There has been a lot of interest and hype about “Agile”. In this session Stacey will talk about the underlying agile concepts and how you can immediately apply these concepts to your projects. With a few adjustments to how you manage your projects you will see increased productivity and happier customers. *

In this presentation we will:
• Review the 4 underlying agile concepts
• Give examples of how agile concepts can be applied to various different project domains
• Interactive exercises to help illustrate how to apply agile techniques

*This presentation is not about how to implement Scrum in your organization. It’s about how to use agile concepts that can work within any organization.

Product Managers are often torn between three very different roles.  We are a key member of development efforts as the VOC or SME.  We need to market our products and be involved in messaging and positioning as well as promotional planning.  We also are expected to be strategic planners and have all the answers as we build product roadmaps and develop market strategies.  How do we manage the three very different roles of product management? 

Business meetings are often too long and tedious, and attempts at “creativity on demand” can deliver lackluster results. But they don’t need to be! Today, employee engagement, productivity and creativity are more important than ever.

Join me for a lively workshop demonstrating two easily learned toolkits that can improve the quality of your meetings, and improve the creativity of your solutions: The Six Thinking Hats® and Lateral Thinking™, created by Dr. Edward de Bono. I have successfully used these tools to run better, more creative meetings during my corporate career, and have been a trainer of these methodologies for five years. Come see first hand how these tools can help you think better and be more innovative every day, and take home some free tips that you can put into practice right away! 

"This talk will based on research by Professor James Sawhill, Hannah Redmond and Larry Weintraub.  It is based on their article ""Developing a Winning Social Media Capability""

The overall course for a social media capability needs to come from the very top of the organization.  Senior managers need to be able to articulate what the organization is attempting to achieve with social media and why.  Our research has led us to conclude that a firm’s social media strategy is well defined by five strategic elements:

1. The mix of New and Traditional media
2. The portfolio of new media spaces utilized – from MegaSpaces such as Twitter and Facebook to NicheSpaces such as topic specific forums and blogs
3. The sources of content -- User Generated Content versus Content Generated for the User
4. The level of customer involvement in the conversation.  Is communication One-Way -- firm to customer or Two-Way—firm to customer and customer to firm
5. The ability of customers to access media content via mobile and handheld devices – Mobile versus Non-Mobile" 

• The elements of starting a virtual corporation
• Niche marketing strategy
• Survival and growth

The presenter will review his own experience with establishing and growing a virtual corporation in the chemical industry field, the role of marketing in the business and how marketing changes as the business changes. 

Can you have a career and still do what it takes to be happy at home? Does raising a family hamper your flexibility? What about working at home? Travel? Join Jon Prial for a lively discussion of work-life issues as your personal decisions. He'll cover various topics, including: managing your career, integrating life with work, family life, and what it takes to make it all work. Take a sneak peak of Jon speaking at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vax214ImPvE.

Lots of techniques have been developed to determine what consumers want in products. They all have merit, and many have strong support from those who have used them in their development efforts. But often Marketers will often tell you that they have learned through experience to rely upon the data obtained more as “art” than “science”.  Why it this?

One of the reasons may be that it’s difficult for any of us to get out of our own “skin”: we so effortlessly and unknowingly make assumptions about our own abilities to observe and interpret that we’re not even aware of them; on top of that, we almost certainly make similar assumptions about how well consumers can observe and interpret their own behavior. The net effect of this is that we are often finding ourselves frustrated about what consumers really want in the marketplace.

In this talk I will present some examples and evidence concerning how some of these pitfalls work, and how they provide “watch-outs” for Marketers.   

Often, new product and service introductions, while heavily anticipated, fail to meet sales expectations as quickly as possible.  Consumer behavior - particularly related to change management - is often to blame.  During this session, I'll share some simple, practical constructs around why customers don't buy that draw from social research on loss aversion.  Using some real-life examples from the medical device industry, as well as some non-medical examples, we'll consider examples of why customers don't buy.  Participants will have an opportunity to share discuss their own examples. You'll leave with an understanding of the key concepts and a useful framework to look at your own new product introductions so you can identify watchouts and plan early. 

This session will start off with an introduction highlighting some examples from multiple industries of how deeply understanding key consumer "ignition points" (key values, motivations, and aspirations) can guide product development to effect change.

