The Art of Product Management – Conversation Contest

My friend Rich Mironov, chief marketing officer at Enthiosys, recently published The Art of Product Management, and was kind enough to send me a free copy. The essays he shares in the book make great conversation starters for product managers. Tyner Blain is giving away a free copy to someone who participates in the product management conversations. Read on to see how you can win.

Conversation

Rich really has a great conversational style in his writing, it reads well and flows easily. Rich knows his audience well, and provides keen insights into different elements of product management. Often, he uses analogies – like running a grocery store versus running a restaurant, to put SaaS versus licensing of software into perspective. Even with essays so well aligned with the interests of product managers, it can be challenging to create a conversation through writing a book. Rich can’t get real time feedback while writing his book, like he can from the readers of his blog.

Cindy Alvarez started the smarter product managers book club on booksprouts, and we’re on our second book – The Art of Product Management. We meet tomorrow night (Wed, 11 Mar 2009) – details in the book-club area, sign up and join for free. This will help get more conversation going around Rich’s book.

Also, if you’re on Twitter [I’m @sehlhorst if you want to follow my tweets], you can search for “#pmbc” and find tweets that are related (usually) to the current book. You can also search twitter for “#prodmgmt” to see tweets from/about product management. If you aren’t on Twitter, you can still follow those links and watch the conversations, and find people to follow.

One of the most rewarding things about writing the Tyner Blain blog is the conversations it starts for me.

Contest

This contest is meant to serve two goals. First, to give away a copy of Rich’s book, balancing out the free copy he so graciously sent to me. Thanks again, Rich! Second, to trigger even more conversations on Tyner Blain. Since Rich’s book is written for product managers, the contest is structured to inspire conversations about product management.

The Rules of the Contest

There are three ways to “enter” the contest to win a free copy of The Art of Product Management.

  1. Add a non-trivial comment to this article, about one or more of the essays in The Art of Product Management. You can either start a conversation or join an existing one. “Non-trivial” is solely up to my judgement. If you’re contributing to the conversation, then I’m happy. “Me too” won’t cut it.
  2. Add a non-trivial comment to any of the 200 Tyner Blain articles in the “product management” category. You can either join a conversation or start a new one related to the article. Feel free, of course to be critical of any of those articles – just make sure you’re conversational, and I’m happy. “You stink, Scott” isn’t good enough.
  3. Write a blog post on your own blog and either use a trackback or link it to this article or one of the product management articles on Tyner Blain. The same conversational rules apply.

You’ll get 1 point for each comment or blog post you make as you participate in the conversations. You can write multiple comments / posts, you’ll get credit for all of them. Your comment needs to include the email address you want me to contact you at when you win, or I need to be able to find a way to contact you if your blog post is the winner. You can select to be notified by email whenever a new comment is added to any article you’ve commented on – just check the box before submitting your comment. I’ve found that to be a fantastic way to participate in conversations!

The contest starts immediately after the first comment I post to this article, and ends either when we get to 100 qualifying comments/posts, or one month from today (April 10th, 2009). I will randomly select a winner from all of the entries, and contact you after the contest is over. [Note: Comments by Scott Sehlhorst are not counted in this contest.]

But I Already Own The Art of Product Management!

OK, if you already own a copy, you can accept the cash equivalent (the current Amazon price on April 10th, 2009), and choose to buy something else, or get another copy of the book and give it to someone (or run your own contest). Your choice.

Thanks

Thanks to Rich for writing this really enjoyable book for product managers, and thanks to everyone who contributes to the product management conversations here and on the other great product management blogs that I read.

  • Scott Sehlhorst

    Scott Sehlhorst is a product management and strategy consultant with over 30 years of experience in engineering, software development, and business. Scott founded Tyner Blain in 2005 to focus on helping companies, teams, and product managers build better products. Follow him on LinkedIn, and connect to see how Scott can help your organization.

18 thoughts on “The Art of Product Management – Conversation Contest

  1. I stumbled across this site researching how to run more effective meetings. We’re getting to launch an initiative, and I want to run an internal contest to give people incentive to get involved.

    Imagine my surprise, to see that this contest is starting today! I’m a sucker for contests. Grant me “points” and I’m there!

    I’m not a product manager, (I believe my official title is Business Operations Manager) but I interact with product managers and I’m sure many of the concepts would apply to my work. I’m sure I could learn something from the book. I’ll check out the Tyner Blain articles. Hopefully, I won’t get too distracted!

    1. Thanks Yvette, and welcome to Tyner Blain! Did you find the Run a Meeting Like Google and Make Your Meetings 60% More Effective articles? Did they have the info you were looking for?

      I think you definitely would enjoy the book. Rich’s articles would definitely be useful to a business operations manager too. Many (all?) of his essays focus on strategic business decisions. Probably very few would be relevant to only a product manager, but not you.

      Thanks again for commenting!

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  5. Raven Young,ravens spaces on project management brought me here. Ever since my admiration is growing. The recent article Failure To Launch (Your Product) was an eye opener to me. I am no Product Manager or veteran, but every second of what I spend on this blog, it pays me back invaluably. Every time I read any article, it makes more sense. Your writings are so simple, real, and thought provoking, they are precious pearls to me.
    I think my brain is infected by the virus of Scott’s articles and I am enjoying it. Looking forward to the book.
    Allan

    1. Thanks, Allan! And I’m thrilled that some of the ideas I share here are breaking through your blood-brain barrier. I really appreciate the very kind words. I’m thrilled to hear that you’re getting value out of these articles. Any topics you’d like to see me write about soon? Either new ones, or revisiting existing articles in more depth – just let us know. Other folks – chime in here too :).

  6. Hi Scott,
    Yes those articles about Effective Meetings are what brought me to this Website (via a Google search.)

    There’s a lot of interesting stuff…above and beyond Effective Meetings! Glad I stumbled up on the site!

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  8. Scott,

    I am also interested in reading the SaaS article.

    We are involved in many product management projects with clients. I am looking forward to reading and applying your knowledge across industries.

    And I love the people that I am connecting to on Twitter. Glad you found me!

    ~Charity

    1. Thanks, Charity! I was excited to find you from your tweet on Twitter (as part of doing follow up research on the freemium business model article). The more I use Twitter, the more excited I get about the great people I’m meeting and the conversations that it is allowing us to start!

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