How to be a good Product Manager

Jeff Lash says, “if you wan tot be a good product manager, do everything yourself.”  As a product manager you have the final say on pretty much everything.  You are the one answering questions from salespeople, writing press releases, and pouring over details with others.  Being a product manager takes a lot of your time, but that is the name of the game.

One way to be a good product manager is to delegate as many activities as you can to others.  You have a team, and as a team member, more then that an effective team member, you give product knowledge and responsibility and some decision-making responsibilities to other team members.  By doing this you, as the product manager, can focus on the strategic role of product management.

When it comes to being a product manager, it’s hard for you to balance the “strategic and tactical priorities of product manager.”  Just like is any other job the day-to-day tasks can take over.  Consider the metaphor of focusing on the trees instead of the forest.  Well a product manager sometimes focuses on a single “piece of bark.”

Being more strategic and less tactical is sometimes easier said then done for a product manager.  So it comes down to a product manager being a strategic role.  Everybody wants you to do everything.

The truth is, the product manager, “can and should be giving the necessary direction, context, and guidance to allow other people to accomplish these tasks themselves.”  Product managers need to teach their team to be self-sufficient in many ways. 

You have to be careful what you say yes to.  Ask yourself, is it forward thinking and strategic.  So it comes down to thinking about your role, as the product manager, as being strategic and focused. 

Artist Managers

Some could say that “artist look to the manager to take the chaos of a perspective career and organize it into the prospect of success.”  ~Paul Allen

Managers are involved in counseling artist on issues connected to their careers.  Traditionally, mangers focus of shopping for record deals for their clients, and then help them circumnavigate through the deals and more.  In todays, time the role of a manger has progressed into a much more hands-on method.  They help clients reach fans directly and assist clients in running their own recording, publishing, merchandising and performing or touring.  Most mangers are in the area of sponsorship, branding, merchandising and/or licensing. 

Like a lot of things in the music industry, the role of an artist management is changing.  Artist managers must understand their role is business development.  It’s more them just getting their artist signed, rather they should be developing and unlocking value for their brands, basically business development.  Due to the fact, that most managers do not have the proper business training. 

There is so much that an artist manger has to do.  The most important role in shaping their career and keeping the artist frantic lives running smoothly.  The more knowledge the artist manager has the better the manger will be.  A manager should know and have contacts at record label’s, publishing companies, booking agencies, promotion services and publicist agencies.  A manger will also need to communicate with people who provide technical services. 

A manger may make suggestions for enhancements inn a recording or help with instrumental characteristics of the music.  In general they supervise the creative process.  That can mean getting the band together for practice and assessing material the band makes.  As said before an artist manger needs to be a businessperson who has organizational skills.  The manger will have to work with publicists to invent the artist image.

What to be Concerned About...

Entertainment Law Update.  Sometimes when going to court you will get clarification of requirements of what is lawful and what is not.  YouTube vs. Viacom; Viacom states that 75% of what is shown of YouTube is copyrighted.  This comes to the point of whether or not YouTube has willful knowledge or blindness.  It comes down to what you can prove and whether there was enough evidence. 

Podcast are something a lot of businesses use to promote themselves.  The question has come up, should podcasters have to pay for licensing and how much do you charge?  Is there a royalty they need to pay?  This is something that I would be concerned with as a business owner because if you make a podcast for your business, what infringements might you incur?

Another issue that might arise is making sure that the people who sign your agreements have the capacity to consent.  Think of the person who does the Girls Gone Wild videos, he filmed a girl that was only 14 year of age.  There are a lot of question that came up in the court case.  This makes me think of when film children do they have the capacity to consent? No.  So what do you do? 

Jon Ipolito: How to Hack Copyright for Fun and Profit.  Sharing, is it good or bad?  That is the question that Ipolito asks.  He states that there are media giants out there that control the Internet.  He also states “cheating is the pedagogy of the internet.”  The Internet is a super charged environment that circulates media.  He then goes on to discuss keeping your eyes on your own paper and that universities spend millions of dollars a year on trying to derail cheating.  He mentioned how they use the website TurnItIn.com to check if there is plagiarism. 

