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Sexism in the Software Industry, as Encountered by the Cranky Product Manager

October 18, 2010

Following up on the previous post about the deepening dearth of women in the software industry, here are some incidents of outright sexism that the Cranky Product Manager has encountered in this industry. Admittedly, most of these are pretty mild.  After all, she doesn’t feel she was every denied a promotion or made less salary [...]

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Biz of Software 2010, Women In Software & Frat House “Culture”

October 13, 2010

The Cranky Product Manager had the pleasure of attending Business of Software 2010 last week.  Yes, she was there, but incognito.  It was a fascinating conference, chock full of interesting speakers and lots of learning.  Seth Godin was there.  He’s wicked awesome! The attendees were mostly technical founders of small software companies.  Many were pre-venture [...]

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From the Archives: Scrum This!

September 1, 2010

The Cranky Product Manager is a little busy this week, seeing as she is now also doing the work of 4 people who were laid off.   So, she’s going to be a laze and reprint an old article from exactly 2 years ago: Scrum This!  (see original post with the comments here). Request: Don’t [...]

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Why the USP for Every Technical Product Sounds the Same

August 25, 2010

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 [...]

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B-School and the Missing Product

August 17, 2010

The Cranky Product Manager was just thinking back — oh so nostalgically — on her MBA years. Ah yes, what a joy it was to devote herself full-time to the study of BUSINESS…. so different than her undergrad years as an Engineering major at a random institute of technology. No more studying seven days and [...]

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Harvester Research and Analyst 2.0

August 13, 2010

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 [...]

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No Excuses Product Management (Part 3): I Have No Market Data

August 12, 2010

Please excuse the Cranky Product Manager with a long overdue post, to continue her “No Excuses Product Management” series. ============= LAME-ASS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT EXCUSE #3: “I have no market data.  I don’t know the market size (or market share, competitor share, market growth, competitor features, or other relevant facts about the market) because there is [...]

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Product Management, Czech Style

June 21, 2010

Ah, Prague.  How fondly the Cranky Product Manager remembers you.  Such a beautiful city. Such wonderful espresso. Such fantastic Czech beer. Plus amazing architecture. *sigh* And even better, Prague is where the Cranky Product Manager first learned the wicked awesome English word defenestration, as in “the defenestration of hotshot engineers is tempting for most product [...]

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Happy Birthday to Me

June 11, 2010

Yep, the Cranky Product Manager has been creeping around the blog-o-sphere for FOUR years now. Check out the very first post. Four years. That’s a long time.  Don’t know whether to celebrate or cry.   Probably cry.  Because even though this blog has been around long enough to graduate from college, it’s still living at [...]

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A Blog You Should Read: Ribbonfarm

June 7, 2010

Call the Cranky Product Manager a laggard or whatever. But she has only just learned about the excellent blog, Ribbonfarm, by Venkatesh Rao. It is a blog about “business and innovation and stuff,” and the Cranky Product Manager just spent the evening digging through its archives. This blog gets the Cranky PM’s thumbs-up because: 1) [...]

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