Announcing the ProductCamp Atlanta Networking Lunches! We’re getting together — in four different places — for lunch on May 21st, to just slow down and enjoy a casual lunch with your local product management colleagues! No presentations and no formal topics – just good food, networking, and plenty of product chatter.

Whether you want to debate what next year’s hottest innovation will be or commiserate with other product managers searching for their ground in an agile world, this lunch is for you. And if you don’t feel like talking shop, just go ahead and network. We don’t always get a lot of chances to swap stories with other product managers, so here’s your excuse!

We have four events planned, so more people will be able to participate at a convenient location. We’re simply getting a spot at a local restaurant and confirming the number of attendees from the corresponding Eventbrite shortly before lunch. For that reason, please do not sign up unless you know you can attend.

The individual lunch invitations are available here:

• Alpharetta
• Marietta
• Midtown
• Norcross

Please sign up for the lunch that works for you – and for those in attendance, we’ll be making an announcement about future ProductCamp events!

We look forward to sharing lunch with you on May 21st.

Best regards,

- The ProductCamp Atlanta Team

 

Each year the session content at ProductCamp Atlanta gets better and better. The proposed session topics are relevant and intriguing, making it even more difficult to vote. Attendees have three votes and there were over 40 session proposals to choose from at this year’s past event. From entry to exec level, start-up company to corporate industry leader, product to career strategy, there was something in store for everyone.

Today, we’d like to highlight a number of interesting sessions, in particular those for which the session leaders have shared their slides.  Slides, where available, are linked below the title of the session.  Have a look at some of the great content that was delivered this year!

Selected Session Topics at ProductCamp Atlanta 6 – August 2012

Product

• The Poison Pill of Product Development – Bad Requirements
  • Slides
• Product Lifecycle Management Process and Software Tools
  • Slides
• New Software Product Design & Build
• Software Estimation Made Easy
• How to Create Roadmaps That Energize Executives

User Experience

• Why Traditional UX Doesn’t Jibe With Lean And How You Can Make It Work For Stellar Product Success
  • Slides
• Being a UX Team of One
  • Slides
• Mobile UX Workshop: Prototyping and Storytelling

Go To Market

• Success’ dark secret: align your offering’s message and position with your sales execution
  • Slides
• The 60 Second Business Case
  • Slides
• Wagging Sales by the Tail – Product Management / Sales Engineers in the Sales Process
• User Experience, Customer Experience, Brand Experience What’s the Diff?
• Project Dysfunctional
• Agile Indigestion in Marketing & Sales – 3 Tactics for Quick Relief

Management and Career

• Kill the Wabbit – How Anger Management Training and Brainstorming Sessions May be Keeping You From the Corner Office
  • Slides
• Digitally Famous
  • Slides
• How to win friends and influence people with data
  • Slides
• What motivates you? What motivates your teammates/employees? Find out with Moving Motivators!
• Creating and Sustaining High-Performance Teams that are Full of Win!
• Build Your Personal Brand to Drive Your Career Success
• Career Planning: What the Role? Who are you? Where are you going?
• Kicking Fear’s Ass – 7 Rules for Product Managers

Thanks to everyone who helped make ProductCamp Atlanta 2012 a roaring success!

This post is intended to capture some of the items raised during closing session, for the benefit of those of us still there and for those who left earlier.  If you have anything you’d like to add, please add it in the comments

Title:
The 60 Second Business Case

Session Leader:
Jason Brett

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:

You’ve only got about 300 ideas on your product backlog. That’s easy to manage, right?

So, how do you judge which features, enhancements and product options offer the greatest potential impact to your business? It ain’t easy, is it?

In this session, I’ll show you the tools that Silverpop Product Managers use to critically evaluate a feature or enhancement in as little as 60 seconds, and build a powerful, defensible case for or against an effort so that you don’t spend hours and days doing research for initiatives that just don’t represent the best choices.

Session Leader Bio:

Jason Brett is Senior Product Manager at Silverpop Systems, an Atlanta-based global marketing technology company. Additionally, Jason is the founder of ProductCamp Atlanta and continues to support the growth of the ProductCamp movement as a volunteer and subject matter expert.

Most importantly, Jason loves cookies.

Title:
Localising For China

Session Leader:
Diane Symcheck

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:

Did you know:
The “”tiny water village of Suzhou”" has twice the number of people as Chicago?
Chengdu is home to both the panda and the iPad.

Getting a website developed for the Chinese customer was a fantastic challenge for me last year.
I’ll share my insights, experiences and lessons learned as I went from “”We need a website for Greater China”" to “”We have a fully functioning website for Greater China”" in one year.

Session Leader Bio:

Diane is currently on IHG’s Localisation team as a product owner.

During her 14-year tenure with IHG in product management, she has bought to life a range of products from new brand sites to content and booking process enhancements to full site overhauls. Along the way, she has collaborated with every distribution channel and almost every department within IHG to facilitate moving the right customer through the right channel for the right purpose.

Title:
Mobile UX Workshop: Prototyping & Storytelling

Session Leader:
Martha Legare

Format:
Workshop

Abstract:

Besides being dead, what do these two radically different people have in common? Both Jobs and King were visionaries who used similar tactics to engage others in the change process. In this interactive and practical workshop, we’ll explore 10 tactics they used to move people in the direction they wanted. Since YOU aren’t dead, you can immediately apply their techniques to get your customers, your manager, and your team to buy into your goals. We may even add to their 10 Tactic Arsenal of Change Management Tools. Come join us for a fun and intriguing brain workout.

Session Leader Bio:

Martha Legare, MBA, PMP, CMP, is CEO of the Gantt Group, a consulting firm linking strategy, organizational change, and project management. She has helped clients establish Project Offices in multiple countries, and is published in 97 Things Every Project Manager Should Know.

Martha created a proprietary PM methodology that was adopted when a €60 billion company acquired her client. She has coached leaders and teams, planning a national rollout of a collections system for a credit card provider, and helped facilitate the restructure of a $1.9 billion legal information provider. She has served on 3 of PMI’s Global Advisory Boards.

ProductCamp Atlanta is tomorrow!  

We’ve got 350 Product Managers, Marketers and other Product professionals registered to attend. You are going to be in great company this Saturday and we are looking forward to seeing you.  Now we’d like to provide some basic information about what to expect tomorrow!

When to Arrive:

• ProductCamp registration opens at 8:30 AM on Saturday August 18th. Be sure and arrive early, because there is a lot to do when you arrive!
• If you are volunteering to help with Registration or Setup on Saturday morning, you’ll want to show up at 7:15 AM. More information for volunteers below.

The day’s timeline looks like this:

• AT 9:00:  Lots to do, so we’re starting on time! Session Leaders will pitch 30-second summaries of their sessions, and then we’ll vote!
• 9:30: we move out to the common area to quickly cast our votes.
• 9:45: we are back in the auditorium for information about our sponsors, to open the floor up for job opportunities, while our Sessions team lines up the first sessions
• 10:05: We will have the first sessions scheduled and posted.
• 10:20-11:00: Session 1
• 11:20-12:00: Session 2
• 12:00-1:00: Lunch
• 1:00-1:40: Session 3
• 2:00-2:40: Session 4

Click for a list of the proposed sessions.

At the end of the last session, you’ll vote again–this time for Best Session and Best Presenter, which will be revealed during the Closing Session.

What to Bring
You don’t need to bring a lot to ProductCamp, since we’ll provide your food and drinks during the day.  Here are a few suggestions:

• A laptop, netbook, iPad or the like. We will have free Wi-Fi, but depending on traffic volume it may or may not be reliable
• An old fashioned notebook and pens
• A digital camera (PLEASE take lots of pictures and post them online!)
• Plenty of business cards
• Your best ideas, questions and a big open mind!

Session Leaders:

• We have an updated Slide Template which helps us recognize our sponsors.  Please be sure to use this template.
• If you have a Mac, please be sure to bring your own VGA/monitor adapter so that our attendees can see your slides!

See you tomorrow!

The ProductCamp Atlanta Team

Here’s the complete list of all sessions proposed for ProductCamp Atlanta 6,  this Saturday August 18!  (known absences excluded)  Follow the links to the sessions that interest you so you’ll know what you’re voting on at 9am!

• The Art of Ad-Libbing
• Mobile UX Workshop: Prototyping and Storytelling
• Being a UX Team of One: Understanding Strengths and Weaknesses
• Agile product management comes to government?!
• Kicking Fear’s Ass – 7 Rules for Product Managers
• Success’ dark secret: align your offering’s message and position with your sales execution
• User Experience, Customer Experience, Brand Experience What’s the Diff?
• Project Dysfunctional
• Mobile Apps – Product Managment and Marketing
• Agile Indigestion in Marketing & Sales – 3 Tactics for Quick Relief 
• Playing and Paying Under the New Rules of Tech
• Viral marketing on college campuses
• Steve Johnson on Win Loss Analysis
• Wagging Sales by the Tail – Product Management / Sales Engineers in the Sales Process
• Build Your Personal Brand to Drive Your Career Success
• Who You Gonna Call? Leadership, Ghostbusters Style!
• Prod-otyping for the busy product manager
• Why Traditional UX Doesn’t Jibe with Lean and How You Can Make It Work for Stellar Product Success
• Introduction to Futures Studies & Tactical Media
• Product Lifecycle Management Process and Software Tools
• Top 10 Reasons Every Product Manager should go to Product Camp
• A Paradigm Shift for Product Marketing – Web Video
• Digitally Famous
• 7 Keys to a Killer Presentation
• Customer Interview Practices Town Hall
• Avoiding the Big, and Costly, Mistakes in Your Interactive Web Video Marketing Strategy
• New Software Product Design & Build
• A Crash Course in Design Thinking
• Software Estimation Made Easy
• How to Create Roadmaps That Energize Executives
• Career Planning: What the Role? Who are you? Where are you going?
• What motivates you? What motivates your teammates/employees? Find out with Moving Motivators!
• How to win friends and influence people with data
• What Pragmatic Marketing Doesn’t Tell You – Five Internal Requirements for Product Manager Success
• The Poison Pill of Product Development – Bad Requirements
• Kill the Wabbit – How Anger Management Training and Brainstorming Sessions May be Keeping You From the Corner Office
• Rapid Concept Development
• Creating and Sustaining High-Performance Teams that are Full of Win!

Title:
The art of ad-libbing

Session Leader:
Vince Baskerville

Format:
Panel Discussion

Abstract:

Unfortunately, many of us are either forced or force other people to suffer from “Death by Powerpoint” — horrible cheesy clip-art visuals, tiny font with 8 paragraphs of text per slide, obscure charts.. etc.  I’ll try to walk through a few simple tips and tools that everyone should know to help overcome those setbacks with hopes of dazzling your future audiences with your next presentation.

Session Leader Bio:

I’m a co-founder and VP of Product for TripLingo. I also maintain an industry blog at VincentJordan.com, and ran 8BitFeed.com. I’ve been constantly evolving  as a Developer and Designer to Product owner for over a decade and I’m known for crafting highly intuitive/engaging digital products — in addition for being an adrenaline junkie! I’ve also had the opportunity to work for the military (I was enlisted in the US Navy and did various consulting work afterwards), educational institutions, creative agencies and startups. That said, currently much of my time is being focused on TripLingo, and being an awesome husband.

