Product Weekly: July 2024 Take 1
Product Review
I went to a block party recently and noticed that the wristbands were rather unique: made of cloth, with a plastic fastener that made it reusable. It was pretty sturdy and hard to take off - if you didn’t pay attention to how the fastening mechanism worked, it sure wouldn’t come off accidentally.
I like it because it was of better quality than usual, and there’s a chance to have memorable art or other imagery printed, since it was more durable. It was also a reminder that everything, even party wristbands could be improved.
New Product Idea
Recently, I started thinking about having a digital key fob to my building on my phone. Since I have 3 physical fobs for my building, it wouldn’t hurt if one of these were on my phone instead, would it?
While it doesn’t solve a sharp problem, it does make it more convenient to go in and out without having to carry keys. To move forward with this I would need to investigate two technologies I think would be central to making this work: RFID and NFC.
As for key features, this would be a one-trick pony and just allow you to open up all controlled doors you are permitted to access.
Potential impact would be that a subset of all the apartments buildings and condos would have residents who could be interested, and there might be a market in there.
Product X
Industry Insights and Trends
If you’re a knowledge worker and you’re not using AI in anyway as part of your workflow, you might not have given enough thought about how it could be useful. My friend Kyra kept hounding me until I made conscious efforts to, and it does make work easier in some ways.
A workflow to try today: When building a list or template and you have some initial ideas, ask for it to complete it with similar ideas.
- For example, I knew what the first two sections of this Product Weekly post would look like and also knew that I wanted 3 sections but was stuck on what that third would be.
Here was my prompt:
I want to do a periodic blog post related to product management. In the first section I want to write about a product or user experience i enjoyed, in the second section i want to write about a new product idea, what should a third section be about?
ChatGPT recommended Industry Insights and Trends, while Gemini gave a few interesting directions: Lessons Learned, Industry Trends, Debate or a Challenge, Book Review or Resource. I decided to rotate between them depending on what was top of mind, so called the section product X.
Pro-Tip: Always use multiple LLM services if you can, the responses can be very different.