ProductCamp Austin Sessions

ProductCamp only works if you get involved - that means speaking or leading a roundtable. Add your session here with your name in ()'s so we know who you are! Proposed sessions will be voted on by the ProductCamp participants with the most popular sessions getting best scheduling. If you can't think of a session to lead, check out the section below called "Topics I would like to hear about" for ideas, or check out some of the really cool sessions offered by people just like you at ProductCamp Austin back in June.

PRESENTERS: There will be an official ProductCamp Austin Winter 2009 PowerPoint Template!  We will publish it here once we get our sponsorships settled.  You are not obligated but are highly encouraged to use it - it helps recognize our great sponsors! 

We need to fill at least 28 session slots.  Some will be filled by roundtables and will need facilitators; the rest will be offered by you - the ProductCamp participants.   List your offered session here, if we end up with more than 28 offered sessions, than the sessions will be chosen by the participants in the morning.

1. Intellectual Property questions & issues discussion, Don Jarrell, Digital Thinking Inc.
2. Using Social Networking to connect with your Market - Paul Young
3. Buyer Perspective Modeling - Methods for understanding why your customers buy -  Ben Phenix  
4. Why is Everyone Mad at Me?? (a product marketing good stuff to know discussion)  - Josh Duncan
5. Agile Product Management - Walter Bodwell, Planigle 
6. Toyota's Chief Engineer as a Model for Agile Product Development Leadership: Fixing Agile Organizational Anti Patterns - Scott Bellware
7. Closing the Gap Between What You Asked For and What You Got: Protect Understanding from Erosion with Contextual Design - Scott Bellware
8. Wicked and Wacky Research Improv Game :  Play this team Improv Game (with three other strangers) and escape PCamp with Six New Market Research Queries that Sharpen your market research game in 2009 :  NO POWERPOINT ...crayons provided...bring your sense of humor - Cindy Phillips
9. Mastering the "Soft Skills": From Product Management to Product Leadership - Colleen Heubaum
10. ACTLab-  Why we sponsered ProductCamp 2009 and many other BarCamps and how to turn your product of knowledge into a community of possiblities.
11. Harnessing local cultural resources to create viable online audiences.  -Joey Lopez
12. Roundtable - Agile: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.  Bring your success stories, horror stories, best practices and questions. - Ross Hobbie
13. Roundtable - Managing Virtual Teams.  Discussion of tips and tricks for effective management of geographically dispersed resources. - Ross Hobbie
14. Interactive session - Product personas: concepts, application, rewards and pitfalls. Bring your experiences and questions to explore the art of "getting it right" - Pat Scherer, The Detail Person  
15. Interactive workshop - Develop a 12 month strategy to drive awareness in the marketplace - Pat Scherer, The Detail Person
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29. Add more as needed...

Topics I would like to hear about

Some of these topics we got to, others we didn't. Consider these topics for a future PCA. 

• Tips for finding and interviewing customers and potentials
• Using low/no cost methods to connect with the Market
• Effective time management for PM's
• Dealing with GUIs in requirements
• Developing a 12 month strategy plan to drive awareness in the marketplace
• How to best align a product management team internally to serve the different target markets. Enterprise, Consumer, SAAS, etc.
• Product EOL planning, concerns
• Product personas; useful methods of assessment, software v. web personas, impact on value proposition, market reach, product usability etc.
• How segment and size markets
• Product Management: Consumer vs. B2B
• Product Management & Business Development
• Product Management and Open Source: Mutually exclusive?
• Just say No: When is it time to end of life a product? How to restrict bad ideas from ever becoming products?
• Ethnography & Product Development
• Effective Collaboration - How product managers are using wikis to share information with customers, developmers and/or stakeholders.
• Build, buy or partner - Beyond the basic business case.
• Does offshoring and outsourcing still make sense?
• Launch strategy - customizing your product launch activities for your market
• What's next? Career management for the product manager
• Managing up: Working with executives vs. working with peers.
• Hit the ground running: What to do in the first 30 days (in a new role, at a new company, with a new product)
• add a topic... 

About Presenting at ProductCamp...

There is nothing like leading a session at ProductCamp - it will be the most fun you can pack into a 45-50 minute conference session.  Because ProductCamp is completely user driven, there are no "talking heads" or "keynotes."  There is just you and your peers.  That lends a realism to the sessions that you can't get anywhere else.  Presenting at ProductCamp is fun, and an experience you will remember forever.  Use this opportunity to polish your presentation and facilitation skills in a non-threatening environment, talking about problems that matter with people who "get it."

We learned at the first ProductCamp that certain types of sessions work better than others.  These are guidelines, but feel free to break the mold and bring something new to the table.

Participants Liked:

• Interactivity
• Discussion
• Use Cases/Examples
• Whiteboards
• Roundtables

Disliked:

• Excessive Slideware (>10 slides is probably pushing it for most sessions!)
• Pushing questions to the end
• Anything Sales-y (thankfully we didn't have this issue)