Title:
Mobile UX Workshop: Prototyping & Storytelling

Session Leader:
Vince Baskerville

Format:
Workshop

Abstract:

Communication is an integral part of the user experience design process, and as part of being a UXer, how well we communicate this is the real ground work needed to connect our design ideas and requirements to the people who are actually using the product.

This workshop will outline why prototyping is an essential part of the emerging world of tablets and mobile experience design, and how pairing it with effective storytelling will help you fight the struggle of communicating your wealth of information so everyone just ‘gets’ it.

You’ll learn underlying mobile design principles and design conventions that is emerging as these devices become commonplace. In addition, you’ll learn a wide variety of hands-on prototyping methods that can be applied to your design process. You’ll receive tactical, hands-on instruction to turn your ideas into interactive prototypes with speed and confidence.

Expect hands-on design explorations, group ideation and the opportunity to make the abstract future of user experience design a little more fun. This is a hands-on workshop, which means you’ll be working with scissors, markers and such. I shouldn’t have to tell you not to run with them. You won’t need a laptop, but you’re welcome to bring one.

Session Leader Bio:

I’m a co-founder and VP of Product for TripLingo. I also maintain an industry blog at VincentJordan.com, and ran 8BitFeed.com. I’ve been constantly evolving  as a Developer and Designer to Product owner for over a decade and I’m known for crafting highly intuitive/engaging digital products — in addition for being an adrenaline junkie! I’ve also had the opportunity to work for the military (I was enlisted in the US Navy and did various consulting work afterwards), educational institutions, creative agencies and startups. That said, currently much of my time is being focused on TripLingo, and being an awesome husband.

Title:
Being a UX team of one: Understanding strengths & weaknesses

Session Leader:
Vince Baskerville

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:

Small UX teams have unique challenges. Knowing how to deal with having fewer resources and possibly feeling creative isolation, or worse organizational ignorance and/or hostility. This presentation will explore some real life team situations that small teams and solo UX practitioners work in, and show what you can do about them. The goal of this talk is to arm every attendee with better tools and arguments by creating a personalized plan for their UX practice.

Session Leader Bio:

I’m a co-founder and VP of Product for TripLingo. I also maintain an industry blog at VincentJordan.com, and ran 8BitFeed.com. I’ve been constantly evolving  as a Developer and Designer to Product owner for over a decade and I’m known for crafting highly intuitive/engaging digital products — in addition for being an adrenaline junkie! I’ve also had the opportunity to work for the military (I was enlisted in the US Navy and did various consulting work afterwards), educational institutions, creative agencies and startups. That said, currently much of my time is being focused on TripLingo, and being an awesome husband.

Title:
Agile product management comes to government?!

Session Leader:
Sameer Bendre

Format:
Town Hall

Abstract:

When we think products, market, competition most of us think private companies and products. In this session Sameer will share his experience working for a government agency who have are creating reusable IT solutions/products.

Also, people have been hearing agile being used in government IT. It’s happening right here in Atlanta! I would like to share my experience on how:
- Team(s) adopted agile
- Challenges faced
- About our journey: Environment, Organizational culture, Teams and People
- Path forward

Then, I would like to open the floor to discuss and share ideas from experienced ProductCampers and product managers for their stories and suggestions!

As a first time ProductCamper, I’m excited to connect, share and learn!

Session Leader Bio:

Sameer has over 13 years experience in software development. He is an agile advocate, passionate practitioner, servant leader and a trainer/coach.

Sameer is the community Knowledge Management Lead for PMI’s Agile Community of Practice and Program Manager for PMI Atlanta Chapter’s – Agile Interest Group.

He has contributed as a reviewer to the following publications:
Essential Scrum: Kenneth Rubin
Scrum in Action: Andrew Pham & Phuong-Van Pham

Currently, he is engaged as an agile coach and scrum master for a government agency in Atlanta.

Title:
Kicking Fear’s Ass – 7 Rules for Product Managers

Session Leader:
David Eckoff

Format:
Workshop

Abstract:

“Join us for this training seminar that will help you become a fearless product manager.

At “Kicking Fear’s Ass – 7 Rules for Product Managers”, you’ll learn a practical set of actions you can follow right now to master fear, gain new confidence, and feel unstoppable. You’ll experience a fast-moving hands on program, combining interactive activities and business speakers who have done it themselves – and are dedicated to teaching you.

Our seminars have been voted “Best Session” at Product Camp. Come join us for this exciting training seminar that will help you kick fear’s ass.

What they’re saying about our recent seminars:

“Great session!! Best of the conference!!”
- Andrea Moe, product management and marketing

“An energizing session that made me think. I can’t wait to apply new ideas!”
- Lisa, healthcare technology product manager

“WOW! Great presentation – I’m energized!!”
- Phil, serial entrepreneur, applied technologist, product manager”

Session Leader Bio:

“David Eckoff is a technology entrepreneur, advisor to media & technology companies and business educator. For the past three decades, Eckoff has been an innovator in start up companies and Fortune 500 alike.

He has made it his focus over the past 20 years to turn ideas into products and businesses.

He is co-founder of Pickoff Sports, a developer of web and mobile applications for sports fans to interact, compete and have fun with their friends. Pickoff was recently selected as one of fourteen startups to participate in the Georgia Tech Flashpoint accelerator program, from among hundreds of startups that applied.

David has worked with other companies such as Rivals.com, RealNetworks, Turner Broadcasting, Ustream.tv, and Zazzle to bring their revolutionary ideas to market.

He has spoken at numerous events, as a keynote speaker and panel speaker, including SXSW Interactive; Perot Innovation Lab: Innovation Insights; Charles River Ventures CEO Leadership Summit; Video on the Net; Streaming Media East and West; and more.

Read more about David Eckoff on his blog at DavidEckoff.com and follow him on Twitter at @davideckoff”

Title:
Success’ dark secret: align your offering’s message and position with your sales execution

Session Leader:
Russell Scherwin

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
Product Managers and Marketers spend inordinate amounts of time honing their message and position. However, the overwhelming majority of B2B prospect and customer communications are sales driven. If you’re not providing sales what they need – many of those inordinate cycles go to waste, as sales will only communicate what they’re comfortable with. This presentation will teach you how to drive sales towards the most profitable conversations in each precious market interaction. If you work in an organization with multiple product lines, you will learn to better compete with the other product lines, who are vying for sales’ attention.

Some of the interactive topics addressed include:
1. key questions that sales teams need answered – and the costs of not doing so

2. top mistakes product managers and marketers make – and why so many marketing activities never translate into results

3. making segmentation actionable in lowering customer acquisition, support, and retention costs

Session Leader Bio:

Russell is a sales and marketing leader at IBM, where he currently is the messaging lead for PureSystems – which was one of IBM’s biggest launches in 25 years. Joining IBM through the Sterling Commerce acquisition he’s lead Commerce Solutions Software Sales in the south, and previously integration product sales in North America. A passionate Product Management and Marketing leader, Russell went “”undercover” in sales roles, 5 years ago, to better understand field realities. Russell has a passion for technology’s socio-economic impact, and is known for expertly fusing sales, economics and innovation management into a deeply relevant, and entertaining message.

His opinions and perspectives are his own, and do not necessarily represent those of IBM.

Title:
User Experience, Customer Experience, Brand Experience What’s the Diff?

Session Leader:
Martin Krohne

Format:
Panel Discussion

Abstract:
In the world of Product Management we seem to throw a lot of terms around, assuming everyone knows what they mean. Some of those terms seem to mean the same thing – or do they? I would like to have an open discussion about the differences between terms like User Experience, Customer Experience and Brand Experience. If we have time, let’s explore other points of confusion. Is there a difference between Usability and Discoverability? What do these have to do with User Experience or Customer Experience? This is not simply rhetoric. There are differences between these terms and the discussion of those differences can lead to greater understanding.

Session Leader Bio:
Martin is currently a Senior Manager of Product Innovation at AutoTrader.com. He has been at AutoTrader for 15 years and has had many roles in that time. Most notably, he’s been part of Product Management since that department was formed within AutoTrader. Prior to this, he spent 15 years in advertising and design as Designer, Art Director and Creative Director. Martin is a Certified New Product Development Professional.

Title:
Project Dysfunctional

Session Leader:
Lisa Crymes, Gary Palgon, Ryan St. John

Format:
Workshop

Abstract:
!!Attention!! – our company is in immediate need of Product Managers, Sales, Marketing, and Developers professionals to help build a launch a new product line. If you interested in applying, please vote within!

Ever feel the pain when Development thinks they know what to build, Sales think they know what they are selling (and they make up their own functionality), Marketing doesn’t understand technology and Product Management is supposed to make everyone happy?

In a single hour, you will have experience how dysfunctional organizations can be and then understand why and best practices for aligning the groups. In this session, we will:

• Actually build a real product
• Develop the value proposition / benefits and other messaging
• Determine target markets and teach sales how to sell it
• Get curve balls thrown at you, just like in real life ☺
• Learn ways to overcome problems that develop and best practices that you can take with you

And then, in the closing session, we’ll present the completed product to a deserving customer!

Session Leader Bio:
Gary Palgon, CISSP, Vice President, Product Management and Strategy Liaison Technologies

A seasoned enterprise software expert, Gary Palgon is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) with two decades of broad experience in customer support, product marketing and product development. Prior to joining Liaison Technologies, he spent 10 years at Geac Computer Systems, Inc. (formerly Dun and Bradstreet Software and MSA), where he managed the development of technologies used by large and medium enterprises, including customer, employee and supplier self-service applications for Fortune 1000 customers.

A frequent speaker on healthcare and information security, Mr. Palgon was named Best New Speaker and inducted into the Speaker Excellence Hall of Fame at IBM Common in 2008. He is a member of the Payment Card Industry’s Security Standards Council and lead the development of the PCI DSS Tokenization Guidelines. He holds a BS degree in Computer and Information Sciences from the University of Florida.

Lisa Crymes, Senior Advisor – Strategy, Acclaro

Lisa has over 15 years of product management and marketing experience. As a product and marketing strategist she has worked with several leading technology companies including McKesson, Per-Se Technologies and Emdeon. She is a veteran product camper and an avid supporter of product management and product marketing community, currently serving as Chair of the Product Management Society of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).

Lisa received a Master of Business Administration degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in Management from Shorter University.

Ryan St. John, Partner Acclaro

Ryan is Founder/Partner for Acclaro, Inc, which is a strategic provider of marketing resources for corporate for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. Ryan has lead the growth, management and overall direction for Acclaro through innovation in marketing and insuring high performance execution.

Acclaro’s core business is helping clients to build and operate the best in profitable, long- and short-term marketing objectives and is one of the leading innovators of marketing services

Title:
Mobile Apps – Product Management and Marketing

Session Leader:
Ravikiran Rajagopal

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
•Explain the methodologies and challenges involved in mobile product management

•Explain the app marketing practices: what works for us and what doesn’t

•A day in a Mobile App Product Manager’s life

•Of the requested session topics, I am going to touch upon: Pricing, Analytics, Marketing 101, How UX is included in Product Development.

If there are interested Product Managers (Mobile Applications), I have some questions at the end of the presentation and would love to convert this into a Panel Discussion so that we all can share and learn. If interested to collaborate please email me at rkrules AT gmail.com.

Session Leader Bio:
Kiran is a product guy at heart and loves his job at AccuWeather as Mobile Apps Product Manager. His background includes engineering & MBA education with software engineering work experience. Thus he understands both sides of the world and is excited to be in an exploding domain of mobile applications.