There is also digital arts to consider, and how people have recombined it into new material.  We have access to everything and no one controls it.  This makes me think of my own business of film.  After you create it, who stops people from spreading it all over the Internet.  In this day and age of YouTube, everything is out there.  You make a digital footprint and it is hard to erase.

Siva Vaidhyanathan: Copyright and Copy Wrongs.  Vaidhyanathan talks a lot about open source and no longer being able to do what we wish to do.  Does the creator need to have a license is one of the questions he raises and what should be the policy?  Even though the courts have given Hollywood everything they have asked for in the last 10 years the system is just not great.  People are frustrated.  Even with all the regulations out there, there is nothing we can’t get.  People should be able to build off the abilities of others.

He raises a lot of good questions, but really does not have an answer.  The questions I have to be concerned with is, how does it affect my business?  Even with all the copyright regulations out there in place people still violate the copyright infringements and intellectual properties.

Industry Liabilities

The Law and Controversy of Copying DVDs

There has been a heated debate about the copying of DVD’s and the digital conversion of them to general consumer software.  On one side, the film industry does not want movies recorded, copied or re-sold which is their privilege as copyright owners. On the other side of the coin, the consumers have the right to back up their movies once purchased, as they see fit.  There is rationalization to both sides.

The consumer is right and on the other side is preferred privileges to the copyright owner.  Both sides are right on some level but when it comes down to it the law is the law.

Personally if you are only using it for your own use, then you should be able to do what ever you want.  This means there should be no loading it up the YouTube or selling bootleg copies.  If you are only using it to have a backup then the consumer should be allowed to copy music and DVD’s. 

'Glee' Airs 'Baby Got Back' Cover Despite Copyright Controversy

The teen musical drama ‘Glee,’ aired their own version of “Baby Got Back”, even though there was protests that the arrangement was taken from the internet by Jonathan Coulton.   Coulton even went as far as posting on Twitter that he was upset and was quoted as saying “‘Glee’ “ripped off” his composition of the song.”  He was in the right by legally purchasing the rights of the lyrics of “Baby Got Back.”

In my mind this is completely wrong.  In film and television you need to have permission from the people who own the copyright on the song.  In the long run, getting legal permission protects you and your film or television show.  If you are going to go to all the trouble of making a film or show, then you need to have all your T’s crossed and I’s dotted.  Otherwise, you take the chance of not being able to show what you make.  Not to mention all the legal trouble that you will get in.

POY Finalist Photo Taken to Win Art Contest Leading to Copyright Controversy

MiniSpace.com held a competition for the best photograph.  A 23 year old from France won.  But did he?  Come to find out he took someone else photograph and manipulated it.  MiniSpace.com says that he manipulated enough of it that it counts as his own.

To me this doesn’t seem right.  Taking someone else’s work weather it is a photograph, movie or song and twisting it to make it your own is wrong.  Now music artist take song and remix them.  Hollywood moguls take old movies and make them new again, but first they get permission.  That is the key you need to get legal rights o whatever you are remaking as the case my be. 

Works Cited

              

1.     The Law and Controversy of Copying DVDs by, TopTenReviews Contributor < http://dvd-and-video-to-ipod-software-review.toptenreviews.com/when-everyones-right.html>

2.     'Glee' Airs 'Baby Got Back' Cover Despite Copyright Controversy by, Chelsea         Stark http://mashable.com/2013/01/25/glee-baby-got-back-jonathan-coulton/

3.  POY Finalist Photo Taken to Win Art Contest Leading to Copyright Controversy by ← William Eggleston to be honoured at 2013 Sony World Photography Awards

The 2013 World Press Photo Exhibition

 

Branding

Marketing is very important to the success of any business these days.  One important part of marketing is branding.  Branding can be identified as "name, term, sign, symbol or design.”  You need to understand the needs and wants of your costumers.  You need to do research on what your costumers again need and want.  Branding is a fundamental need to your marketing campaign, one that you don’t want to miss.  It is essential.

