New Learning, Novel Visions & Now June!

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Thank you to everyone who made it to our latest, maxed-out, roundtable meet-up of The Product Group at Dogpatch Labs, as well as to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions.

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Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

Featured Product: TouchGraph
exploring the product, its challenges and successes, from visualizing connections to reaching new customers
(thanks to TouchGraph Product Person: Alex Shapiro)

Product Management Learning
from great books to moderating success

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

If you are a Product Person and are interested in having your product featured or participating as a featured guest expert at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

Thursday, June 2nd @ 7PM
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about June’s Featured Product.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.

Killing Products, Finding Product People & May Visions!

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Thank you to everyone who made it to our latest roundtable meet-up of The Product Group at Dogpatch Labs, as well as to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions.

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Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

Featured Product: NearSay
exploring the product, its challenges and successes, from the scaling the product to guiding technical decisions
(thanks to NearSay Product People: Trevor Sumner, Joshua Mack)

To Kill a Product
from the challenges of pulling the trigger to inside Google

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

If you are a Product Person and are interested in having your product featured or participating as a featured guest expert at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

Thursday, May 5th @ 7PM
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about May’s Featured Product, TouchGraph.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.

Pinching Time, Managing Money & April Locales!

  

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A big thank you to everyone who made it to our latest record-breaking roundtable meet-up of The Product Group at General Assembly, as well as to our other sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions. To stay in the loop on General Assembly’s classes and events, sign up for their weekly events newsletter at http://generalassemb.ly.

IMG_0979 Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

Featured Product: Thomson One
exploring the product, its challenges and successes, from the complexities of a managing a mature product to user research 
(thanks to Thomson Reuters Product Person: Jonathan Weinberg)

Time Management
from the "hoody method" to HitMeLater

AutoSlash
At the end of the meetup we briefly discussed AutoSlash.  A little more about the startup, from Jonathan: "By night I run a fledgling web startup called AutoSlash.com. AutoSlash was launched earlier this year to help people get a great deal on car rentals. I saw that you sometimes have startups present at your meetings. I was wondering whether there might be an opportunity to talk about AutoSlash at one of your upcoming events."  (continue the discussion in the forums)

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

IMG_0982If you are a Product Person and are interested in having your product featured or participating as a featured guest expert at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

Thursday, April 7th @ 7PM
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about April’s Featured Product, NearSay.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.

Valuing Project Managers, Advancing LearnVest & Marching Onward!

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A big thank you to everyone who made it to our latest record-breaking roundtable meet-up of The Product Group at Dogpatch Labs, as well as to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions.

IMG_0954 Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

 

Featured Product: LearnVest
exploring the product, its challenges and successes, from validating features to hiring the best
(thanks to LearnVest Product Person: Debbie Wissel)

Project Managers — Who needs ‘em?
from the interaction between product and project to project managers’ very true value

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

IMG_0958 If you are a Product Person and are interested in having your product featured or participating as a featured guest expert at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

  Thursday, March 3rd @ 7PM
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about March’s Featured Product.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.

The Best Product Person of 2010, Inside Innovation & Discovering Dinevore!

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A big thank you to everyone who made it to our latest roundtable meet-up of The Product Group, as well as to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions.

IMG_0937 Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

 

The Best Product Person of 2010: Giff Constable of Aprizi
out of an abundance of nominations, one product person this year stood out above the rest

Featured Product: Dinevore
exploring the product, its challenges and successes, from automation to ux
(a big thanks to the Dinevore product person: Jeremy Fisher)

Fostering Innovation
from defining to preparing for failure

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

IMG_0947 If you are a Product Person and are interested in having your product featured or participating as a featured guest expert at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

  Thursday, February 3rd @ 7PM
@ Pace (163 William Street, 2nd Floor, NYC)
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about January’s Featured Product, Dinevore.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.

The Product Guy: Astonishin’ in 2010!

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Wow! Another year of The Product Guy is now coming to a close… an awesomely astonishin’ 2010! Together we explored many exciting products and enjoyed the perspectives from very smart guest bloggers, from startups to user experience to modular innovation and more — all while getting to meat and speak with many of The Product Guy’s steadily growing readership.