He graduated with MBA in Marketing from Penn State and enjoys living in the university town, where AccuWeather has its HQ. Previously, Kiran worked in automotive and energy industries for six years. He used to write and design embedded software for mission critical products and always loved new consumer facing technological products.

Title:
Agile Indigestion in Marketing & Sales – 3 Tactics for Quick Relief

Session Leader:
John Mansour

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
If frequent agile releases are giving marketing and sales indigestion from too much new information, learn three simple tactics that provide relief for marketing and sales as well as product management and development.

Session Leader Bio:
Founder & Managing Partner at Proficientz with 20+ years in product management, marketing and sales.

Title:
Viral marketing on college campuses

Session Leader:
Bradley Kam

Format:
Roundtable

Abstract:

College students are the early adopters for many technology products. They are also the perfect evangelists due to the quantity of time they spend socializing and the receptivity of their social networks to new ideas. I propose a system of virtual internships. I want to find students who are passionate about specific start ups and build a system where they can act as virtual interns and build their resumes if they reach certain marketing objectives for a start up company. Technology start ups have long struggled to compete with large companies for marketing talent among the recently graduated college student population. Aggressive recruiting now exists for programming talent on college campuses, but the equivalent does not exist for marketing positions at start ups. My discussion group is looking to build a community around connecting start ups with college students who are looking for marketing and promotion jobs within start ups. This is a vital element to a technology start up team and something that is currently absent from the marketplace.

Session Leader Bio:

I graduated from Emory University with a degree in International Politics. After that, I founded several real estate related businesses that included residential development, a mortgage company and a real estate investment firm. I have advised and done branding work for several technology start ups. I have also done promotional work for my sister’s music career. I am now preparing to start a mobile app company in the very near future.

Title:
Playing and Paying Under the New Rules of Tech

Session Leader:
Frank Borovsky

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:

There’s a new business model in town. Forget features. In the SaaSy age of Consumption Economics, purchasing products is passe anyway. Buyers belly up to the bar to pay by the beverage: clicks, use, capacity, results…

Vote for this session early and often because you want to:

- Develop services that befriend and beguile your end users, making them beg for more
- Exercise advanced Agility through “freemiums”
- Mine your tryer/buyers’ data for gold
- Get not just the nose, but the camel’s hump into the tent
- Sell razor blades, not razors
- Learn what it means to upset the other guy’s apple cart and grow a tree in your customer’s yard instead

“Come to the table with a new mindset. “IT as a service” dramatically lowers the barrier to entry for every enterprise. If yours does not take advantage of this new freedom, you will find yourself falling behind your competitors who do.” Geoffrey Moore, author of “Crossing the Chasm,” “Insider the Tornado,” “Dealing with Darwin” and “Escape Velocity” in the foreward of J.B. Wood’s “Consumption Economics: The New Rules of Tech.” Join the fray: http://twitter.com/newrulesoftech

Session Leader Bio:

Most recently, as Vice President of IT Services, Frank Borovsky changed Ricoh’s business model as a MSP (Managed Services Provider), managing small and mid-sized businesses’ networks: PCs, servers, firewalls.

A technology evangelist and change-is-constant agent, Frank has an extensive background in strategic planning, marketing, new product development, business process improvement and IT for global, Fortune 1000 companies, including Comerica Bank, Honeywell, and Cooper Industries.

Title:
Steve Johnson on Win Loss Analysis

Session Leader:
Steve Johnson

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
Most product managers think of Win/Loss analysis as something that sales people do. Something that only benefits the way vendors sell. But what can be learned about development? about the portfolio, product, and feature set?
This webinar will highlight three critical touchpoints–before, during, and after an implementation—and explore the insights we can use to make better product decisions.
Join Steve Johnson of Primary Intelligence for a discussion on improving your portfolio using “voice of the buyer” interviews. This will be a highly interactive session, so bring lots of questions!!

Session Leader Bio:
Steve is Chief Marketing Officer for Primary Intelligence with a focus on instilling best practices in win/loss analysis and customer experience. His ideas on customer interaction help companies incorporate market facts into their product creation, marketing programs, and sales enablement. Prior to joining Primary Intelligence, Steve was a Pragmatic Marketing instructor for 15 years and personally trained thousands of product and company leaders on strategies for creating successful technology products.

Steve is a popular keynote speaker at forums throughout North America and author of many articles on technology product management and marketing.

Title:
Wagging Sales by the Tail – Product Management / Sales Engineers in the Sales Process

Session Leader:
Gary Palgon, CISSP

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
We’re not simply supposed to be gophers in the Sales process and jump when a salesperson says “jump”, but that’s not necessarily how they see it. Quality Product Managers and Sales Engineers should vet sales opportunities and keep the “all knowing” salespeople focused on the right prospects where there’s budget to solve a problem with your type of solution.
In this session, we’ll discuss and give guidance on these questions and more:

• What’s the right flow of calls – how quickly do you jump from “needs” to a solution “demo”?

• Who should be responsible for RFPs – or should we even participate?

• What titles should be on sales calls and when?

• How can you use analysts and NDAs in the sales process to your advantage?

• When should Sales go directly to Development verses Product Management?

Do you have other questions or suggestions on how to deal with Salespeople – wagging them by the tail instead of the other way around?
Session Leader Bio:
A seasoned enterprise software expert, Gary Palgon is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) with two decades of broad experience in customer support, product marketing and product development. Prior to joining Liaison Technologies, he spent 10 years at Geac Computer Systems, Inc. (formerly Dun and Bradstreet Software and MSA), where he managed the development of technologies used by large and medium enterprises, including customer, employee and supplier self-service applications for Fortune 1000 customers.

A frequent speaker on healthcare and information security, Mr. Palgon was named Best New Speaker and inducted into the Speaker Excellence Hall of Fame at IBM Common in 2008. He is a member of the Payment Card Industry’s Security Standards Council and lead the development of the PCI DSS Tokenization Guidelines. He holds a BS degree in Computer and Information Sciences from the University of Florida.

Title:
Build Your Personal Brand to Drive Your Career Success

Session Leader:
Cassandra R Johnson, MBA, CPC, ELI-MP

Format:
Workshop

Abstract:
In a very competitive product marketing environment, it is critical to build your own personal brand so that you attract people and opportunities to you rather than having to also look for opportunities. Product Marketers spend alot of time building brands, but sometimes fall short of building their most powerful brand of all, their own. Learn how to increase your visibility and your network in the industry.

Session Leader Bio:
Prior to starting her company, Cassandra spent 15 years in traditional brand/product marketing with several top Fortune 500 companies including Church & Dwight, L’Oreal, Pfizer, Revlon and Reckitt Benckiser. She has a proven track record of building some very recognizable brands such as Lysol, Excellence Hair color, Nair, and OxiClean name a few. In addition to her corporate experience, she also developed two successful direct sales businesses part-time as an Executive Leader with Warm Spirit and a Vice President Representative with Compass leading business networks of over 300 distributors across the United States and Canada.

Cassandra received her Bachelor of Science degree from North Carolina State University and her Masters of Business Administration degree from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. She also received her Professional Coaching certification, as well as her Energy Leadership certification from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching.

Cassandra is a member of the International Coach Federation (ICF), the Georgia Professional Coaches Association, the American Marketing Association, the National Black MBA Association and the National Association of Professional Women. She is also a featured author in two new books coming out in 2012 – Leadership: Helping Others to Succeed and Wealthy Direct Sales Women

Title:
Who You Gonna Call? Leadership, Ghostbusters Style!

Session Leader:
Richie Cullom

Format:
Town Hall

Abstract:
What can we learn from the great parapsychologist Dr. Peter Venkman? A dozen and a half inescapable truths about product leadership. From inception to the defeat of Gozer on the roof of Central Park West, Dr. V leads his team on a quest to get rich and save New York City from total destruction.

The session is a mix of video clips and follow-up discussion. The session will cover leadership concepts like:
- you don’t have to be the smartest member of the team to lead the team
- trust your people, if they tell you to cross the streams, cross the streams
- leadership is taking joy in the moment when you take charge
- Most importantly – don’t agree to a sequel until you’ve read the script!

Who you gonna call? We’ll see at product camp!

Session Leader Bio:
Richie is not the most interesting man in the world, but he does find himself terribly funny on occasion. His credentials for presenting this important scholarly mashup of pop culture and leadership training are simply a love of movies and the desire to present a fun closure to a wonderful day at product camp. Oh, sure, he works, often really hard. He has to – paying for 3 college educations over a decade is expensive and exhausting. If you wonder why he has a good sense of humor, and can refer to himself in the 3rd person effortlessly, his BSIE is the University of Arkansas (hint: think football coach) Enough said…

Title:
Prod-otyping for the busy product manager

Session Leader:
Elliot Beaudoin

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
Prototypes and mockups are an obviously important part of the development process. There are also different levels of UI design. But, what part does/should the Product Manager play in this process?

The How: In this discussion we will talk about two easy to use tools for building mockups and prototypes, Balsamiq and Napkee.

The When: Along with the tool discussion, we will talk about when Product Management should produce or influence these mockups and prototypes.

Who should attend: Every product manager. I say this because every organization is different in regards to whether or not they have dedicated UI designers. Most of the time designers, if they are present at all, are only partly allocated to R&D (usually spending the rest of their time on marketing materials), leaving a lot of work to be done by the Product Manager.

Session Leader Bio:
I always find these boxes interesting.

I’ve been a Product Manager for 4+ years now. In software for about 8, and in IT in general for 10+. Done a little of everything which I’m guessing is why Product Management suits me.

PCamps are awesome. So is Atlanta. I’m looking forward to it.

Title:
Why Traditional UX Doesn’t Jibe with Lean and How You Can Make It Work for Stellar Product Success

Session Leader:
Darryl Prince

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
Darryl Prince, user experience strategist at User Insight, takes the group through the differences between lean and agile, introduces The UX Challenge, and ways to successfully integrate UX with lean processes.

Darryl will cover:

• Important distinctions in development environments
• Insights on showing the value of UX
• The merits and pitfalls of other product measurements
• How and where UX fits into the lean development cycle
• Why traditional UX won’t work in a lean environment and what needs to be done to make it work to create products, sites and interfaces that truly meet user needs and desires

Session Leader Bio:
As a strategist at User Insight, Darryl Prince derives rich insights from user feedback and helps clients understand the data and how it applies to their product, service and overall brand. When presented with a UX problem, Darryl is driven to come up with solutions that empower both the client and the user.

Before coming to User Insight, Darryl served as a user experience developer for Career Builder, developing a data portal in a lean and agile environment. In 2008, he worked as the lead UX researcher and developer for CDC’s innovation team developing IdeaLab, an idea-capture, crowd-sourced web application recognized by the White House. At The Georgia Institute of Technology, Darryl designed and developed a mobile web application for the iPhone for use with the inSpace project as Dr. Keith Edwards’ research assistant.

Darryl holds a master’s in human-computer interaction, a bachelor’s in computer science and certificates in management of technology as well as social/personality psychology, all from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Title:
Introduction to Futures Studies & Tactical Media

Session Leader:
Sandjar Kozubaev

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
We all like imagining two futures but can you quickly and effective develop a series of futures that are not only imaginable but also possible and probable. It’s harder than most people think. Without a good toolkit for exploring futures, it’s difficult to make real change either on societal level or on a product level.

