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Saturday, November 8, 2008

Top reasons that manager should write blog

Some managers told me: forget it, I do not have enough time for blogging. We should save time for other more important things!
Actually, I sympathize with them. However, blogging has a lot of advantages. It may help you manage your team efficiently. You don't believe? :) See top reasons I've listed below to understand why.
KYOTO, JAPAN - FEBRUARY 9: Ichimame, an 19-yea...


  • Blogging helps your employee understand and sympathize with you more: if you have difficulties, or something need to explain to your employee - you can use blog. If you're good at writing, you can tell them about your emotion, what you're thinking ... However, do not tell any stupid thing when you're angry. That may create side effect of your blogging. :)

  • Blogging helps you to practice the writing skill: writing skill is one of must have skills of manager. Practicing it with blogging is a good way.

  • Blogging is a very useful tool for training (if you can make use of it): I see some of my friends post some entries to train the team in his blog. He received a lot of feed backs. That's a good signal to know your team can understand what you want to transfer.

  • Blog is a good tool for communication: through blogging, you can announce some thing and explain easier to your team. Actually, people like reading blog than reading the news board/policy board in the office.

  • Blog is a good place to create relationship: a lot of people tell me that they like making friends through blog. That's the great point that you should make use of. If each employee has a blog, introducing their blogs to others is the best way to help them understand each other fast and strengthen the relationship.



Why don't we try from now?

Friday, November 7, 2008

Usability error of Microsoft in setup project with VS 2005

In the past, one developer of my team has a problem with Visual Studio 2005 setup project. He wants to change the Product name in setup project but he can not find any place to do this. He also search on Internet but there is no good solution.
One day, I found the secret behind this story :). Actually, this is a usability bug of Microsoft. Let me show you what this bug is.


First, user right clicks and chooses Property of the setup project - he/she can not see anything related to the Product name, or information of what he/she needs to setup.





How he/she have to do now?
The answer is: please select the setup project in Solution Explorer. After that, click into the Property tab. Remember this carefully!











Microsoft Product manager, please tell me how many user knows this trick?

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Product manager - who are you?

NEW YORK - MARCH 3:  (L-R) Microsoft Product M...I had a chance to work with a big customer in a web 2.0 project. From this project, I've learned a lot of things from business to techniques.
After 1 year, our client gets financial support from one big Capital venture organization (over 3 million dollars) and this project becomes one of top 100 raising web 2.0 sites this year.
(I am so sorry because I can't tell you more information about my customer , and my project business - that's my principle)
One of the most important factors help this project to be success is: product managers. They created good road map and a good product positioning for our product.
In this entry I will help you understand more about this position and how it is important.
I also share to you some experiences when we develop a product from idea.

What is Product management?


First, we have to know what Product management is.


Product management is an organizational function within a company dealing with the planning or marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle. (wikipedia)


So, more detail - in product management, what we have to do?

Product planning




Product marketing



  • Product positioning and outbound messaging

  • Promoting the product externally with press, customers, and partners

  • Bringing new products to market

  • Monitoring the competition


So, what is product manager?

Product manager


Product manager is the person who takes responsibility of Product management in an organization.
In production companies, there are
usually 2 separate staffs takes important role in product development: sale - marketing + product management staff. Sale & marketing staff research the market, predict market trend in the future and send it to Product management staff. Product management staff will research to create product to follow market trend.

How important this position is?


As you can see above, product manager takes care of all things related to Product management. It's a very important role because:

  • This position determines the success of product and strongly affects to your business

  • It determines the development trend of a company in the future. If your company is built only one product, the product management strongly affect to the vision and mission of your company .


How to develop a product from idea?


This is a big question, so I can not write all related things in only one entry. I just give you some questions that you need to answer before deciding to develop an idea:


  • Who are end users that your product/service serves?

  • How your product/service earns money? (What is your business model?)

  • Who are your competitors?

  • What is the most important difference of your product with others? (differentiation).

  • Why users must use your product (not others)?


...
These questions are not enough. I will post a series of entry related to this question.
Wait and enjoy!
Do not hesitate to feedback me if you have any other ideas.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Basic course for junior web developers

While working in Pyramid Consulting, I’ve had a chance to work with Mr. Truong Lap Vi. He was one of Technical Architects of Pyramid Consulting. I’ve learned a lot of things from him. Based on his original training course, I’ve added some customizations to create a newer version of the Basic course for junior web developer.
This basic course takes only 3-4 hours. The purpose of this course is:
+ Based on the Web model to explain the vision and road map of a web developer.
+ Explain what good code is.
The original structure of this course has 2 parts:
1. Web model
2. Good code
2.1. What is good code
2.2 Good function
2.3 Good class
I’ve changed its structure a little bit and add more sections:
1. Web model
2. Good code
2.1. What is good code
2.2 Good piece of code
2.3 Good function
2.4 Good class (make the definition clearer)
3. Best practices in coding

You can find the slide for this course here:
Basic course for junior web developers

Some cool pictures for wallpaper

Today, when searching a document in my computer, I found some old pictures I used as wallpaper for a long time. I think they're very nice. So, I upload them into Google Web Picasa. You can view and download them into your computer.

They may help your desktop screen to be nicer.