Why is Data a Product?
Hello there! Welcome to my first Blogger post about Data and the important role it plays in Products.
I'm a Product Manager for a successful software house in London focussing on address, location and contact data tools. What I'd like to do here is pretty simple:
1. Talk about my experiences of Product Management
2. Highlight the value of good quality Data to your Products
3. Share stories on how data and products combine to help people and organisations
Obviously, it's important to start by saying that any views contained in this blog do not represent those of my employer so please don't make any assumptions!
So, why is Data a Product? It's something that I'm constantly striving to define to people who focus on the software that they see and use. For example, when you use a mapping service like Google Maps on your phone, you're focussing on the user interface, speed of lookup and quality of result. All of this is surely down to clever software developers isn't it?
Well, it's not just the software developers, UI experts and QA people who contribute to the success of the product. The Data is absolutely crucial.
Sitting behind something like a mapping tool is obviously the location data (address, lattitude, longitude and so on), imaging (whether it be satellite photos, OS maps or Streetview pictures) and other reference data (business names, crowd sourced recommendations and so on). Without all of this data, the software people would have nothing to work with and the UI people would have nothing to show you on a map.
This is just one example and in future posts I want to explain how the use of government data, corporate data, social data and open data can create really powerful products to solve critical business problems and improve society.
I'll leave it there to begin with but I hope to post more soon.
To see what I'm up to, follow me on Twitter @PaulMalyonQAS or @PaulMalyon
I'm a Product Manager for a successful software house in London focussing on address, location and contact data tools. What I'd like to do here is pretty simple:
1. Talk about my experiences of Product Management
2. Highlight the value of good quality Data to your Products
3. Share stories on how data and products combine to help people and organisations
Obviously, it's important to start by saying that any views contained in this blog do not represent those of my employer so please don't make any assumptions!
So, why is Data a Product? It's something that I'm constantly striving to define to people who focus on the software that they see and use. For example, when you use a mapping service like Google Maps on your phone, you're focussing on the user interface, speed of lookup and quality of result. All of this is surely down to clever software developers isn't it?
Well, it's not just the software developers, UI experts and QA people who contribute to the success of the product. The Data is absolutely crucial.
Sitting behind something like a mapping tool is obviously the location data (address, lattitude, longitude and so on), imaging (whether it be satellite photos, OS maps or Streetview pictures) and other reference data (business names, crowd sourced recommendations and so on). Without all of this data, the software people would have nothing to work with and the UI people would have nothing to show you on a map.
This is just one example and in future posts I want to explain how the use of government data, corporate data, social data and open data can create really powerful products to solve critical business problems and improve society.
I'll leave it there to begin with but I hope to post more soon.
To see what I'm up to, follow me on Twitter @PaulMalyonQAS or @PaulMalyon
Hey Paul, Good start..Keep the blogs coming!
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