This session is intended to give an introduction to the field of Futures Studies. It’s a mix of a presentation material and some group activities. We will go over the basic frameworks developed by various futures theorists as well as some of the more structured methods companies use to develop future scenarios. There will also be 2-3 group activities intended to apply some of the futures thinking in a quick and interactive way. The goal of this is for the attendants to develop a sense of how to talk about futures and how to quickly develop scenarios for future product development and organizational planning.

Session Leader Bio:
Sandjar Kozubaev is an economist and design strategist. He has undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics and an MBA in Design Strategy from California College of the Arts. Most of his career Sandjar worked in large consultancies in the San Francisco Bay Area (KPMG, Deloitte) helping companies manage their global profits. He recently moved to the Atlanta metro area and currently works as Senior Strategist in Economics & Design at Info Retail, an experience strategy, design and implementation firm in Atlanta. Sandjar is passionate about video games, tennis and digital art. He speaks five languages and has a three-month old daughter.

 

Title:
Product Lifecycle Management Process and Software Tools

Session Leader:
Geoff Hammett

Format:
Town Hall

Abstract:
This session is intended to provide an overview of the Product Lifecycle Management process or methodology followed by an open discussion of users’ experiences with PLM software tools and their benefits. The session provides an opportunity for attendees to learn about the history, key goals and benefits of PLM as a process and to gain knowledge about some of the software tools available to facilitate and manage the process.

Full disclosure: Although the session presenter has had over 15 years experience as a product manager utilizing PLM processes, he will not be presenting PLM software vendor specific material or representing specific software tools. Attendees are encouraged to openly discuss the benefits of software tools they have used and share their experiences.

Session Leader Bio:
Geoff Hammett has over 25 years of experience as a product engineer, program manager and product manager for several companies including Ford Motor Company, Texas Instruments, Scientific-Atlanta and Cisco Systems. Since the mid-1990’s, he has managed product programs utilizing the PRTM/PwC Product and Cycle-time Excellence (PACE) process. Most recently he has employed Cisco’s internally developed PLM process called the Cisco Product Development Methodology (CPDM). Geoff holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from the University of Virginia and a Master of Business Administration degree from Georgia State University.

Title:
Customer Interview Practices Town Hall

Session Leader:
Jason Brett

Format:
Town Hall

Abstract:
A key part of Product Management is learning to understand our customers true needs and behaviors so that we can help to solve their real problems. Customer Interviews are a significant tool that we need to master in order to achieve that goal.

Too often, Product Managers don’t create a methodical approach and set of goals associated with customer interviews. And since there isn’t a one-size-fits-all format for the customer interview, it falls on each PM to innovate in this area for her own practice area.

In this town hall discussion, we’ll talk about our own experiences and approaches as well as specific challenges and questions that we consider when creating our own plans.

Whether you are a new product manager or a seasoned veteran, you will leave this session with an actionable plan to use real customer interviews to improve your products.

Session Leader Bio:
Jason Brett is Senior Product Manager at Silverpop Systems, an Atlanta-based global marketing technology company. Additionally, Jason is the founder of ProductCamp Atlanta and continues to support the growth of the ProductCamp movement as a volunteer and subject matter expert.

In addition to solving big marketing technology problems, Jason really enjoys hearing the sound of his own voice.

Title:
7 Keys to a Killer Presentation

Session Leader:
Eric V. Holtzclaw & Susan McMullen

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
Think back to the last time you sat through a boring presentation – chances are it was poorly prepared and even more poorly delivered.

But when you speak, do people listen?

One of the most powerful ways to influence others is by delivering a compelling and interesting message that grabs your audience, keeps them in their seats and conveys your message.

Join us for an interactive and informative session to learn the 7 tips and tricks professionals use to engage any audience regardless of size or topic. Take any presentation from flat to fabulous!

Session Leader Bio:
Eric Holtzclaw is an entrepreneur, business consultant, strategic thinker, and trusted confidant. He has over 20 years of experience building companies from the ground up. From bootstrapping to venture capital deals, Eric has built over a dozen companies and new divisions within larger organizations, including IBM and SGI.

Susan McMullen is a writer, professional speaker, self awareness coach and a registered nurse. She is married and has three children. After 26 years of taking care of others, Susan realized how imperative it is to put yourself first if you want to be able to give your best to your family, friends, and career. She firmly believes that we all need to give ourselves permission to follow our dreams and passions and to create a life abundant with those things that bring us great joy and happiness.

Title:
Digitally Famous

Session Leader:
Brandy Nagel

Format:
Workshop

Abstract:
Using social media to create a visibility campaign – for you, your project or your product. This will be a hands-on, laptops open workshop exploring all the websites you need to make a name for your product or yourself.

Session Leader Bio:
Brandy Nagel is a Marketing Catalyst and a social media coach. She brings a solid foundation of marketing experience to match a client’s immediate needs and long-term goals. Brandy has spent more than a decade in marketing agencies and in the private sector.

Most recently she worked at Georgia Tech’s Innovation Institute, where she focused on strategic communications and social marketing.

Prior to Georgia Tech, Brandy worked with consumer brands, such as Pennzoil and Beautyrest, both leading brands in their category. While at Simmons Company, she was responsible for the day-to-day management of 14 business partners, including product development, packaging, trade advertising, quality and customer service.

During her career, Brandy’s creativity and professionalism has led to accolades and recognition from her colleagues and peers. From strategy to execution, she has developed and launched marketing plans at corporations, non-profits, small businesses and agencies. Brandy makes marketing happen.

She coaches business owners and executives on using social media to conduct visibility campaigns.
A frequent speaker, Brandy regularly presents on social media strategy, personal branding and visibility campaigns. A tireless volunteer, Brandy provides social media training to job seekers in the Atlanta area.

She received her B.A. in business from Brenau University and earned her MBA at Mercer University.

Title:
A Paradigm Shift for Product Marketing – Web Video

Session Leader:
Jack Shaw

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
No one wants to be sold but everyone wants to be educated. Learn how web video uses an educational approach to sell more – faster!

Session Leader Bio:
Jack Shaw has been managing technology solutions marketing and consulting to technology marketers for 30 years. He has helped product marketers leverage leading edge marketing technologies since the earliest days of the Internet. He has been involved in the development of marketing videos for 25 years and has been deeply immersed in the development and implementation of Interactive web video for the past three years. Among Jack’s local Video Marketing clients are Proficientz, DynaSis, and Applied Systems Intelligence.

Title:
Top 10 Reasons Every Product Manager should go to Product Camp

Session Leader:
Lisa Crymes

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
As a kid, summer wouldn’t be the same without Summer Camp. Many can recall fond memories of making new friends and learning new skills. Product Camp may not include camp fires and ghost stories but there are many similarities that make product camp an essential part of your product management career.

This presentation will provide the top 10 reasons that every product manager should go to product camp and key takeaways for enhancing your career in product management.
Session Leader Bio:
Lisa has over 15 years of product management and marketing experience. As a product and marketing strategist she has worked with several leading technology companies including McKesson, Per-Se Technologies and Emdeon. She is a veteran product camper and an avid supporter of product management and product marketing community, currently serving as Chair of the Product Management Society of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).

Lisa received a Master of Business Administration degree and a Bachelor of Science degree in Management from Shorter University.

 

Title:
New Software Product Design & Build

Session Leader:
Jake Aull

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
Web architecture should not be produced in vacuum; research drives the best results. Items taken into account should be target/user research, competitive analysis, SEO analysis and strategy, social network architecture and digital network structure. How do all of those aspects work in concert to produce best results and digital marketing return? This is the presentation that delivers – hitting these points and more! Especially useful as an IA/UI/UX and SEO strategy for web graphic designers. See slide decks here:
http://slidesha.re/QjPr93 and: http://slidesha.re/LOcDcw.

Session Leader Bio:
Jake Aull, principal of Zen Fires, is a web designer and marketer, a branding, creative marketing and social media strategist, and all around good guy, if I do say so myself. I currently part-time teach social media marketing and SEO at Georgia State University and am President of SCAD Alumni in Atlanta. I write a popular blog on digital marketing issues. I have been published across the web and wrote the Instructor Manual for Pearson-Prentice Hall’s first Social Media Marketing text book.

 

Title:
Avoiding the Big, and Costly, Mistakes in Your Interactive Web Video Marketing Strategy

Session Leader:
Jack Shaw

Format:
Presentation (This session could be a presentation, Town Hall, or Round Table. I am flexible)

Abstract:
Product Marketing is going through another major transition analogous to the emergence of the Internet / World Wide Web 10 – 15 years ago as a primary marketing tool. Over the last couple of years, we have seen the early emergence of Interactive Web Video Marketing. During the next couple of years, we will complete a transition to video as the primary means of marketing communications.

We now know that people are no longer willing to be sold. However, they are willing to be educated about their needs and guided toward solutions that can meet those needs. Hence, we’ve seen educational content marketing surface as a driving philosophy for leading edge businesses. Leveraging Social Media and lead management technology, inbound marketing has come to assume a critical role in Product Marketing.

But, inbound marketing is only effective when there is quality educational content to be inbound to! And the highest quality, most impactful content is well designed web video. But effective Interactive Web Video Marketing requires much more than a camera and editing software. It requires a well thought through web video strategy.

In his session on “Developing and Implementing Your Interactive Web Video Marketing Strategy,” Jack will discuss:

• What Most People are Doing Wrong with Web Video
• Why a Clear Marketing Message and a Good Video Production Team Don’t Replace a Sound Web Video Marketing Strategy
• How to Develop Your Video Architecture™
• How to Create Your Video RoadMap™
• How to Budget for Web Video Marketing
• The Future of Interactive Web Video Marketing

Session Leader Bio:

See www.e-com.com and http://www.e-com.com/sample-client-videos

Jack Shaw has been managing technology solutions marketing and consulting to technology marketers for 30 years. He has helped product marketers leverage leading edge marketing technologies since the earliest days of the Internet. He has been involved in the development of marketing videos for 25 years and has been deeply immersed in the development and implementation of Interactive Web Video for the past three years. Among Jack’s local Video Marketing clients are Proficientz, DynaSis, and Applied Systems Intelligence.

Title:
Software Estimation Made Easy

Session Leader:
Scott Gardner
Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
Providing software estimates and target dates is a fact of life in the product development world. Nobody likes estimates but there is no way around them. The business must have them to do any sort of planning and satisfy executive needs.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Estimates can be easy and relatively pain free.

During this session, Scott will talk about his experiences with software estimation across several different organizations using a number of different methodologies. Highlights include: what worked, what didn’t work, mistakes made, things we did right, best practices, guidelines for executives, and resources for further learning.

Session Leader Bio:
Scott Gardner is an Atlanta technology and business professional specializing in product management, development and marketing. Scott has worked extensively with the Southeast start-up and venture capital community in business development and consulting. He is also a “recovering” engineer and has software development experience with employers and clients such as Motorola, BellSouth and the Centers for Disease Control. Scott earned Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degrees from Georgia Tech.

Title:

A Crash Course in Design Thinking

Session Leader:

Cynthia Morneweck

Format:

Workshop

Abstract:

This hands-on workshop will introduce you to the concept of design thinking and its components: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Design thinking involves engaging with real people, taking an iterative approach to design, and creating low-fidelity prototypes through a bias towards action. You’ll learn what design thinking is and how to apply it to create a great user experience. This is a completely interactive session. We’ll guide you through building your own prototype for a real customer.

