasts of the weird and unexplained phenomena like Bigfoot and UFO sightings. The problem with the skeptics? They just don’t want to believe.

As obnoxious as this behavior can be, you still haven’t completely destroyed our sympathy. We know how much effort goes into an analyst presentation—all the hand-wringing behind the scenes, especially with the CEO, CMO, CTO, and all the other executive-level O-holes involved.

Unfortunately, despite all your pains, the result is a lot like the hideous plaid sweater you got from your well-intentioned but fashion-challenged aunt for your birthday: It’s not the gift you wanted. Hell, it’s not even what you explicitly asked to get.

I’m sure that, if the briefing doesn’t turn out the way you hoped, verbal fisticuffs ensue. However, these arguments among the Cranky Department Heads don’t usually make the next briefing any better. Dysfunctional families argue a lot, but the arguments are never about the real problem. If you can exhaust yourself yelling at Bob because he left the toilet seat up, or laying out your careful argument proving that Mary doesn’t give you the respect you deserve, or reminding Frank that you warned him a thousand times over that the god damn puppy he wanted was going to ruin the furniture, you don’t have the time or energy left over to discuss anything substantive.

So, if the Cranky Engineer didn’t get all the requirements info he wanted, or the Cranky Marketer feels unappreciated for all the great leads she generated, Boo Fricking Hoo. Welcome to life in the vale of tears, where you might get the chance to fix some of these problems, but others will stubbornly resist all your world-class wailing and gnashing of teeth. No one expects you, or your company, to be problem-free. We do mind, however, if you use your problems as an excuse to treat the rest of us shabbily.

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Take the Forest Ranger Agile Survey

by The Cranky Product Manager on January 26, 2009

in Agile/Scrum,Analysts

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know the Cranky Product Manager thinks technology analysts (also known as Forest Rangers and Gardeners on this here blog) are GENERALLY (note 1) coin-operated ho-bags.  (See here and here.)

So you can appreciate the Cranky Product Manager’s consternation when confronted with Forrester’s Agile survey.  It’s about the effect of Agile development on the structure and operations of tech companies.

The Cranky Product Manager is very interested in this topic.  Very.

So, as much as this request makes the Cranky Product Manager feel disgusting/dirty/loathsome/repugnant/appalled with herself, she’s gonna ask you all to head over and take Forrester’s Agile Survey.

‘Cuz maybe then the Forest Rangers will share the results with her, even though she has no access to their research.  And even though she constantly maligns their good name. (hah!  right!)

Because then, maybe, she’d have more fodder for more cranky posts on Agile.

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Note 1:  Observe that the Cranky Product Manager said GENERALLY.  No doubt, there are analysts that are NOT coin-operated.  But they are probably still ho-bags.

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The IT Awards Show

by The Cranky Product Manager on November 20, 2006

in Analysts

The Cranky Product Manager continues to be stunned by anyone who thinks technology analysts are anything but lazy-ass whores who combine the ethics of Dennis Kozlowski with the hypocrisy of Cardinal Bernard Law. Isn’t the secret out already? Haven’t we all heard this story before?

Yet, somehow, in her travels the Cranky Product Manager meets hoards and hoards of IT managers and “Business-Side Project Owners” who hold the word of the Gardeners and the Forrest Rangers in great esteem. Why? Because, deep down, they still believe in voodoo and witchcraft. They believe the claims from the Gardener brothel — that a surprisingly low-precision, intellectually lazy, almost entirely subjective, opaque, overly simplistic, two-by-two table is indeed Magic. Preternatural, even. And if the Gardener has “magic” on its side, well best do what Gardener says, right-o?

WAKE UP, buyers of enterprise software!  Honestly. Get a clue. Don’t make the Cranky Product Manager come to your house and get all cranky in yer face. She has tremendously bad breath. And she spits when she talks. You wouldn’t want this. You wouldn’t even wish it on the neighborhood a-hole who simply MUST mow his lawn at 6:30 every Saturday morning and just HAS TO scream at and berate his kids from his driveway every. single. fraking. night.

Think the tactics of these — ahem — “analysts” have changed in recent years?  That the additions of “ombudsmen” and ethics committee have made them unbiased? Ha. Let the Cranky Product Manager tell you a little story…

Costner_1Recently, DysfunctoSoft tripled its “consulting” contract with Big Whorehouse #2.  The results of the payoff were speedy. Within weeks, DysfunctoSoft’s Analyst Relations Manager called the Cranky Product Manager in a panic. Apparently, Big Whorehouse #2 wanted to give one of DysfunctoSoft’s customers an “IT Excellence” award or some such, for its fantabulous IT project which just so happened to be built around the latest version of DysfunctoCrank, the product so lovingly managed by the Cranky Product Manager.

Sounds great, right? So why the panic?

Well apparently, Big Whorehouse #2 did not actually have a particular DysfunctoSoft customer in mind for the award. In fact, they tasked DysfunctoSoft with selecting the recipient.

And thus the panicky inquiry from Artie in AR: Did the Cranky Product Manager actually know any customers who had successfully built a fantabulous application around DysfunctoCrank 6.0? A customer who would be effusive and fawning in its praise of DysfunctoCrank 6.0? A customer who would wax poetic about the awesomitude of DysfunctoSoft Corporation? A customer interested in an all-expenses-paid trip to a golf resort?

Well, no. The Cranky Product Manager did not know such a customer. DysfunctoCrank 6.0 had only been released two weeks ago, WITHOUT a Beta program (don’t ask… don’t ask). Furthermore, DysfunctoSoft’s order fulfillment and CRM systems were so dysfunctional that they had prevented even the most enthusiastic maintenance customers from so much as requesting the new software.

So, again, no. There was no customer that even HAD Crank 6.0 in its possession, never mind had developed an application on top of it.  Forget about one that had developed a fantabulous application worthy of some sham award from a bunch of fraking high-priced streetwalkers who call themselves unbiased but are so shamelessly For Sale.

But not to be deterred, Artie AR managed to find a customer interested in a nice vacation and a discount on software license fees within a few hours: a customer who would be willing to talk to Whorehouse #2 and the media about what they PLANNED to do with DysfunctoCrank 6.0 and describe the simplistic things they had already done with release 5.4.  Apparently, this plan was all good with Whorehouse #2. Still worthy of an award, but maybe DysfunctoSoft should purchase some more of Whorehouse #2′s research offerings (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Any more questions on how the Cranky Product Manager became so cynical?  Or about when her youthful idealism was crushed into powdery dust?

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Streetwalkers in Disguise

by The Cranky Product Manager on August 1, 2006

in Analysts

Moneyhoney 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…)

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