The conversation will focus on in-depth qualitative research, and how the nature of this kind of work produces insights that are distinct from those produced by research of a wider scope.

After a brief introduction and an example or two from PortiCo's work in product development, the discussion will open up to a conversation and sharing of examples, questions, and discussion with all participants.

With Web technologies, Social Media, QR Codes, PURLs, etc. we have more ways than ever to collect valuable customer behavior, preferences and feedback from a large audience. But it can end up in many databases making it difficult to access and use. In this roundtable, we will share which technologies, new and old, we are using (or can use) to collect, consolidate and analyze data in order to better develop and market our products. Which are tried and true, which should be used with caution and which have potential but are not quite useful yet. Bring your war stories and success stories. 

Discuss learning while managing two agile product development exercises from a product management view point. No theory, No principles, plain simple experience sharing and learning... 

Embraced in some parts of the world, ignored in others, the QR Code is now beginning to make inroads here in America. It's going to become increasingly important for all of us to understand how they work, what they do and how they can be used in the marketplace.

Speaker will provide a brief overview of the QR Code, its capabilities and limitations (with printed examples for everyone to be distracted by) followed by an in-depth discussion with all participants. 

An interactive conversation (meaning we all talk, no powerpoints...but probably a whiteboard or flip chart) about the keys to successfully launching a company or a product.  How if you follow the idea of "Pay Attention, Add Value, Have Fun" with passion, energy, and persistence you will have a way to achieve focus, alignment, accountability, and discipline for exceptional execution leading to great success. Quite simply, what moves you forward and what lands you in the trash.

Steve will share insights gained from being a founder/co-founder/board member of companies including I-trax which was sold to Walgreen and Anthurium Solutions Inc which released it's first two heathcare platforms in mid October, as well as from being an advisor to numerous other entrepreneurs and corporate executives.  

Nobody likes to change and product managers are no different in this from everybody else. However, big changes are coming our way. Let's face facts: product managers today are "product pushers". We create a product and then go out and try to get people to buy it.

That's not going to cut it in the future. Instead, our customers are going to demand that we take a different approach. This means the the job of a product manager is going to dramatically change.

Join me and we'll talk about what's coming and how you can prepare for it...

Once you’ve defined your product, it’s time to go build it, and whether or not you work with a project manager or use a formal project management methodology, you can do better if you employ project -management processes.

These are five that most product managers would find value in employing:

• Develop Project Charter
• Define Scope
• Plan Communications
• Perform Integrated Change Control
• Close Project or Phase

This roundtable discussion will briefly introduce/define these processes, and then participants will share questions/knowledge about how best to execute on a product-development project, which is what project management is about!

Sometimes we agree with a group decision when privately we disagree.  With the help of a set of humorous video clips, we will discover how such collective agreements lead to counterproductive consequences. This phenomenon, called the Abilene Paradox, highlights a lesser known fact that groups have just as many problems managing their agreements as they do their disagreements.

Using examples of new products, this interactive discussion will focus on the following characteristics.

Why such situations occur

1. What are the consequences if the situation is not improved
2. How to identify whether we are in an Abilene Paradox situation
3. How to rectify the situation if we are in one
4. How to avoid getting into such a situation

Bypassing Abilene could help us become more efficient and productive! 

Innovations and technologies such as mobile applications, location based services and social networks continue to enhance the products being developed and how they are marketed.  These tools also enable product managers to collect information about users and product prospects.  These advances in our ability to collect information continues to put pressure on the privacy of the individuals our products and marketing touch.  Learn some simple approaches to designing products and marketing initiatives with privacy in mind. 

Come on, admit it -- you watch it, we all do. As embarrassing as it is to admit this, the show's almost magnetic appeal is based on some solid marketing. Now if only you could discover how you could use the same techniques to make your product as popular! 

Join me for a discussion of how you can use what Pauly D, Ronnie, J-Woww , and of course Snooki already know to make you a more successful product manager...! 

Stephan Katz, a Business Architect an expert in the "Theory Of Constraints".

Stephan will introduce the audience to a new business philosophy based on the “Theory Of Constraints”. Stephan will give the audience the practical thought process behind the theory and share glimpses in the context of creating your company's Decisive Competitive Edge. Stephan will demonstrate how to achieve a leap due-date-performance to your product development cycle.

