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.