Phil Montgomery's recent post, "Hatred Is A Bad Business Driver," is definitely worth reading and taking to heart.  Here's the money quote from Phil's post:

I remember being at Novell in the late 90's and feeling absolute hate emanating towards Microsoft.  This was despite us all using many of their products internally - including Windows - Microsoft has some extremely good products (Excel is a case in point). Novell's hatred of Microsoft caused them to go on an irrational buying binge to assemble products (Wordperfect, DR DOS et al) and compete head-on with Microsoft. As we know, this didn't work - nobody can beat a bigger adversary by attacking them head on.  Hatred created a flawed strategy that led to failure.

Of course you have to observe your competitors carefully. Frequently, you'll need to react to what they're doing. However, that's not the same thing as shadowing their every move.

I've been doing a fascinating set of interviews with the successful heads of product management and product marketing organizations. Since the topic is, "Tell us your best practices," the interviews are the perfect occasion to probe many issues that vex people in this profession.

Whenever we got to the part about running a PM team, I inserted a question about the type of person who makes a good product manager. As seen in some of the research I did last year, product managers come to the profession from a motley collection of previous jobs. (No surprise there.)

However, it's clear from these interviews that the people who run PM departments are pretty unhappy with this state of affairs. Frequently, they've taken deliberate steps to fix it.  Sometimes, this means an agonizing reappraisal of whether the people in the team today have all the skills and experiences they really need.

The latest podcast is now available here. Highlights include:

• John Rymer on the ramifications of the Oracle/Sun deal.

• A review of The Product Manager's Desk Reference.

• Happy Cinco de Mayo, one day early.

The weekly podcast for product managers and product marketers is here. This week, senior analyst Tim Harmon explains how SMBs will be critical during the recovery, and provide tips for tech vendors for working with their partners. Plus, tech industry trivia! For the link to the podcast, go here.