This presentation may eventually lead you to grow your business much faster than what you could imagine!!! 

Much has been written of the search for great ideas in uncovering impactful innovation. Critical to success are the 3 supporting pillars:

• Solid ties to the corporate mission, goals & strategy
• Continuous exploration within development
• Superior change management - top to bottom & end to end

The absence or weakness of any of these is likely to assure failure.

Join me in exploring why & how we can integrate these into your processes for idea creation and improve the odds for breakthrough realization.

Many product and services marketers think they are telling their targets, why they are different and better than their competition. Yet, they tout GENERIC, PRICE OF ENTRY attributes most brands share. How do you discover truly differentiating stuff that makes your brand stand out?  The BrandStory process will help you dump the usual marketing blah-blah and offer both functional and human characteristics that are unique to your brand in a narrative form.  You will discover and express a concrete experience that makes your product or service memorable and compelling.  Gerry will use current examples from a spectrum of product and service marketers who tap the power of story to set themselves apart in the marketplace.  You will leave with three simple tools you can apply to your brand marketing immediately:  BrandStory Audit, Brand Is/Means Story Discovery, and a draft BrandStory.  You will leave with your Brand's story in hand. 

Consistent, profitable execution of your company's value propositions are among the most difficult challenges your sales associates and product managers face. They must be able to work together effectively and efficiently to create, modify, and sell these value propositions to the customer, time after time. This workshop will review processes and technologies which will help you to proactively manage the value delivered to your customers and improve profitability in support of your business. 

This discussion will provide you tips to help you create a career management plan to increase your worth.  The leader will discuss tips to accelerate your career to the next level.  He will identify key principles to help you succeed and enhance your worth by increasing collaboration within your company and driving product development activities to turn innovative products into profit.  He will also ask questions, and open the floor for expansion and general discussion. 

This hands-on discussion will provide you key tips based on proven practices and methodologies to help you drive innovation within your company.  The speaker will identify key principles to help you succeed and enhance your worth by increasing collaboration within your company and driving product development activities to turn innovative ideas into profit.  He will also identify and discuss best business practices, proven methodologies and tools.  He will also ask questions, and open the floor for expansion and general discussion. 

The session will review the research on Customer Satisfaction, Delight and now the focus on Engagement.  In addition, the session will cover ways to use customer feedback to support the desire to engage your customers.  Ensuring that customers' expectations are met and that an often overlooked but significant product/service differentiator is fully utilized will go a long way to create the type of customer experience that will drive customer loyalty.
 

Product Management (PM) in three different companies and observations on PM’s role in companies that use a Stage Gate Process. 

So you're a product manager -- what comes next? You've made it this far, but do you know what it takes to reach the next level? In fact, just exactly what is the next level?

In this group discussion Dr. Anderson will share what his 25 years of experience have shown him are the 10 things that every product manager needs to do in order to move on up in their career. Sure, you probably know some of them, but do you know (or are you doing) all of them? 

Expatriate Management:  Expatriate Failure, why do they fail? 

• Expatriate Management – What Is Important?
• International Adjustment of Business Expatriates:  The Impact of Age, Gender and Marital Status
• What are expatriates’ contributions to Organizational Learning? 
• Expatriate managers’ returns from overseas assignments with a wealth of different kinds of knowledge, but active strategies are needed in order for this individual resource to become embedded into the organization.   
• Expatriate Return on Investment

An Interview Study.
There are problems with assessing expatriate failure by the single measure of premature return. To achieve a wider focus on the issue, the present study conducted semi-structured interviews with expatriate experience as well as a survey of 17 subjects, also with suitable experience, on the topic of expatriate success or failure.

A major part of product innovation and success rests on efficient and effective communication across teams in a company. In startups, this happens almost naturally. In medium and large companies, process needs to be put in place. Lean Communication is a model based on Lean Manufacturing principles that can be used to align teams and accelerate time to revenue for high tech products. As key members of the overall communication network, Product Managers and Product Marketers will benefit significantly by adopting this model. 

I'll provide set of core axioms to guide Product Managers in their jobs, bring focus to tasks at hand, and bring clarity to the often confusing role of Product Managers.

These are not tips and tricks, much more fundamental patterns to observe and follow for Product Managersin any organization.