You are here: Home / Archives for yahoo

Start With The Customer Marketing Podcast #6 – Drinking Your Own Champaign

September 18, 2011 By

After a summer hiatus, the Start with the Customer Podcast is back! In this episode I am honored to be joined by Larry McKeogh, product management expert and founder of Rocky Mountain ProductCamp and Scott Sehlhorst, of Tyner Blain consulting.

We started off the call catching up on the lastest news from ProductCamp Utah, followed by a discussion on the different ProductCamp approaches. We spent some time talking about Larry’s presentation from PCamp Utah and the skills necessary for being a successful product manager. From there we continued on the topic of “The Power of the Customer” and where crowdsourcing can play a part in product development. We concluded the call with some parting shots on the latest news from Yahoo and the challenges of managing a turnaround without a clear strategy.

I hope you enjoy the show and would love to hear your feedback!

You can listen here:

or download from iTunes.

Show Notes:

Runtime:  46 minutes

Filed Under: Podcast Marketing Podcast Tagged With: , , , , ,

Yahoo Dropping Delicious Makes Complete Sense – But Not Really

December 20, 2010 By

Trying to figure out why Yahoo decided to drop Delicious from their portfolio isn’t hard. It could be because it isn’t growing anymore, doesn’t make any revenue, is no longer hot (hey, its been a long five years since Yahoo bought the company).

Cutting products and focusing the company is exactly what Yahoo has to do if it has any hopes of turning itself around (in fact, this is pretty much what they said they were going to do).

So, what’s the big deal?

While it may have made a good product level decision, dropping Delicious makes no sense when it comes to marketing strategy – at least at this point and time.

Delicious has been woefully neglected since being purchased by Yahoo but it is still a brand that a lot of people understand and care about.  In the meantime, Yahoo has done nothing to get people excited about Yahoo again.

Nobody really knows what the Yahoo brand stands for and why they should care anymore.

None of this will really matter if Yahoo can get it’s act together but in the short run, I would say this is another warning sign that things are not heading in the right direction.  Building excitement about your brand and products is hard enough without pissing people off first.

Image Credit:  Flickr

Filed Under: Product Strategy Tagged With: ,

Yahoo, Death By 200 Paper Cuts

July 9, 2010 By

Back in April of 2009 when Carol Bartz joined Yahoo as the new CEO, she discussed the challenges of their product portfolio and brining discipline to their product management process.

Techcrunch is now reporting,

In an email to all staff last week, new chief product officer Blake Irving told employees that he would be sending a two page document outlining Yahoo’s overall product strategy moving forward by the end of July. Later employees will be able to dive deeper into a twenty page document, and later still a 200 page detailed product strategy document would be available.

My gut call is that this is not a good sign (yes, I know when the ship is already sinking, it isn’t exactly risky to say it is in trouble).  2 pages is an acceptable length for a strategy document.  I can even buy 20 pages for an in-depth overview of the various parts of the product portfolio strategy.  200 pages?  That to me sounds like death by presentation that most employees will take a pass on.

To use a gardening analogy, when you are overrun with weeds you have to take drastic steps to recover lost ground.  You can’t save everything, so sacrifices must be made and made quickly.  If the plant can be saved you save it,  but this is not a time for nurturing.  What you hope to do is to pick a few hearty plants to focus on and  try to build from there.

Back in 2007, I had a chance to hear Steve Miller speak while he was in the process of trying to turn around the auto part maker, Delphi.  What I remember most from his speech was the sense of urgency he conveyed when talking about his turnaround plan.  He knew that the only way to the save the business was to to take action quickly before it was too late to save any momentum.

I would like to see more action and less presentation coming out of Yahoo.  What does Yahoo stand for?  Which of their many,many products are they going to cut and which one are they going to bet the farm on? What’s going to be the rallying cry to galvanize the organization?

I personally think Yahoo has the resources and the brand equity to make the turnaround happen – plus wouldn’t a comeback from one of the pioneer’s of the Internet make for a great story?  Let’s hope that there is more than talk coming soon!

Photo Credit:  Flickr

Filed Under: Product Strategy Tagged With: , , , ,

Yahoo And Product Portfolio Management

April 27, 2009 By

sort

The current issue of Fortune has an article covering Carol Bartz, the new CEO of Yahoo, and the staggering job in front of her trying to turn the company around.

One of the most interesting parts of the article was the historical recap of the early 2000′s where the company was on a buying tear, gobbling up companies left and right.  The strategy seemed to be focused on growth through acquisitions with no attempt to merge and focus the acquired companies.  Of course, it was during this time that Google perfected paid search and the rest is history.

Comment new Yahoo CEO Bartz,

She also wants to prevent more space debris from launching in the future. “Yahoo was amateur hour in the past when it comes to product management,” she bluntly told business partners last month; groups haphazardly released things without a clear sense of whether customers wanted them.

It is always easier looking back, but I think is safe to say that a strong product portfolio management process may have helped avoid some of the missed opportunities.  The key here is to make prioritization decisions on product development that align with the strategic direction of the company.

Portfolio Management for New Products is an excellent resource on the topic.   From PMNP, the portfolio process should be the starting point for evaluation:

  • Does the new product fit our business strategy?
  • Where is the business currently spending resources and what allocation changes need to be made?
  • What needs to be done immediately and what should be postponed?

However, a good process doesn’t guarantee success.  If done right, it will defenitly help focus, but you still need a sound strategic direction to make sure at the end of the day, your products hit the mark.

Filed Under: Product Management, Product Marketing Tagged With: , ,