Session Leader Bio:

Cynthia Morneweck Professional Experience:

• Over 12 years of experience working in all facets of user experience
• Special interests are strategic design and user research
• Experience with classic scientific research, public health, and healthcare projects
• Guest lecturer on Human Computer Interaction fundamentals at Georgia Institute of Technology.
• Over 15 years of management experience ranging from account to team management.
• Special interests include career development and team building.

Education and Degree:

• MS, 2001, Human-Computer Interaction, Georgia Institute of Technology
• BS, 1990, Chemistry/Psychology, Smith College

Title:

Taking Back That Strategic Product Management Job You Thought You Had

Session Leader:

John Mansour

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Organizations seek out highly skilled, talented individuals who are more than capable of bringing strategic value to the organization in a product management role.  But the reality of the job makes it all but impossible to deliver on those expectations.  This town hall session will discuss why it happens and how product professionals can raise their stature by meeting expectations of strategic value.

Session Leader Bio:

Managing Partner at Proficientz with 20+ years of experience as a practitioner and consultant in high-technology product management, marketing and sales.

Title:

How to Create Roadmaps That Energize Executives

Session Leader:

John Mansour

Format:

Workshop

Abstract:

Workshop – Create strategic roadmaps that energize executives, sales, marketing and R&D using 3 simple techniques for high-value, high-impact solutions that are strategic to your company.  It’s “shiny new objects” thoughtfully conceived in Product Management!

Session Leader Bio:

Managing Partner at Proficientz with 20 + years as a practitioner and consultant in high-technology product management, marketing and sales.

Title:

Passion to Transform Lives

Session Leader:

keKatie

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

What makes us happy? What drives our behavior? Answering these questions at micro and macro levels help us better define business opportunities in a B2C and B2B2C model. Whether inside an organization or starting something from scratch, understanding how to create passion driven experiences for your end user will help create greater success for your business. Learn some hard earned insights from a girl who runs an incubator, served as a CMO, and is currently creating a product to help radically transform millions of lives.

Session Leader Bio:

Katie currently runs TiE X, an accelerator for early stage entrepreneurs, and helps make TiE Atlanta tick. Nights and weekends she’s creating GetGoals – a mobile solution to empower people to achieve what is important to them in life – with the hardcore awesome GG team. Previously she was Chief Marketing Officer of Atlanta based tech startup TripLingo.

Title:

Career Planning: What is the Role? Who are you? Where are you going?

Session Leader:

Jon Gatrell

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

New to Product Management and Marketing?  Want to break in?  Find out the role, the trends and the approach of creating a career plan.  Here’s the facts: Product Management and marketing continues to evolve and represents a growing population of professionals who want to better understand their roles and career paths. This session will look at responsibilities, roles, trends and career opportunities for Product Managers.

Session Leader Bio:

Jon Gatrell is an Instructor at Pragmatic Marketing. Prior to Pragmatic Marketing, Jon served in senior product management and marketing positions at a number of companies, most recently at Stonebranch and Inovis. He has successfully implemented the Pragmatic Marketing Framework at multiple companies, and integrated it into several acquisition plans. He has held leadership positions in numerous industry organizations.

“Everything he says is dead on,” “has a great level of experience” and “offers practical advice and great ideas” are some of the comments from seminar attendees about Jon, who has a focus on social media’s impact on today’s go-to-market programs that is not available in traditional market engagement methods.

In addition to his role at Pragmatic Marketing, Jon writes the Spatially Relevant blog on product management and marketing best practices.

Title:

What motivates you? What motivates your teammates/employees? Find out with Moving Motivators!

Session Leader:

Andrew Fuqua

Format:

Workshop

Abstract:

“This fun exercise will help you understand what motivates you. You can then use this exercise with your employees or coworkers to understand what motivates them.

*** NO SLIDES! ***”

Session Leader Bio:

“Andrew has spent the last couple decades trying to understand how to lead knowledge workers and create an environment in which they can be self-motivated.

Andrew has an MBA from Duke University as well as a BS and MS in Computer Science.

Currently an independent lean/agile coach, Andrew blogs at www.andrewfuqua.com.

The upcoming Product Camp Atlanta on August 18, 2012 will be chock-full of great sessions. Members of Atlanta’s Product Management/Marketing community have proposed some awesome session topics covering innovation, product development, social media and more!

Check out the latest session proposals!

Title: Creating and Sustaining High-Performance Teams that are Full of Win!

Session Leaders: Peter Saddington

Title: Rapid Concept Development

Session Leaders: Wayne Utz

Title: Kill the Wabbit (How Anger Management Training and Brainstorming Sessions May be Keeping You From the Corner Office)

Session Leaders: Joe Kleinwaechter

Title: The Poison Pill of Product Development – Bad Requirements

Session Leaders: Frank Harris

Title: Five Internal Requirements for Product Manager Success (What Pragmatic Marketing Doesn’t Tell You)

Session Leaders: Mark Wood

Title: How to win friends and influence people with data

Session Leaders: Ken Hilburn

Title: Moving Motivators!

Session Leaders: Andrew Fuqua

 

Title:

What Pragmatic Marketing Doesn’t Tell You – Five Internal Requirements for Product Manager Success

Session Leader:

Mark Wood

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

Pragmatic Marketing, John Mansour, and others deliver excellent market-driven disciplines for being a successful product manager. However, one (of the many) thing I wish I had learned 15 years ago is that being truly successful as a product manager requires managing your internal customer almost more effectively than you do the external market.  You have to become an internal “Getter-Of-Things-Done” and I’d like to share five key things I’ve learned (from doing them and not doing them) that can help boost your internal effectiveness as well as your external success.

Session Leader Bio:

Mark’s been a product manager in the Atlanta technology community for fifteen years now, spending time with companies like Internet Security Systems, nCircle, Cloud Sherpas, EzGov, and SecureWorks. This is his third Atlanta Product Camp. Eventually, he’d like to retire and open a bakery somewhere nice. He hopes to stop writing about himself in the third person any minute now.

 

Title:

Kill the Wabbit – How Anger Management Training and Brainstorming Sessions May be Keeping You From the Corner Office

Session Leader:

Joe Kleinwaechter

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Need to spark some killer innovation into your product line? Thinking about holding a brainstorming session? Brainstorming sessions are for wusses and wusses don’t get the corner office. Instead, you’ll learn some more productive techniques that can help you to release your inner-Hulk and become that guy that everyone wants on their next-generation product.

Session Leader Bio:

As the head of Innovation and Design within Fiserv’s electronic payments division, Joe is responsible for creating culture, process, and products that propel Fiserv into the next generation of financial services. With over 25 years in the software engineering field, Joe has led many teams responsible for wildly successful, cutting edge products and refuses to admit he has had an equal number of dismal failures.

 

Title:

How to win friends and influence people with data

Session Leader:

Ken Hilburn

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

As product managers a signficant portion of our time is spent influencing or convincing others.

While passionate pleas advocating the needs of the customer are still appreciated, our ability to influence our audiences (executives, development teams, marketing, sales, etc.) is increasingly dependent how we convey our message using the data we have collected about our products and our users.

During this session we will present practical guidance for presenting data in a way that is easier to understand, more compelling and delivers the message you need it to.

Session Leader Bio:

Ken has over 20 years of experience in designing and delivering software solutions across many industries. He currently works with Juice Analytic’s community and customers to help them better understand how to incorporate information presentation best practices into their world. He’s known for applying his structured approach and deep customer experiences to enable clients to implement targeted information solutions.

Title:

The Poison Pill of Product Development – Bad Requirements

Session Leader:

Frank Harris

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

The companies I have worked for and recent clients have struggled to answer some basic questions about their products or services, especially when trying to innovate. What requirements are essential for success? Which voice of the customer should we listen to? How do we prioritize the many features we could incorporate? What should we work on next?

A lot of product managers work under the mantra of “just do it” pile on the blood, sweat and tears and then wonder why their product fail after launch. Attend this workshop and learn and discuss a valuable technique for making better decisions about requirements. It’s not complicated and you’ll walk away with some a tool to implement when you return to work on Monday.

Session Leader Bio:

Frank Harris, MBA, NPDP, is a serial product developer and CMO for NP Learning LLC., a boutique innovation consulting and training firm specializing in “Best Practices” for new product and service development. He brings over 25 years experience managing and developing products in multiple markets – consumer package goods, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), retail stores, distributors and traditional business-to-business customers.

During his career, Frank developed and launched more than 50 new products for different companies, a technology start up, small, medium and fortune 50, including a stint as product manager of new products for General Electric’s lighting business group. His management roles have included product manager, Vice President of engineering, Vice President of marketing, sales and licensing, and CEO and President. In addition to developing new products, Frank is an entrepreneur who held senior management positions with a start-up battery technology company and also, with a partner, started a restaurant franchising company.

Frank is a certified New Product Development Professional (NPDP) from PDMA. His education started at North Carolina State University where he received a BS in Engineering. He also received a Masters of Business Administration in marketing from George Washington University, Washington, DC.

Title:

Rapid Concept Development

Session Leader:

Wayne Utz- Dimensional 3 Design

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Many designers know the term “rapid prototyping” of a product but just how can you get to the selected concept or the many alternatives in a “rapid” timely way. Demonstrating rapid concept development combines brainstorming with powerful visual concepts. 50 + ideas vs 5. Informal and effective collaboration.

Session Leader Bio:

Wayne has depth in product design collaborating with marketing managers, industrial designers, engineers + global manufacturers with wide multi-market bandwidth experience. He emphasizes feature based prototyping along with CAD, product driven materials and processes. His track record on Innovation in world class products has been instrumental in many startup and mid size company success stories.

Title:

Creating and Sustaining High-Performance Teams that are Full of Win!

Session Leader:

Peter Saddington

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

A discussion on what it takes to be a great product manager and how to avoid the hairballs of corporate life.

In this ever-changing world of uncertainty where job-security and economic change is the new norm, it is more important than ever to understand how to effectively become a linchpin within your organization and team.

We desire not to be just a cog in the big wheel of the corporate machine, but rather a valued, important, and necessary employee for our company. How can we become invaluable to our company while at the same time enjoying our work, our team, our employer, and doing challenging and sustainable work that allows for personal and professional growth?

In this talk you will:

1 – Understand the (new) role of management in our new economy

2 – Understand why your team’s dysfunctions prohibit your potential

3 – Reveal why understanding business and team culture is paramount to business success

4 – Review if you’re ready to take the next step in personal responsibility and personal change

Session Leader Bio:

Peter Saddington is an Organizational Consultant and Agile Coach who has been in software development for 15+ years. He has 3 Masters degrees (Counseling, Education, Theology & Philosophy) and is publishing his second book in late 2012 (Wiley) on Agile and Human Performance. He is the co-founder of a research and analytics company, Action & Influence, which measures human dynamics within the enterprise cultures.

The upcoming ProductCamp Atlanta on September 10, 2011 will be chock-full of great sessions. Members of Atlanta’s Product Management/Marketing community have proposed some awesome session topics covering innovation, product development, social media and more!

Check out the latest session proposals!

Title: Driving Meaningful Innovation –  Service Design for Product Development

Session Leaders: Florian Vollmer/Alisan Atvur

Title: Bring Your Users to Life!

