Last week marked my last day at Bronto, while this week saw a kick off of my efforts in Argyle Social. Starting a fresh new company is quite a feat. I’ve never done this before, so I’m learning as I go.

I have a strong desire to build a prototype app – something we can start to play with, something we can start to show off, something we can start to get feedback on. All of those are extremely important as we strive to build something brand new, both in terms physically and conceptually new.

However, I’ve had to push back on that urge and get my thoughts in order. No small task given my love for hacking together a prototype. For those of you who’ve followed me for a little while, you may recall I threw the first iteration of idek.net together in a weekend.

So what have I been doing? Well, a good few years of product management have taught me that you can’t build a good product without a design. Also that you can’t build a good design without a conceptual model. Of course, none of this is possible at all without some goals.

Right now we have no product, no customers, really nothing but some great ideas, a lot of motivation, and some great goals. This week was spent revising those goals to ensure that we know what we are heading for and that we know what we want to reach.

So, yes, I’ve gotten more work done than just a boondoggle in the land of goals. But I know that the time and effort that Eric and I have spent on thinking through the fundamental needs of clients will pay off in spades. Delaying the launch of the first iteration of our app by a few days is definitely worth the price of improved focus and a better understanding of what will make us and our clients more successful.

Anyone who knows me can tell you that I do have a propensity to talk a lot. It’s who I am and what I do. But lately I’ve been given a few chances to do so to a bit of a wider audience.

Last weekend I spoke at the Product Camp unconference. This is a conference where there are no attendees, everyone is a participant. So at the suggestion of a product manager friend of mine, I offered to talk about Delivering Products in a Software as a Service (SaaS) World. As it turns out there was a bit of interest in this topic.

I really enjoyed the talk, it generated some good discusion. Not suprising, and in true unconference fashion, I learned quite a bit also during the talk. This was a great first experience in leading a discussion at a conference – and it was a lot of fun.

I’ve actually been invited to talk on a panel this August as well. I’ll be speaking alongside a colleague and friend, Mike Rundle at Social Media Fresh down in Charlotte. I was invited to speak there based off my experience of writing applications for social networks. This would be related to my work with idek.net and more recently pici.me.

So if you are interested in social media and how it can be a benefit to businesses – then please check out Social Media Fresh. And if you are coming then be sure to check out the Social Media Tech Panel.

Kipp Bodnar (@kbodnar32) over at DigitalCapitalism.com, links to a very inspiring and frank talk from Gary Vaynerchuck in a recent blog post. Let’s watch it here, it’s worth the 15 minutes…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhqZ0RU95d4[/video]

Kipp calls out what I also feel is the most important part of that talk: Be Yourself. Well Kipp actually goes a bit beyond that, his point is that if you are yourself and are not hyper-concerned with pleasing everyone then you will piss a few people off – and that’s good.

I’m not sure you have to piss people off, but I agree that you have to be willing to allow that to happen. Part of being yourself is being passionate about something. Being passionate lends to having very strong opinions and being able to stand up to others with differing strong opinions. And that’s where you provide value.

So where are you providing value? Who are you arguing with?

I’d ask you to forgive the lack of gusto exhibited here lately, but that’s something that blogs just can’t ask you to do. But I can at least explain why I haven’t been posting lately. There’s a simple explanation for this, Bronto has it’s Fall 2008 Release this weekend.

Is it a product manager’s job to test furiously? to write help docs? to give webcasts? to do a little coding? Well, it all depends on your level of dedication, and maybe a bit on your company too. But that’s one things I really like about Bronto, our dev team gets everyone involved in the process. We all work very hard to get a release out the door.

Being a product manager is about dedication and devotion to your product. You have to be excited about it, and you have to not just want, but ensure, that it is as good as it can be. Of course this isn’t just for PMs, it’s for anyone who can really get into their company. It’s for anyone that has passion for their work.

So for probably another week, I’ll still be hard at work, because I know this release will be a huge step forward for Bronto.

I’ve been using twitter for a bit over a week now and it’s quite nice. I am still trying to find the right cadence for my tweets (posts to your bloggers). I’m not the “Getting a short, skinny, hazelnut, cappuccino at starbucks”, “Just got up, hope it’s a great day!” kind of person. I try to pass along a bit more value with each tweet. To each his own.

With my short time using twitter I’ve found that they’ve done a good job with the interface, so I decided to do a bit of a review. Check it out, let me know if you agree.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/v/jfNM8TIVobo[/video]

It’s my first foray into this type of post, but I really liked doing it, I think you’ll be seeing more of it.