I may be BlackBerry’s Evangelism Team’s Sensei, but I’m not the Sensei of all things smartphone or even mobile devices. Lucky for me, I get to work every day with colleagues who literally invented the smartphone category. For example, I just had dinner with colleagues from the Enterprise Products team at BlackBerry and gained insights about how the requirements of operating mobile devices connected to the Enterprise lead to what we think of as core BlackBerry strengths re: security and manageability.
What I’m struck by as I’ve learned more about the evolution of BlackBerry’s Enterprise products is how the team’s very forward looking initial product vision continues to make product feature decisions easy to make even in today’s BYOD world. In fact, it appears to me this makes BlackBerry the most “BYOD Ready” platform on the market today, yet “BYOD” wasn’t on the radar when the team crafted their product vision many product cycles ago.
What can we learn from this as Evangelists? As a team, a strong shared vision and mission provides clarity for the team every day, but especially in moments of crisis or indecision. At BlackBerry our team’s mission is to “Make BlackBerry the best business partner for App Developers.” Period. To begin with, this means many different things to us, like are we making things easier, faster and more profitable for our developers? Are we helping them see additional opportunities worldwide with their apps? You get the idea.
Up front clarity of vision and mission enables you see more clearly your desired end point, hence, helps you reach your destination faster and with fewer detours and false starts.
What’s your team’s vision and mission?