Session Leader: Eric V. Holtzclaw

Title: Launching a Major Automotive Media Site Requires a Good Strategy

Session Leader: Scott Markle

Title: A Round Table Discussion of Pitfalls, Dangers, and Hazards of Various Product Development Methodologies

Session Leader: Dr. Tom Myers, RODC

Title: Buyer and User Personas in Product Design and Strategy

Session Leader: Kevin O’Malley/John Peltier

Title: Best Practices for Distributed Product Teams - A Town Hall

Session Leader: Joe Moore

Title: Scaling Product Ownership - A Story of EPIC Proportions

Session Leader: Peter Saddington

Title: 12 Steps to a Strong QR COde Campaign

Session Leader: Stephanie True Moss

Title: 4 Key Steps to Managing Your Own PR

Session Leader: Denise Quashie

Title: Lean Innovation Business Process

Session Leader: Konstantyn

Title: Building influence: The secrets of driving top-line growth through world-class messaging and positioning

Session Leader: Russell Scherwin

Title: VoteWithYourWallet – Made In America

Session Leader: Jason Moss

Title: Yes, My Dog Tweets

Session Leader: Denise Quashie

Title: Are we on the same page? Managing product expectations internally

Session Leader: Don Coop

Title: Got Klout?

Session Leader: Lisa Crymes

Title: Building an Indispensible Team to Manage & Market Your Product Portfolio

Session Leader: John Mansour/Lisa Crymes

Title: Orbiting the Giant Hairball of Product Management

Session Leader: Ken Westray

Title: Kicking Fear’s Ass – 7 Rules for Product Managers

Session Leader: David Eckoff

Title: Marketing for Mobile – Launch Into Fast Growth

Session Leader: Katie Elizabeth

Title: Collaborative Product Planning: How Can We Do Better?

Session Leader: Andy Powell and Bob Vincent

Title: Venture Design – Generating Revenue When the Lights Are Off

Session Leader: Steve Meister

Title:

Orbiting the Giant Hairball of Product Management

Session Leader:

Ken Westray

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

A discussion on what it takes to be a great product manager and how to avoid the hairballs of corporate life.

Session Leader Bio:

Ken Westray MBA, PE, NPDP –

President NP Learning
LLCPDMA-Certified and Approved Master Education Service Provider and Master Trainer
Vice President of Chapters and Board Member of PDMA

Ken Westray has extensive business experience in producing corporate profits demonstrated by his track record of leading major contributions in new products and developing new markets. Ken has successfully helped to develop and introduce over 60 commercially successful new products, in both domestic and international markets. In over 80% of these cases, new products not only achieved market leadership, but also maintained those positions for an average of 5 years, generating an average of 55% gross margins.

Ken’s formal education and professional affiliations have prepared him exceptionally well to understand the technical considerations of new product development. Ken holds a Master’s degree in Management and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering and is also registered as a Professional Engineer and a certified New Product Development Professional (NPDP). Additionally, he is a member of the Innovation Network, Product Development & Management Association (Certification Committee member), Commercial Development Association (CDA), Planning Forum and the Society of Competitive Intelligence (SCIP) and has given numerous presentations to top management on the complex organizational, technical and financial issues of successful innovation and the benefits to new product development.

Title:

“Kicking Fear’s Ass - 7 Rules for Product Managers”

Session Leaders:

David Eckoff and Todd Schnick

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Join us for this training seminar that will help you become a fearless product manager.

At “Kicking Fear’s Ass – 7 Rules for Product Managers”, you’ll learn a practical set of actions you can follow right now to master fear, gain new confidence, and feel unstoppable. You’ll experience a fast-moving hands on program, combining interactive activities and business speakers who have done it themselves – and are dedicated to teaching you.

Our seminars have been voted “Best Session” at Product Camp. Come join us for this exciting ALL NEW training seminar that will help you kick fear’s ass.

What they’re saying about our recent seminars:

“Great session!! Best of the conference!!”
- Andrea Moe, product management and marketing

“An energizing session that made me think. I can’t wait to apply new ideas!”
- Lisa, healthcare technology product manager

“WOW! Great presentation – I’m energized!!”
- Phil, serial entrepreneur, applied technologist, product manager

Session Leader Bio:

David Eckoff is a technology entrepreneur, advisor to media & technology companies and business educator. For the past three decades, Eckoff has been an innovator in start up companies and Fortune 500 alike.

He has made it his focus over the past 20 years to turn ideas into products and businesses. He is co-founder of Spitter and Executive Chairman of Xsporture. He has worked with other companies such as Rivals.com, RealNetworks, Turner Broadcasting, Ustream.tv, and Zazzle to bring their revolutionary ideas to market.

David has spoken at numerous events, as a keynote speaker and panel speaker, including SXSW Interactive; Perot Innovation Lab: Innovation Insights; Charles River Ventures CEO Leadership Summit; Video on the Net; Streaming Media East and West; and more.

Read more about David Eckoff on his blog at DavidEckoff.com and follow him on Twitter at @davideckoff

##

Todd Schnick is a marketing strategist, writer, speaker, radio show host and distance runner.

Todd learned about marketing the hard way, in the political trenches. Despite Chris Matthews’ prediction that he would go to jail following the 2000 Florida Recount, Todd survived the hand-to-hand combat of political warfare and has gone on to launch six companies. (Fortunately, Chris was wrong, and completely unbiased…)

Todd co-hosts multiple radio shows and internet podcasts out of his north Atlanta studio. You can find him at http://intrepid-llc.com.

##

 

Title:

Marketing for Mobile - Launch into Fast Growth

Session Leader:

Katie Elizabeth

Format:

Roundtable

Abstract:

Excited to launch your new product? Or, re-position your current product? You’re ecstatic to sell your perfect product and need marketing – well planned and brilliantly executed – to drive sales and growth.

Come learn from TripLingo’s rapid success from launch to sustained growth.

Katie will share a brief overview of strategies, tactics, planning and execution for products from a marketing perspective, then will facilitate a roundtable discussion so that we can all gain maximum value from the session.

Session Leader Bio:

Katie is the Chief Marketing Officer of TripLingo and actively involved in the Startup community as an Executive Team Member of TiE Atlanta.

She is skilled in go-to-market strategy, product development iteration, positioning, pricing and messaging. From strategy to tactics, she loves it all.

Formerly in management consulting, Katie brings combines a head for business with a heart for technology to help make products successful through marketing.

Title:

Collaborative Product Planning: How can we do better?

Session Leaders:

Andy Powell and Bob Vincent

Format:

Roundtable

Abstract:

Is your company’s product direction formed using the wisdom of crowds or in an ivory tower?  Does getting everyone on the same page regarding the direction take too much energy?  In this session, attendees will share how their organizations are making decisions about product direction and we’ll brainstorm strategies for improving the process in small groups.

Warning this session will be highly interactive!

Session Leader Bio:

Andy and Bob work together at VersionOne.  Both of them are members of VersionOne’s core product team, which collaborates to determine VersionOne’s product direction.

 

 

Title:

Venture Design – Generating Revenue When the Lights are Off.

Session Leader:

Steve Meister

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

Do you have a great idea for the next mousetrap or killer app?  Do you stay home to watch Shark Tank?  Whether you’re a serial inventor, consultant or have a corporate job, many of you have ideas that you’d like to take to market – or at least make money from!  As a product development firm, Big Bang generates most of its revenue from billable hours.  The Holy Grail is to generate revenue when the computers are shut down or the lights are off.  In this presentation we’ll explore alternative venture design efforts (some successful, some not so), as well as discuss in detail the discovery, development and launch of a successful LED Dental Examination Light.  While you may be focused on another category or service, the process, pitfalls, detours and lessons learned have application for any venture design effort.

Session Leader Bio:

Steve has been involved in new product development for over 30 years.  His design, leadership and business development experience comes from a diverse range of products for category-leading brands like Cuisinart, Plantronics, Rigid and Bard Medical. As a Principal and President of Big Bang, an Atlanta based product discovery and implementation firm founded in 1994, he has been instrumental in the definition of NPD strategies, end-user research, moderation of Idea Farming events and the alignment of designers and engineers with client challenges.  Steve received his BS of Industrial Design from Michigan State University and has served as guest lecturer and design juror at Georgia Institute of Technology, Auburn University and Michigan State University.  Steve is a board member and current President of the Georgia chapter of the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA).

The upcoming ProductCamp Atlanta event on September 10, 2011 is shaping up to be a great event. Already, there are some intriguing topics on the table guaranteed to ignite some lively discussions that you don’t want to miss.

CAREER/ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Title: Who are you? Where are you going?
Session Leader: John Gatrell

Title: Start-Ups & Screw-Ups: How To Beat The Odds
Session Leader: Andrea Walker

Title: Keeping Product YOU Selling
Session Leader: Candi Stargell

Title: Building an Indispensible Team to Manage & Market Your Product Portfolio
Session Leader: John Mansour & Lisa Crymes

AGILE/PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Title: Agile Product Management and the Product Owner Role – A Town Hall
Session Leader: John Peltier

Title: Getting Started with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)
Session Leader: Jefferey Costa

OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS/INNVOATION

Title: Turning a Mental Illness into Your Next Big Idea
Session Leader: Joe Kleinwaechter

FUNDAMENTALS

Title: Obtaining Competitive Info: Tools and Ethics/Morals
Session Leader: John Mansour/Gary Palgon

PRODUCT STRATEGY

Title: Digital strategy – What’s ahead and how to plan for it
Session Leader: Amanda Moore

Title: Sorting Things Out under Pressure
Session Leader: Rick Thomas

MARKETING EXECUTION

Title: Operationalizing Social Media
Session Leader: Amanda Moore

Title:

Building an Indispensible Team to Manage & Market Your Product Portfolio

Session Leader:

John Mansour/Lisa Crymes

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Transform your product management and product marketing teams into indispensible, high-value assets with knowledge and skills that don’t exist elsewhere in the organization. Become top advisors to senior executives and insulate your team from future downsizings. Learn how to acquire skills that go way beyond traditional product management and marketing fare without losing your ability to execute!

Session Leader Bio:

John Mansour is the founder and Managing Partner at Proficientz, an Atlanta based training and consulting organization that specializes in product portfolio management and marketing.John is a 20-year veteran in high technology product management, marketing and sales. Much of his success in those roles can be attributed to extensive operations management experience in retail, healthcare and software companies. John has experience directing large worldwide teams on domestic and international product management and marketing initiatives as well as helping start-up companies launch new products.

Title:

Got Klout?

Session Leader:

Lisa Crymes

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

Session Leader Bio:

Lisa Crymes as Director of Healthcare Products & Strategy Bottomline Technologies Passionate about product management, product marketing,  healthcare social media and healthcare technology  http://about.me/LisaCrymes

Lisa brings more than 20 years of healthcare experience, working with physicians and technology companies in product management, strategy, and marketing roles.  Lisa is also very active in the Healthcare and Technology communities as well.

Currently services as President/Chair of the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Product Management Society

 

Title:

Are we on the same page? Managing product expectations internally.

Session Leader:

Don Coop

Format:

Roundtable

Abstract:

To succeed, a Product Manager must effectively manage expectations throughout the organization. How do you manage the executive team, sales, marketing, operations, engineering to get them behind your plans and your products?  How do you keep them positive when the update has bad news?  What are the methods and habits a successful Product Manager cultivates to keep the entire organization bullish on his or her capabilities?

In this interactive roundtable, we’ll share the tools, methods, communications, delivery we use to effectively keep everyone on the same page so that sales knows exactly what the capabilities are today, executives know when the next big thing will become reality, finance knows exactly the revenue and costs, and engineering knows what’s really on the horizon.

