Deloitte's UK Mobile Consumer Survey 2016

Deloitte's publication of its mobile phone survey has plenty of interesting stats. Here are some that caught my eye:

• 4G adoption has more than doubled in the last year, from 25% to 54%.
• 31% of smartphone users make no traditional voice calls in a given week. This contrasts with a quarter in 2015, and just 4% in 2012. The substitutes are text messaging, instant messaging and social networks.
• The majority of survey participants have downloaded 20 or fewer apps.
• Smartphone penetration in the UK leapt from 52% to 81% of the population in the four years to May 2016, but further penetration is anticipated to slow to 2-4% in the next 12 months.

Transparent cookie policy shows the privacy madness in Ad-tech

I went to Reuters UK website and, in clicking on their cookie policy, I was presented with this screen. See their advertising guidelines and click on the Cookie Consent button in the bottom right hand corner.

Well done to Reuters for demonstrating the transparency of how all the cookies on their site are being used.

But what a hideous user experience / privacy experience!

I clicked on the two 'All off' buttons to stop cookies being fired (hopefully??) and data being collected about me and my browsing habits (even more hopefully???). This is the next screen - the battle isn't over yet!!

I closed my browser window and got my news from another source - like the ad-free BBC.

Having worked in Ad-tech for the last 2 years, I've been on publishers' side of the fence on this issue (indeed Reuters was a customer of my previous employer, Grapeshot), but this is a truly frightening user experience for the average internet user. No wonder ad-blocking is rising at such a rate (See Wikipedia entry for Ad Blocking)

I'd be fascinated to see how many people actually manage their cookies using this screen or how many close down the page and go elsewhere - as I did!

More Product Management Mistakes (from Rich Mironov)

Rich Mironov, a product management expert, lists some of the mistakes that a new product manager might make in the first 6 months. I summarise them here, but go to the article for the details:

1. Promise a new feature to a customer without running it past your team.
2. Generalize your first three customer interviews into a market segment.
3. Confuse sales calls with customer learning/research
4. Believe your own marketing/selling materials about why customers use and love your product
5. Announce that you’re "CEO of the product"
6. Tell engineers how to solve a technical problem
7. Postpone meeting your internal counterparts
8. Confuse process steps (stories, tickets, releases) with market success (renewals, revenue, customer love)

Also take a look at 'What a Product Manager does on the first day / week / month / quarter in their new role' - a session that we have run at the Cambridge Product Management Network a couple of times.

Product Management Mistakes

From June session of the meetup of The Product Group London

Some of the mistakes discussed:

1. Confusing Customer Requirements with Product Requirements
2. Confusing yourself with your customer
3. Confusing the Customer with the User
4. Confusing Features with Benefits
5. Confusing Building the Right product with Building the Product Right
6. Confusing Good Product with Good Business Model
7. Confusing Inspiring features with Nice to have features
8. Confusing Adding Features with Improving products
9. Confusing Complete Product with Sellable Product
10. Confusing Product Launch with Success