Microsoft Microphone: Market Research Via Facebook Apps

[Posted by Oliver Young. Cross-posed from Strategic heading.]

A few months ago I went looking for technology vendor Facebook applications and found one from Microsoft that had just launched: Microphone. At the time there was not much activity, but I recently checked back in and was impressed with (at least parts) of what I found there. Now, I should admit that I am grading on a curve here; most of the apps I found were miserable, like this one from HP. However all things considered there is a lot to like about what Microsoft has done, and they seem to be attracting an audience.

So what about the Microsoft app works?

First, the entire application has a gaming element to it and they award prizes to the most active users. Time and time again we see that these sorts of competitive games resonate with users and Microsoft has done a nice job of taking advantage -- if you notice the leader board is monthly, so no one should feel completely frozen out.

Second, they have taken steps to incorporate other social networks and communications tools like Twitter. Microsoft has taken good advantage of a SocialEyes application to scrape Twitter and bring the conversation into Facebook (see below). Integrating both Facebook and Twitter gives Microsoft more opportunities to engage their audience, and saves them the trouble of reinventing their relationship with users on each platform. I've actually never heard of this company but LOVE the approach; has anyone out there worked with them in the past?

Third, they have focused on tangible business functions like market research. A lot of companies have made forays into Facebook, Twitter, and other communities over the last few years and thus far few have real tangible business value to show for it. With this implementation Microsoft has done a great job of keeping their feet firmly planted on solid ground, focusing on customer care and market research. I am likely a bit biased by the fact that I am a market researcher, but this aspect of the application is especially well thought out. For example we see Microsoft measuring customer reaction to recent television ads (see below). Admittedly this is not a substitute for real quantitative market research, since anyone adding the Microsoft Microphone application is likely a bit biased in the first place, but if done right it can provide solid directional data at almost no cost. The poll question about joining a programming competition is spot on -- you already have a group likely to participate and this can be a great way to get their input.

Now, I would lose my analyst card if I didn't lob at least one stone at Microsoft and this one (at least for me) is a doozy. Look closely at the Apple and PC TV ad questions. Notice anything? Oh yes, they inverted the scale from one to the other, starting the Apple ad scale at "Hate it" and forcing people to keep reading if they don't hate it. For the PC ad they start at "Love it" and head back the other direction. Subtle, but a MAJOR problem if you are looking for objective research! Then again, maybe the marketing guys were looking to show some success to management, in which case, carry on gentlemen.

All things considered this is one of the best vendor Facebook applications I've seen and it should serve as a pretty good model for others, even those selling B2B -- know your audience, provide them some value, provide them an engaging experience, and keep it grounded in real business needs.

Are Struggling Companies More Likely To Adopt Social Media?

The biggest news in the tech industry the past week has been the rumored IBM acquisition of Sun Microsystems. Like everyone else who follows the tech industry I have spent more than a few hours trying to get my head around all the competitive implications. Needless to say the rumor has made for some interesting hallway conversations, not to mention some lively debates among analysts in the office.

At the same time I was finalizing the material for the B2B Social Media workshop my colleague Laura Ramos and I conducted yesterday in Foster City, and will conduct next month in Orlando. In doing so, I couldn’t help but notice I have a lot of Sun examples of social media done right. IBM holds it’s own, but in the tech industry specifically Sun and Dell are the poster children of social media marketing, and both have been struggling mightily.

A couple of years ago I was on a panel with Toby Redshaw of Motorola, who in the course of discussion confidently declared that the only way to get a Web 2.0 initiative off the ground was to fire the CEO. Since then I have seen just that over and over again: the firms looking to implement Web 2.0 tools for social media marketing -- as well as employee collaboration and productivity -- are those with a “motivated” CEO, typically one who is fresh on the job. The CEO fresh on the job does not typically find himself at the most successful company.

Which brings us back to Sun and IBM. Let’s take a quick look at their homepages as they stood in August of 2008 (the orange boxes are mine). Notice anything? One has community and social media all over the place while the other offers just a hint. So which one is acquiring which? And is this more than just coincidence?

[Cross-posed from Strategic heading.]

 

Not everyone can do product management

Two recent posts at Write That Down touch on the same issue. First, the author of that blog, Adam Bullied, argues that product management is intrinsically not that hard. The difficult part is learning to be a product manager:

I do in fact recall when I was first put into the role. It was exciting, but at the same time, really ridiculous. Not for any other reason than, I wasn’t working for a more senior product manager to kinda guide me a long and instruct me on what to do - I was in there on my own learning as I went. It turns out, this is ideal for me, but I recognize it’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea.

