Feature Article

Product Creation - Big and Plenty

by: Scott Lindsay

If you are involved in product creation you could take a lesson from rabbits and rats.

I know, I can just imagine you scratching your head as you wonder what furry creatures have to do with product creation. Both of these animals were designed to be productive when it comes to the number of offspring they can have.

For instance the rabbit can mate by three months of age. Their gestation period is slightly more than a month and they can have as many as 12 kits in each liter. They can also live up to twelve years of age. By the way if you were curious a rabbit is a lagomorph while the rat is a rodent.

A female rat can begin to reproduce as early as 35 days of age. These rodents can also have as many as 12 pups and multiple annual litters. Unlike the rabbit a rat will generally live just 2-3 years, but could have a few hundred offspring and preside over many generations of rats during that time.

So what can a lagomorph and a rodent teach us about product creation? Simply put these two creatures teach us that more may be better.

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Thomas Edison used existing products to make new or better products and he never stopped at one product. He held multiple patents for his devices and he kept trying new things.

This philosophy is what's needed for those involved in product development. Always keep developing - always keep dreaming.

Let me present a scenario for your consideration. A business owner has what they feel is a great idea for a product launch. They have researched the idea; they have developed the product and are banking on the buzz factor for the product. They are so convinced this is THE idea they were meant to create that they invest everything in the product and do not look at additional product creation.

What happens if the product fails?

Obviously this business owner risks potential financial ruin because they did not consider a contingency plan.

What if this same business owner involved himself or herself in the creation of multiple products released on a slightly staggered basis? The new product ads to the overall product line and the success vs. failure ratio is spread out among a variety of products and not simply one that may succeed or fail.

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Like the rats and rabbits, work on a product creation gestational cycle where new products are being developed on a consistent basis.

Obviously low cost products are the most cost effective means of developing multiple products, but even high end products could be retooled to add new options or trim to an existing model.

It is highly probable that you will develop a product that does not connect with your customers, but there is an equal chance that one or more of the products you create will become a best seller for your business.

The product creation strategies you implement could be in tangible goods or it could be in new software applications or ebooks. These final two products may not be overly expensive to create and carry the potential for a longer shelf life.

When it comes to product creation thing big - and think plenty.

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Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects.

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Second Article

Behave, Word, Behave!

by: Meryl Evans meryl's notes

If you copy something from a Web site or elsewhere… or you reuse a document and the formatting is making you crazy with its weirdness, then stop the insanity. The first option to make the document behave loses some of the formatting. You can always undo the changes if you don’t like it by pressing CTRL+Z. To dump some of the formatting, press CTRL+A to select all and then select “Normal” from the style drop-down box in the left corner next to the AA as shown in the picture. This changes some of the formatting. If it’s too much, remember CTRL+Z is there. If it’s not enough, try option two.

If the document has HTML formatting or has serious formatting problems, you can get rid of all of the formatting including bullets, paragraphs, bolds, and font sizes. Press CTRL+A to select all and then select “Clear Formatting” instead of “Normal.” This converts the content to plain text using the default text font and size.

In some cases, it’s the paragraphs causing the commotion. Option three is to once again CTLR+A, select Format > Paragraph and under Spacing > Before change the number. 0 means no spacing. The higher the number, the bigger the space before the paragraph. You can see how it will look in the preview. Auto automatically inserts a 14 point space. Or you can put both Before and After at 0 and select one of the options under Line Spacing.

When specific formatting items are misbehaving, then do the following. Let’s say you don’t want tables. Select the table and select Table > Convert > Text to Table. Don’t like italics? Select all, then click on the ‘i’ twice (it will turn everything on and then off). These are simple examples.

When a sentence, paragraph, or block of text isn’t behaving, just select those items rather than selecting all.

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Meryl K. Evans is the Content Maven behind meryl's notes, eNewsletter Journal, and The Remediator Security Digest. She is also a PC Today columnist and a tour guide at InformIT. Meryl has written for The Dallas Morning News, AbsoluteWrite, O'Reilly, New Riders, and others. She is geared to tackle your editing, writing, content, and process needs. The native Texan resides in Plano, Texas, a heartbeat north of Dallas, and doesn't wear a 10-gallon hat or cowboy boots.

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