Remote Control Product Management

Controlling Disruption

I picked up last Tuesday’s Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal and the image you see below here jumped off the page at me. The article, Left Behind: The Clunky TV Remote, is a must read for product managers and product marketers alike. It is safe to say that there were cartwheels at Netflix when they read this while their counterparts at Comcast didn’t have such a great day.

There is so much packed into the realities that this piece speaks to it is difficult to pick a point to start the conversation. Focusing first on the varying user experiences presented here it is clear that one is far more enjoyable than the other. And if you consume your cable television from Comcast (or Verizon for that matter which is arguably worse) you are painfully familiar with the five steps listed. What is even more compelling is that the copy invokes a visual for each step by step. You can place yourself on your couch clicking through the awful user interface of the cable TV provider and virtually compare it to the cool and sleek manner of tapping the iPad screen where the search for the content is perhaps more enjoyable than the content itself. Yes Tuesday the 26^th of October was a banner one for the product development, management, marketing and PR teams at Netflix (I’m sure some folks at Apple were smiling a bit as well).

But there is so much more here to consider. The article is an incredibly palpable reflection of what product managers and product marketers have to deal with in the face of significant technological disruption.

For the organization being ‘disrupted’ it is rarely a pretty picture. They are forced with weighing the necessity of maintaining product and service infrastructure for a valuable install base against increasing investments in the new technology. Having been one of the ‘disrupted’ I can tell you from experience that it is an uncomfortable place to be and you never have the resources you need to cover all priorities. Candidly it is far easier to get it wrong than it is to get it right. In fact this ‘user’ quote from the WSJ piece is every product manager’s night mare: “It seems like their systems are designed by engineers. . . They’re not into thinking about how people in life sitting on couches are using these things.” OUCH.

Compounding the sting here is that initial efforts frequently miss the mark all together. In fact consider this example.

Did you notice the very first thing that Comcast CEO Brian Roberts showed in his demonstration – that’s right the terribly cumbersome grid that chains any possibility of innovation in the category to the status quo. To be fair there are clear glimpses of potential success buried in the demonstration, specifically the contextual search and the creation of a social element to TV viewing. But these nuggets are hidden behind the Comcast status quo of not only the tired old grid but Mr. Roberts nod to the technology behind the iPad interface, eBiff. I would submit that the product marketing team failed Mr. Roberts by missing the opportunity to tout innovative content search and social content viewing. The two minute piece could have served as a shot across the bow of rivals both new and traditional, but instead it unwittingly disclosed that Comcast’s focus is general in nature and that it is likely that their development priorities have not yet crystallized.

While that is not exactly fantastic, however, it is not a terrible place in which to be. Comcast has that install-base on their side which buys them a little bit of time. What is worse in such instances of disruption is denial. Example? Well consider the comment in the WSJ article from an AT&T Inc.’s U-verse, spokesman, who in response to a consumer calling their interface awful said that the interface “allows customers to customize their channel guides to see only the channels they pay for” and that finding programs to watch on the service “couldn’t be more easy”. Telling your customers that through their effort (not the company’s) they can make things easy for themselves and that their perception is flat out wrong is probably not such a winning strategy in the face of disruption.

Meanwhile Netflix is unencumbered by any such status quo. They have the freedom to focus on one thing only and that is the delivery of content in ever increasing innovative ways. This compounds Comcast’s dilemma. A matter that will only increase in intensity as Smartphone platforms gain greater ubiquity and the marriage between television and web access to content grows stronger.

So what to do in the face of disruption? Here are 5 suggestions for product managers and product marketing professionals to consider as they set out to adapt to the necessity of change that uncontrolled innovation begets.