Session Leader:

Don Coop has been honing his skills at managing expectations since the 2nd grade when he handed his parents a report card with a “D” in math.  For the last 20 years, he’s been selling, implementing and managing technology solutions – effectively managing customer, sales management, executive and team expectations.  Don’s most recent experience has been in Product Management at Agentek and Sybase.

 

Title:

Yes, My Dog Tweets

Session Leader:

Denise Quashie

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

Dogs have taken to Twitter by storm and pet blogging is the new “black”.  My dog has more followers than some businesses and there’s a host of case studies product managers and marketing managers can learn from social “petworkers”.
In this session I’ll showcase what the pet community is doing and sharing via social media and how those involved with marketing a company’s product can utilize these case studies to be a step above the rest.

While this presentation is titled, Yes My Dog Tweets, it’s not entirely about a tweeting dog.  The session is a form of new generational marketing thru blogging and social marketing.  I will use this session to showcase how thinking way outside of the box can bring new found viral marketing to any brand and/or blog. There’s quite to be learned from a community of bloggers that are creating incredible content from a non-speaking being.

Session Leader bio:

As founder and social media strategist for Socially Planned, a social media agency, Denise helps companies and event organizers integrate social media through event marketing, attendee interactions, community building and sponsorship acquisition.
Denise is an award-winning event producer with over a decade of experience in executing successful events and sponsorship development for brands like Deloitte, AT Kearney, GMC, HP, Oracle, AT&T, RIM BlackBerry and State Farm.

When Denise is not consulting with clients, she runs a hands-on social media bootcamp specifically built for event organizers, is a committee member of the Social Media Club Atlanta Chapter, and spends time with her twitter-savvy dog, Frankie Beans.
Beyond being a trailblazer for all things social and events, she’s also the founder of multiple nationally recognized social media events, including BarkWorld Conference & Expo – the pet social media conference, founder of a mobile app, co-chair of IAEE’s Social Media Task Force, co-wrote IAEE’s Best Practices for Social Media and is currently working on a book, Confessions of an Event Organizer™.

 

 

Title:

VoteWithYourWallet – Made In America

Session Leader:

Jason Moss

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Town Hall discussion focused on how to grow jobs in America by promoting “Made In America”

Session Leader Bio:

Founder of VoteWithYourWallet.com – Non-profit organization focused on growing jobs in America through consumer education.

Title:

Building influence: The secrets of driving top-line growth through world-class messaging and positioning

Session Leader:

Russell Scherwin

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

“Nothing happens until someone sells something” -”Thomas J. Watson, founder of IBM

This session is a must for those who support and enable the revenue generation process.  We’ll explore secrets learned by a Product Marketing / Product Management leader gone undercover into the world of direct field sales.  You will learn to create messaging that will energize your sales force, and motivate targeted markets into revenue generating actions.  The content is especially useful for leaders in organizations with multiple product lines, who compete for the attention of sellers.

Some of the interactive topics addressed include:

1. key questions that sales teams need answered – and the costs of not doing so
2. top mistakes product marketers make – and why many marketing activities never translate into results
3. putting segmentation to use in lowering customer acquisition, support, and retention costs

Session Leader Bio:

Russell Scherwin was voted top speaker at Atlanta’s last Product Camp, and has also been voted top speaker at IDC and Gartner shows on multiple continents.  Russell currently leads Business Solutions Software Sales for IBM in the South.  A passionate Product Management and Marketing leader, Russell has “gone undercover” in sales roles for the past 3 years, to better understand the realities of the revenue process.  Russell has a passion for technology’s socio-economic impact, and is known for expertly fusing sales, economics and innovation management into a deeply relevant, and entertaining message.

Title:

Lean Innovation Business Process

Session Leader:

Konstantyn

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

Many innovations depend on serendipity today. Small companies and starups dont have resources for full-fledged research departments. Anyway the the top-down approach in those departments doesn’t really work for corporations. Taming innovations with a steady high speed and substance is difficult.

This presentation opens a discussion on how to formalize the bottom-up approach that is typical for small companies. It shows a method how to get rid of serendipity and gain predictable as well as low-costs innovation research.

Session Leader Bio:

Innovation Manager with experience in publicly traded companies and startups.

Title:

4 Key Steps to Managing Your Own PR

Session Leader:

Denise Quashie

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

Having a rocking PR team is great when it comes to introducing a new product.  However, when budgets are slashed what key elements can you do on your own to ensure a successful product rollout?

In this session we’ll dive into 4 key ways you can manage your own PR on a beer budget!

Takeaways:

-Learn what’s critical in a marketing planLearn how to use social media, successfully

-Gain a better understanding of how a press release works and how to pitch the right media

-Hear about innovative ways to use free tools to generate awareness

Session Leader Bio:

As founder and social media strategist for Socially Planned, a social media agency, Denise helps companies and event organizers integrate social media through event marketing, attendee interactions, community building and sponsorship acquisition.

Denise is an award-winning event producer with over a decade of experience in executing successful events and sponsorship development for brands like Deloitte, AT Kearney, GMC, HP, Oracle, AT&T, RIM BlackBerry and State Farm.

When Denise is not consulting with clients, she runs a hands-on social media bootcamp specifically built for event organizers, is a committee member of the Social Media Club Atlanta Chapter, and spends time with her twitter-savvy dog, Frankie Beans.Denise Quashie

Beyond being a trailblazer for all things social and events, she’s also the founder of multiple nationally recognized social media events, including BarkWorld Conference & Expo – the pet social media conference, founder of a mobile app, co-chair of IAEE’s Social Media Task Force, co-wrote IAEE’s Best Practices for Social Media and is currently working on a book, Confessions of an Event Organizer™.

Title:

12 Steps to a Strong QR COde Campaign

Session Leader:

Stephanie True Moss

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

QR Codes are popping up everywhere. Done right QR Codes are fascinating, can lead to super customer engagement and are a marketing dream! Done wrong, they can lead to a hum-hum experience that reflects negatively on your product or brand. Learn the steps to a successful QR Code campaign!

This can be a presentation or a workshop! This with smart phones, laptops, ipads/tablets with internet access can create their own QR Code in this session!

Session Leader Bio:

Stephanie True Moss is Founder and Chief Creative Officer of True Moss Communications, Inc.   She is Author and Editor of  QRmedia.us and QRmediaGuide.com a QR Code Services Directory.

Stephanie is a graduate of the University of  Georgia with a BFA in Graphic Design. She has also earned Certification in Web Design from Emory University. She has extensive experience in all aspects of communication in both print and digital media. Her work routinely involves developing creative solutions for print and web campaigns, search engine optimization, social media and especially QR Code consulting.

She has been asked to write about QR Codes for magazines and several prominent social media and PR related blogs including SpinSucks.com and Ragan.com. She is an in-demand speaker at national and local conferences and workshops such as Ragan Communications’ The Mobile Revolution Conference at Sprint World Headquarters in Kansas City, ProductCamp Atlanta, Business Bootcamp for Wonder Women, Atlanta’s Freelance Forum and A.R.T. Station, Stone Mountain.

Follow @QRmedia and @truemc on Twitter

 

 

Title:

Scaling Product Ownership - A Story of EPIC Proportions

Session Leader:

Peter Saddington

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

I’ll tell you a story about how to scale Product Ownership with multiple teams on single (or multiple projects).  The story characters include:

-The DoD

-The Airforce

-My 5 month old daughter

Session Leader Bio:

Peter Saddington / Lean Agile Ninja – Enterprise Agile Coach

Currently the Enterprise Agile Coach for T-Mobile, Peter enjoys changing the way teams and individuals create software.

Author: Scrum Pocket Guide / www.scrumpocketguide.com

Writer: AgileScout / www.agilescout.com

Title:

Best Practices for Distributed Product Teams - A Town Hall

Session Leader:

Joe Moore

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Do you work for a company with distributed offices, has remote employees, or even for a “virtual” company that has no central office at all?  Please attend this town hall!

Many ProductCamp Atlanta attendees are, or work with, remote employees on tight-knit product development teams; personally I strive to be as involved and integrated with my team despite being thousands of miles away. Let’s all share the best practices our teams have developed to make our distributed teams as cohesive and efficient as possible. Do your teams use continuous video conferencing, remote pair programming, or even remote presence robots? Attend this town hall and tell us all about it!

Session Leader Bio:

Joe Moore has over 13 years of agile software development experience as an software engineer and technical coach. He has worked on and lead dozens of agile software projects from a wide variety of businesses, from one-person startups to large entreprises. Joe currently works remotely for Pivotal Labs, Inc., a leading agile web development and mobile software consultancy.

Title:

Buyer and User Personas in Product Design and Strategy

Session Leader:

Kevin O’Malley and John Peltier

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

Personas are a powerful tool to better understand the buyer and user of a product.  Insights obtained from persona development and analysis can drive optimal interaction design and user interface for the people that will use the product, as well as helping to strategize the optimal feature set to win over the buyer.  The trick is to create living personas by synthesizing market data and observation of in-house subject matter experts to build these strategic tools as quickly as possible.

In this session, we’ll review the basics of user and buyer personas and lead a discussion of your use of personas, and of ways to build personas that others can put into practice after attending the session.

Session Leader Bio:

Kevin O’Malley is Chief Product Officer at Preparis.  He has over 14 years of Product Management & Marketing experience, and currently leads the product and marketing efforts for one of Atlanta’s most innovative and promising technology start-ups, Preparis. Preparis has a product that has a great purpose and a purpose that deserves a great product.

Kevin enjoys learning new methods of Product Management that improves the speed and accuracy of creating and marketing products that customers value. Regardless of the method, good Product Management is about understanding the connections between customer, market, and competitive activities in order to make better product decisions.

Kevin is an honored member of the TAG Product Management Society board where we look to educate, inform and unite Georgia’s Product Management community.

—

John Peltier is an experienced agile product manager with 12 years of designing, managing, testing, supporting and marketing software solutions to business problems. He has been in product management since 2007, currently helping companies build ethical cultures with The Network, Inc.

John is also an accomplished social media marketer with experience building community by putting on unconferences including multiple ProductCamps in Austin and Atlanta, specializing in email and social media marketing to publicize various events.

Title:

A Round Table Discussion of Pitfalls, Dangers, and Hazards of Various Product Development Methodologies

Session Leader:

Dr. Tom Myers, RODC

Format:

Roundtable

Abstract:

You know about the product development methodology you use, including what works well and what doesn’t.  And you know that the grass on the other side of the fence must be greener than where you are now, so maybe you think you should try a different product development methodology.  Come to this session to describe what is happening using your current methodology that is causing you to consider “leaping the fence” to a different methodology, and learn what others say about the problems they have in using that methodology.  Also, you’ll have a chance to describe a methodology’s shortfall(s) and what you did to deal with it, so that there is some hope at the end of the rainbow.

Session Leader Bio:

Dr. Tom Myers is an organization development and design consultant who helps organizations improve the results of their work systems.  He helps organizations develop and redesign themselves to communicate, coordinate, and collaborate better; improve the knowledge and skills of leaders, managers, and other workers; and analyze their incentive systems as they actually work, (instead of how people think they work,) so that they can be improved, thus leading to more bottom-line mission success and quality of work life.