And, once again, let’s take a brief look at the top posts that made this year on The Product Guy so awesomely astonishin’…

#10 Stribe to be Instantly More Social

Recently, The Product Guy had the opportunity to interview Kamel Zeroual, CEO of Stribe — Gold prize winner at Le Web ‘09. And he covered topics ranging from this Paris-based startup’s origins to where it is going and how it is planning to get there.

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#9 brainmates Interview with The Product Guy

Two weeks ago I was interviewed by Janey Wong over at brainmates for their brainrants blog. We touched on some really good Product Management topics in which I think you would be interested.

So, here it is, reblogged straight from Australia…

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#8 Why Startups are Agile and Opportunistic – Pivoting the Business Model

Startups are inherently chaotic. The rapid shifts in the business model is what differentiates a startup from an established company. Pivots are the essence of entrepreneurship and the key to startup success. If you can’t pivot or pivot quickly, chances are you will fail.

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#7 Quick-MI Worksheet: Spreadsheet to Sustained Online Success

Over the past few years I’ve been discussing Quick-MI. Now, through the help of Google Docs, I’m sharing the Quick MI Worksheet to make it even easier for you to apply Quick-MI to your products, track progress, and share the results with your team. The Quick-MI Worksheet automatically performs all the necessary calculations and summarizes the product for you.

#6 Modular Innovation 201

The products and concepts that constitute Modular Innovation are those that connect, enable, produce, enhance, extend, and make use of these relationships and, in turn, users’ online experiences with them. Let’s get to understand them better.

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#5 Facebook PDQ

In answering the question of Usability, "Can I use it?" the sub-category of Page Load plays an instrumental part. Facebook is one such excellent example of a web product with Prompt Page Load Time.

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#4 Automating the Path to a Better User Experience

Quick-UX evaluates the degree to which a product successfully addresses the following 3 questions: Can I use it? (Usability), Should I use it? (Usefulness), and Do I want to use it? (Desirability). Now, through the help of Google Docs, as I did the other week with the release of the Quick-MI Worksheet, I’m sharing the Quick-UX Worksheet to make it even easier and faster …

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#3 jQuery ThreeDots: yayQuery Plugin of the Week!

I’ve been a fan of yayQuery since shortly after their initial podcast episode. Therefore, you can imagine my surprise and elation when I heard them announce that my ThreeDots plugin was this week’s jQuery Plugin of the Week… almost falling down the stairs as I listened this past Friday while entering the subway here in NYC.

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#2 jQuery Plugin: CuteTime, C’est Magnifique! (v 1.1) [UPDATE]

I am very pleased to announce the latest major update to the CuteTime jQuery plugin. CuteTime provides the ability to easily: convert timestamps to ‘cuter’ language-styled forms (e.g. yesterday, 2 hours ago, last year, in the future!), customize the time scales and output formatting, and update automatically and/or manually the displayed CuteTime(s).

In addition to the inclusion of French CuteTime in this latest release, version 1.1 features: ISO8601 date timestamp compliance, insertions using the %CT% pattern of computed numbers within the CuteTime cuteness, support for all foreign language characters and HTML, Spanish CuteTime translations, courtesy of Alex Hernandez, richer demos and test, improved settings flexibility of the CuteTime function, documentation updates (corrections and clarifications).

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#1 jQuery Plugin: Give Your Characters a NobleCount

In my quest I have been on the lookout for a jQuery plugin that would provide the ability to: (1) provide real-time character counts, (2) enable easy to customize visual behaviors, and … While there are other similar tools out there, none adequately met these goals. Therefore, I created the jQuery NobleCount plugin.

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This year The Product Group grew beyond all possible expectations! Now with 600+ active members in NYC we Product People of all sorts and levels of experience to meet, interact, and network, in a laid-back, conversational environment on first Thursday of each month. Thank you to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, RYMA Technology, and Sunshine Suites, and to every one of you who attend, engage and help make The Product Group the astonishin’ success it has become!

