Product Pad

One of those things that is dreded by any product manager is Service Outage and Maintenance Scedules. The moment when some users may access your product and goes back with a groan or even may send you a brickbat through the feedback system. One of the ways to tackle this is to tell each user in advance about the maintenance and down time or if it is a service outage then show them a message that will convert the dreaded groan to a smile.The maintenance pages shows the creativity of the product team and the manager.

My personal favorite has always been bloglines.




Here is a list of some good maintenance page implementations from Smashing Magazine.

Design patterns have found their place in many areas of our lives, and can be found in the design and development of user interfaces as well

I like Maruti ads. Not All ads but all those ads which are focused on the service network of Maruti. Maruti is an established brand in India and car is a high invlovement category where people make purchases after umpteen comparisons on a zillion parameters.Ask any prospective car buyer from India and one of the reasons for selecting a Maruti car over competitors is always their strong service network .All these days they were claiming about the reach of Maruti Service stations in India. There was one advertisment in which people could not get food in Ladakh but still could find a Maruti service station and there were funny ads like the one below.



I like this latest ad. It just communicates that taking your car to any service station wont do and it has to be taken to the Maruti station just like a child has to be taken to its own mother for comfort.



A unique but effective way of an emotional appeal.

Simple Yet Effective Branding from GE - http://www.ge.com/today/



After going through some of the live video streams from Japan, Brasil, USA and Germany I do wonder what they will do tomorrow.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:- A long but useful presentation on Simplicity.

I like this advertisement.

If you have worked in any organisation, just assume that the child is sales team.

First you give him a target - Daddy . He achieves it and everyone is happy

Then the second target - Mamma - He achieves it again and every one is so happy

The Third Target - Banana - He achieves it and everyone is exhilarated

The Final target - Czechoslovakia - and you see what happens.

It is about how you set expectations in sales and in life - right ?