Last week I moderated a panel discussion organized by NSHMBA and hosted by Google at the Mountain View campus.
The event was well planned by NSHMBA organizers with a very impressive line of speakers:
Cisco – Guillermo Diaz, VP of Information Technology.
Oracle – Vince Casarez, VP of Product Management.
Google – Gonzalo Begazo Escobedo, US Controller.
Safeway.com – Michelle Marian, VP of Interactive Marketing.
Moderator: E-Nor – Feras Alhlou, President.
The panelist’s discussion was very insightful and offered some very practical advice to the audience. A few points that I really liked:
- Don’t be left behind! Even if you are in a non-technical field, embrace new technology and applications. Use them in your personal and professional life (blogs, social networking, wikis, etc.)
- Listen to the customer! Get end user input throughout your process. Don’t wait for your products/services to be “perfect” before you introduce them to the user. Gonzalo from Google pointed out how Google applies this a number of Google products that are released as “beta” to collect end user feedback/ideas/suggestions for improvements.
- Reach your customer where they are and again listen to their needs and wants.
- Use collaboration/connection technologies (hardware and software) to improve productivity and stay in touch with team members, especially those that work virtually in other offices or in different time zones.
- Mobile is big and will only be getting bigger… (this needs a separate post altogether!)