This leads me to admission number 1: The job is damn near impossible when you first start. Actually, scratch that — it’s damn near impossible when you get 3-4 months in. This is because, at least from my experience, it takes people about that length of time to really wrap their heads around what it is they are supposed to be doing. And I believe this is where most would sink and maybe start believing, “this job is WAY too hard for me, or anyone, to really do.”

Adam's path to product management is typical. Since there is no formal training to be a product manager, people arrive at product management via other jobs. (Shameless plug: One of my upcoming research documents uncovers exactly how varied those backgrounds really are.) In many cases, product management is a marriage of convenience between the individual and the organization. I think that I can do product management; my employers believe they should have product managers, but often don't have a clear idea exactly what they should do.

Somewhere in Plato's allegorical cave, there's an "ideal form" of product management. Not everyone has the arete of a product manager; unfortunately, given how the recruitment process works, it's hard to know who has the right temperament, and who doesn't. Product managers don't start with the skills they need, because there's no training.

Since many technology companies handle product management this way, it's not surprising that, as Adam describes in his other post, these firms bring product managers into projects late, almost as a last resort, and certainly not at an organizational level equal with the development managers:

A long while back I spoke with a recruiting manager for a very large social networking organization in the Bay area. He informed me that they were “incubating” product management in development, and the CEO “may decide” at a later time product should have a seat at “the executive table.”

Wow. That’s a whole lot of words telling me potentially a couple of things: 1) development is driving all product, which tends to be a common setup. And it’s not usually the best thing in the world. But then again, I’m heavily biased. 2) the CEO thinks they are doing a fine job and don’t want anyone challenging their decisions, execution, etc….

Let's not even go near the question why many tech industry executives think that product managers are less capable of devising innovative products that will give a company a competitive edge. Instead, let's treat product management, for the moment, as purely a service function, needed to support the people with the giant, pulsating brains in the development organization. What do these technologists need from product managers, from the moment they first walk through the door?

• Validation that no one else is building the same product, or an analysis of what the competition is doing.
• Identification of likely target customers, by which I mean people in particular roles doing particular tasks.
• Validation that the product will be sufficiently helpful that these people performing these tasks will pay the company for the privilege of using their technology.
• Based on information gathered during the previous steps, ideas for additions, subtractions, or modifications to the current product design that will increase the likelihood of its success.

If I were someone starting a new company, with the time-to-market clock ticking constantly in the background, I'd want someone to provide these sorts of assistance as early as possible, to ensure that we're not wasting time and resources. So why is the attitude of the CEO whom Adam cites earlier--we'll bring in someone with a product management title later, and improvise the PM function for the time being--fairly common in the technology industry?

The culprit, I suspect, is the idea that anyone can do product management, because people from a variety of different jobs start being product managers with no prior experience, and learn by doing. (How often they learn what it really takes to be a product manager is unknown.) However, as is the case with any job, not everyone is necessarily good at it.

We all know a few tasks that we'd never master, or even want to. For example, I suspect that I'd make a terrible accountant. I love math, but I lack the patience needed to spend my live combing through spreadsheets. Other math-related activities, such as statistical analysis, fit my personality and skills far better.

The same principle applies to product management. Not everyone can excel at the tasks listed above. For example, discovering the real business problem behind a feature request is a skill. Having enough interest in customer use cases to learn that skill, and then to continue applying it, is a question of temperament.

As someone doing research on the technology industry, I'm always willing to hear how suppositions like these may be wrong. Until then, this line of logic leads to obvious conclusion: the technology industry clings to a conceit about product management, that anyone can do it. If what product managers do has any value, there's a price tag attached to that error.

[Postscript: This post breaks a personal rule about the length of blog entries. I'll return to briefer posts later. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of a way to substantially reduce the number of words needed to handle this topic.]

Marketing mind-meld

Just got back from the Cambridge office, where we held a one-day workshop on crafting a sharper value proposition. It's one of several dimensions of our "messaging review" methodology.

Working with hundreds of technology vendors, in thousands of interactions per year, you quickly identify the common pitfalls. Over time, Forresterites have developed a rigorous way of breaking down marketing messages into their components, evaluating them, and helping reconstruct them into something better. (There's even a nifty diagram that displays the strengths and weaknesses of the current messaging.)

Beyond the more scientific process of evaluating marketing messages, there's also the "Eureka!" or "Aha!" moment that's harder to quantify. This threshold is easy to describe: the moment when you start thinking in your target customer's terms, not your own.

Initially, it's hard to do--almost like learning a new language. Just as you need to learn a new syntax and vocabulary for a new language, marketing people have to learn about roles, business problems, evaluation and adoption processes, and other details. Fitting the technology into these sociological realities is the next step.

You still need to be able to distill the capabilities and prospective benefits of the technology into pithy, compelling messages. However, you first need to speak the customer's language, and then translate these product marketing statements into that other language. This process imposes new challenges, but it's definitely worth the effort.