With so many companies out there you need to be above the rest.  There is more to branding then just logos and pretty designs.  It is about interaction and claiming your voice.  First you can start by determining what your business is known for.  Think of a certain product or service that stands out.  You need energy behind your brand.  

You need to interact with your audience.  Keep in mind what your brand will look like in 5 years or 10 years.  Don’t be too specific or too generalized.  Being too general overthrows the purpose of having a brand and being too specific prevents the brand from expanding the market.  You need to have consistency in your brand to keep your customers coming back.  The effectiveness of your brand will keep them coming back.  A strong brand is again essential and invaluable to your marketing campaign. 

There are two types of branding personal and internal.  Which is right for your company?  Personal branding can be an indication that this person is an expert in their field.  Personal branding is simpler then company branding mostly because it is easier to sell what you believe in.  So by becoming a pro or expert in your industry you got the handle on personal branding.

You can spend so much time coming up with a marketing plan, and by messing with logos and taglines.  Marketing starts from the inside out.

Product Management

What’s the secret to building products people want to buy?  Well, first you should understand what product management is.  In a few words product management is building, helping, simplifying, collaborating - (sometimes) crying and leading.  So weather you are shipping websites or watches the goal of product management are the same, “helping a team build a products that’s loved by the company,” says HunterWalk, former director of product management at Google.

There are questions you have to answer like who is also making you product, who is buying you product and what are their needs.  So you need to spend more time on sales and marketing.  Hard marketing are activities that engage the customers.  Hard marketing is the essence of what product management is.

“Product management becomes critical when your prospective customers need you to sell them more then one thing in order to become paying customers,” says Alan Ying of Growth Factor.  It’s hard to do product management well, because executing product management takes such organizational tactics “that good intentions almost never make it out the other side intact,” continues Ying.

Product management is successful when a team, one team that reports to one leader this team must work with sales people, support staff, developers, business developers, accounting, legal and marketing.  When a company starts out product management is mostly performed by the founder, because he or she has the strongest product vision.  As the company grows so should the product vision.

So by being the founder of your product start becoming a whole Product Manager.  Start thinking end to end.  Learn everything for the sake of your product and then do everything for the sake of your product, because it’s your baby.  Don’t expect others to raise it for you.  So as it has been said, suck it up.  That’s right suck it up and do your job really well.

Interviwe with Doug Ranie

Doug Raine has been in the film industry for 30 years.  He has worked in a variety of production positions, mostly as an assistant director. His first film was STARMAN and his most recent film, THE LIFEGUARD premieres this week at Sundance in the dramatic competition. Some of the nicer films he has worked on were THE PROGRAM, GHOST AND THE DARKNESS, MEN OF HONOR, and REIGN OF FIRE. His first feature as writer/producer/director, FROM A PLACE OF DARKNESS has won a few awards including “Best Horror Film.”

Question 1: When dealing with people you don't get along with how to you separate the person form the problem?

He has knowledge of all the jobs in the film industry, even though he may not know all the facets of every job, he knows enough to get through problems that may arise. If he doesn’t get along with someone, he makes sure they have all the information to get their job done. If they have trouble getting their job done, he then strives to make sure problems don’t arise… even if that means more work for him. Raine say’s that “the main objective is to get the film done in the safest and most productive way.” 

Question 2: When dealing with Objective Criteria how does 3rd party standers help you in negotiations? 

Raine utilized experience from past films as the “3rd party standard” in dealing with Objective Criteria in negotiations. He usually relies on two or three examples to back up his side of the negotiation. However, he also tries to remain open to the big picture that the other person may be offering.

Question 3: How do you avoid dirty tactics and deal with them in negotiations?

He has found that being upfront and honest works the best to avoid dirty tactics. Again, he will back up his facts with examples from past films. Often, in talking with someone in a negotiation… if you listen to them you may be ale to determine their knowledge and their honesty. This information helps him decide if he wants to work with them.