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Happy New Year!

Jeremy Horn 
The Product Guy

Talking to the Tech-side, Usability’s Home & Wind Products Storms NYC!

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A big thank you to everyone who made it to our latest roundtable meet-up of The Product Group, as well as to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions.

IMG_0880 Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

 

Featured Product: Wind Products
exploring the product, its challenges and successes, renewable energy challenges in NYC to optimizing usability and price
(thanks to Wind Products Product Person: Cullen Kasunic)

Talking to the Tech-Side
from transparency and usability to successful planning

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

IMG_0877 If you are a Product Person and are interested in having your product featured or participating as a featured guest expert at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

  Thursday, January 6th @ 7PM
@ Pace (163 William Street, 2nd Floor, NYC)
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about January’s Featured Product, Dinevore.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.

The Product Group & Talking to the Tech-side

theproductgroup_logo_2010_FINAL This Thursday, we are all looking forward to a very exciting meetup at Pace, from the upcoming discussions to our Featured Product, Wind Products.

RSVP Now!

Come join us at our next meeting…

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WHEN
7 PM, Thursday, December 2

WHERE
Pace University
163 William Street
2nd Floor

RSVP Now!

AGENDA
Talking to the Tech-side
(what works, shared experiences, and more)


Featured Product: Wind Products
(exploring the product, its challenges and successes, and basically dissecting and understanding the Product with the Product People behind it)
…and more…

SPONSORS
Balsamiq Studios
(makers of the very cool Balsamiq Mockups wireframing and storyboarding product)

Sunshine Suites
(providers of very cool and hip office space locations all over the City)

Ryma Technology Solutions
(providers of Product Management services and software, including FeaturePlan & IdeaScope)

COST
Attending is FREE
(and so is the food)

MEETUP WEBPAGE
The Product Group December 2010

RSVP Now!

 

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Thanks & I am looking forward to seeing everyone this Thursday.

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

Of Game Mechanics, Exercising Switch2Health & the Exciting Events in December!

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A big thank you to everyone who made it to our latest roundtable meet-up of The Product Group, as well as to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions.

IMG_0844 Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

 

Featured Product: Switch2Health
exploring the product, its challenges and successes, from building habits to social recognition
(thanks to Switch2Health Product Person: Goutham Bhadri)

Game Mechanics
from changing behaviors to Digg.com

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

IMG_0843 If you are a Product Person and are interested in having your product featured or participating as a featured guest expert at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

  Thursday, December 2nd @ 7PM
@ Pace (163 William Street, 2nd Floor, NYC)
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about November’s Featured Product.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.

Getting Lean, Engaging Yipit & the Games are Afoot in November!

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A big thank you to everyone who made it to our latest roundtable meet-up of The Product Group, as well as to our sponsors, Balsamiq Studios, Sunshine Suites, and Ryma Technology Solutions.

IMG_0705 Over the course of the night a few of the highlights were…

 

Featured Product: Yipit
exploring the product, exploring the product, its challenges and successes, from growing organically to exploring alternate business models
(thanks to Yipit Product Person: Vin Vacanti)

Minimum Viable Product
from misconceptions to lean methodology
(thanks to Guest Expert: Joe Chin of SourcePad)

The Product Group meet-ups are an opportunity for Product People (managers, strategists, marketers, etc.) to come together to meet, interact, and network in a roundtable setting. It’s awesome to meet fellow Product People in a laid-back, conversational gathering.

IMG_0715 If you are a Product Person who would like to have your product or methodology featured at an upcoming meetup of The Product Group, contact me.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meetup …

  Thursday, November 4th @ 7PM
@ Pace (163 William Street, 2nd Floor, NYC)
RSVP Now!

And, stay tuned for more announcements about November’s Featured Product.

If you would like to attend our next meet-up, RSVP today or visit our group webpage at…

http://meetup.com/TheProductGroup

Enjoy!

Jeremy Horn
The Product Guy

P.S. Interested in becoming a sponsor or host of The Product Group? contact me.