Logic is a funny thing. People can make the following argument: “Building a stupid product roadmap is bad, therefore, don’t build product roadmaps!” Ahem. [Author cracks knuckles] Read on for a rant.

When do you update a mature product? When it is more profitable to update it than to let it ride. This question was recently asked at Ask a Good Product Manager, and we have our own take on the answer.

Gravatars Make Your Comments Stand Out!

A GR avatar is a globally recognized avatar. This is an image that you’ve associated with one or more email addresses - and when you make a comment on a blog or in a forum that supports gravatars, your comment will appear like this:

When you don’t have a gravatar, your comment looks like this:

And even though you may say something brilliant, it loses a little something, so set up your gravatar today - it’s free and easy!

A look back at the best from this week in the past.

Found a potentially extremely cool plugin for Outlook called Xobni, that would make Outlook a much more powerful tool.

We know to treat business rules and business requirements differently. One example - treat external government regulations as rules (because they are less subject to change than requirements). When you have multiple systems in an architecture, while “rules” makes sense for one system, “requirements” make sense for another. What do you do?

A look back at the best from this week in the past.

Prioritization is about maximizing the value you provide to your customers. When you have multiple sets of customers with different priorities, what do you do? You could try and find the lowest-common-denominator, and please everyone a little bit. But that would be the wrong thing to do - by trying to please everyone, you fail to delight anyone.

Michael Port’s new book just came out. If you’re trying to redefine or improve how you focus professionally, it would be a good read. If you run your own company, or want to, it is a great read. Michael has good advice, good reasoning for his advice, and he writes well - a very easy to read style. Not dumbed down, not full of jargon. As someone who exactly matches his target audience, I highly recommend Beyond Booked Solid.

Testing the functionality of Tyner Blain after a major infrastructure overhaul. Sorry for the interruption.