Title:

Launching a Major Automotive Media Site Requires a Good Strategy

Session Leader:

Scott Markle

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

In 2010 AutoTrader decided to challenge the entrenched leaders in automotive content. To be successful we knew we needed to think outside the box. We eschewed the traditional print-based approach followed by most of our competitors, and instead adopted the tenets of the emerging content strategy field. Rather than going after the same enthusiast audience everyone else focuses on, we would tailor are content to our existing audience of 16 million car shoppers per month. And instead of a large in-house editorial team we would build a small support team and mostly outsource content creation to experienced freelance journalists. We would also look for tools and processes that would allow us to maximize efficiency and productivity with minimal resources.

Our efforts have paid off already: in 2010 we produced 748 original content items, grew our audience by 64% and nearly quadrupled page views. We also helped bring in more than $2 million in additional ad revenue — more than paying for ourselves. In 2011 we plan to triple our content output and focus on improving its exposure on our site and beyond. In this session you will learn how AutoTrader is successfully employed the principles of content strategy to gain a foothold in the crowded automotive media space, and how you can apply some of the same ideas to your own efforts.

Session Leader Bio:

Scott Markle is an experienced automotive enthusiast and industry observer who is passionate about creating compelling content for car shoppers. He has fifteen years of experience developing high-volume websites, and was part of the team that launched AutoTrader.com. He is currently leading AutoTrader’s efforts to challenge the entrenched automotive media sites.

Title:

Bring Your Users to Life!

Session Leader:

Eric V. Holtzclaw

Format:

Workshop

Abstract:

At User Insight, we believe that personas are the foundation of a great user experience. While engaging in persona work is a very smart move, the investments of time and money that go into personas will be wasted if you don’t socialize them properly throughout your organization. Eric Holtzclaw, CEO at User Insight, has worked on ~24 persona projects across multiple industries including agriculture, travel, telecommunications and consumer goods and actively advises clients on how to leverage their persona investments by bringing their users to life.

In this session, Eric will engage attendees in an interactive persona socialization exercise using artifacts and techniques from real research conducted by User Insight. Attendees will leave this session armed with new methods they can employ in their own socialization sessions.

Session Leader Bio:

Eric V. Holtzclaw, Chief Executive Officer at User Insight

As Chief Executive Officer, Eric identifies strategic service offerings and oversees operational excellence and innovation across the business. Eric’s 20+ years of experience include work for a variety of successful startup companies including GeoMedica, Information America, OneCoast and CyberSource.  He has been responsible for the successful implementation of more than 30 consumer oriented and internal use products and services throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Saudi Arabia.

Title:

Driving Meaningful Innovation –  Service Design for Product Development

Session Leader:

Florian Vollmer (SVP Design, Principal) and Alisan Atvur (Director of Strategy) of Info Retail

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

How to anticipate the customer’s next major need? What are new ways of keeping innovation relevant? How do product developers stay involved throughout a product’s life span?

Service Design offers new, effective and integrative tools to find answers to these questions. We will discuss key concepts, examples and tools.

Session Leader Bio:

Florian Vollmer is an industrial designer, teacher, and principal at Info Retail—a strategy and design agency, where he helps international companies maximize worth in customer environments.  He specializes in creating brand experiences in the context of service design—the alignment and design of all brand touchpoints in a customer’s journey to create more useful, profitable, efficient and effective experiences.  He has spoken at: Americas Mart Atlanta, KHB Berlin Weissensee, World Affairs Council of Atlanta Young Leaders, World Market Center Las Vegas, New York Fashion Institute of Technology, etc.

Alisan Atvur is director of strategy at Info Retail—a strategy and design agency, where he directs experience design and business strategy to help companies better understand and design for their customers. Atvur specializes in helping business leaders to diagnose user experience problems, advancing human-centered design and promoting corporate sustainability. He has spoken at: The Creative Circus, Portfolio Center, CHI*Atlanta, IXDA – Atlanta, SCAD and Georgia Tech’s Graduate Industrial Design Studio, etc.

The upcoming ProductCamp Atlanta on September 10, 2011 is shaping up to be a great event. Check out this list of the latest sessions that have been proposed.  If you’re interested in leading a session, IT’S NOT TOO LATE.  Submit your  session proposals by the evening of Septemer 8, 2011.

 

Newly proposed sessions:

 

Title: Destroying the competition through superior analytics

Session Leader: Mark Wood

Title: The Blended Art of Leadership, Narratives, and Aligning Purpose

Session Leader: Richard Cullom

Title: A Round Table Discussion on Brand/Product Positioning

Session Leader: Carolyn Kopf

Title: 7 Keys to Being a Great Agile Product Manager

Session Leader: Joe Moore

Title: Introduction of Product in Your Business Plan

Session Leader: Vincent Howard

Title: It’s Powerpoint Karaoke!

Session Leader: Jason Brett

Title:

Outsourcing Product Development: Lessons Learned

Session Leader:

Paul Griswold (moderator)

Format:

Panel Discussion

Abstract:

Outsourcing software development projects can significantly increase your product’s ROI.  However, outsourcing can also present some unique and difficult challenges for product managers, especially when your development team is sitting half-way across the globe.  Learn about these challenges, how to overcome them, and hear other tips and lessons learned from those who have successfully outsourced product development projects.

Session Leader Bio:

Paul Griswold serves as Director of Products at Air2Web, where he leads all aspects of product management, marketing, and strategy for the company.  Prior to Air2Web, Paul spent 10 years at Internet Security Systems (acquired by IBM in 2006), holding a variety of leadership positions in product management, architecture, and development.  In addition, Paul has served as an adjunct instructor at Gwinnett Technical College.  Paul holds a BS in Computer Science from Georgia Tech.

 

Title:

Visual BrainStorming at the Speed of Thought

Session Leader:

Keith Duncan

Format:

Workshop

Abstract:

Synopsis: Imagine developing ideas into solid solutions at 5 to 10 times the speed of current methods, say in 30 minutes. Impossible? It’s real by using the psychology of Positive Language Interaction (PLI) with your audience utilizing Visual Step Sequencing (VSS) and 5 simple rules (5SR). Yes: 5 Rules.

It’s ALL about specific capture of your group’s brilliant ideas while simultaneously structuring and sequencing the fast path solution using relational database style mind mapping. Sound complicated?  Driven by simple technology ( IseeStand.com/iunderstand ) using pen and paper, even Einstein could learn from a kindergartner using this proven methodology. Why is this not commonplace?

The Inventor/Author/Professional Speaker was sequestered for 4 years ensuring the methodology is brain compatible with minimum side effects such as delirious laughter at being so happy and focused.

Session Leader Bio:

30 years developing multiple million dollar IT-Telecommunications systems for Bellsouth, Cingular, AT&T, major banks at all levels of developer, designer, BA, PM, Database guru, Architect, technical sales, inventor, author, other.Recent 4 years studying human nature and man machine interactions as well as psychology of cross utilizing computer storage/processing methodology with creative organic brain thought patterns.Published Author TeenMoneyMachine.com Holder 2 patent pending IseeStand.com and PhoneCradle.com  Creator of R&D thinktank BuiltByKeith.com solving major issues at most levels.

Title:

It’s Powerpoint Karaoke!

Session Leader:

Jason Brett

Format:

Workshop

Abstract:

Can you think on your feet? How well can you (and your peers) improvise a presentation? Find out at Powerpoint Karaoke!

How many times have you had to present someone else’s Powerpoint Deck? If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it’s just a matter of time, so come have some fun and get some…um…practice at ProductCamp.

Session Leader Bio:

Jason is a Senior Product Manager at Silverpop Systems in Atlanta, and is the founder of ProductCamp Atlanta.  He talks a lot.

Title:

Introduction of Product in Your Business Plan

Session Leader:

Vincent Howard

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

A business plan should include a section on your product with enough detail for reader to understand the products ability to satisfy the needs of the marketplace, but not so much create a negative impact on most external reviewers of the plan.

Session Leader Bio:

Vincent is a native to Chicago, Illinois who has resided in Atlanta, Georgia for four years. He has been a strategic consultant for over 10 years. His education includes a BS in Electrical Engineering from Howard University, and a MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business with concentrations in Marketing and Finance. He has advised entrepreneurs on business case development, and market entry strategies for Smart Grid applications to the energy industry.

Title:

7 Keys to Being a Great Agile Product Manager

Session Leader:

Joe Moore

Format:

Presentation

Abstract:

Congratulations, Product Manager, your team has adopted an Agile methodology! Now what?

What does your development team need from you now?There’s nobody better to ask than an Agile developer, technical coach, and veteran of dozens of Agile projects. I’ll relay the traits of the best Agile product managers I have worked with over the last 13 years.

Learn about:

1. Vision
2. Ownership
3. Independence
4. Decisiveness
5. Availability
6. Verification
7. Flexibility

Session Leader Bio:

Joe Moore has over 13 years of agile software development experience as an software engineer and technical coach. Joe has worked on and lead dozens of agile software projects from a wide variety of businesses, from one-person startups to large entreprises. Joe currently works for Pivotal Labs, Inc., a leading agile web development and mobile software consultancy.

Title: A Roundtable Discussion on Brand/Product Positioning

Session Leader: Carolyn Kopf

Format: Roundtable

Session Description: Discuss why brand/product positioning is the foundation of an effective and sustainable integrated marketing communications program. We’ll ask roundtable participants to share a viewpoint on their approach, success as well as highlight pitfalls to avoid.

Session Leader Bio: Carolyn has lived in N. America, Europe and Japan working for leading global marketing consultancies and advertising agencies such as Euro RSCG, Arnold Communications, and Young & Rubicam. She has been a guest speaker on global branding at the University of South Carolina’s Moore School of Business.
 
Carolyn is the managing principal and owner of C.E.K. & Partners, a strategic marketing resource firm that manages market research, brand strategy and thought leadership initiatives for companies operating in the area of emerging technologies, financial services, and healthcare. For more information, please visit www.cekpartners.com or call +1.404.345.6447.
 

Title: The Blended Art of Leadership, Narratives, and Aligning Purpose

Session Leader: Richard Cullom

Format: Workshop

Abstract: Are you getting full participation from all team members? Are the intrinsic and extrinsic motivations balanced, so that the team’s purpose is paramount? Is there a quiet and disciplined intensity to the team’s execution and overall flow? Is quality built in to the human process, where every team member has pride of ownership and cares about outcome?

When you step on the elevator with a key project stakeholder, can you describe “why” your project matters? Can you describe to the stakeholder (between floors 1 and 3) how important they are to the project? When they step off the elevator are the energized and motivated to do their best for the good of the project?

Welcome to the blended art of leadership, narratives, and alignment of purpose. Especially in a social, agile, always on business environment, consistent team-centric high performance matters. Building the culture of selfless participation requires trust and alignment of purpose. The key to a team’s alignment of purpose is the shared culture – behaviors, norms, and the epic journey that defines the project. The Blended Art workshop is designed to be a gathering place for master story tellers and people who want to begin mastery of the corporate narrative – to build team-based high performance cultures. The Blended Art workshop will focus on
1) The Value of Narratives in Culture
2) The Structure of Narratives for Business Leaders
3) Finding and telling the Inner Truth
4) Stakeholder Specific Narratives (up and down the corporate hierarchy)

Participants will have the opportunity to build their own story, a tangible take away from the Product Camp experience!

Session Leader Bio: A veteran of managing from the middle, Richie Cullom has over 20 years of experience building and leading teams in consulting, startups, and fortune 1000 organizations. For the past four years Richard has also worked as a technical strategist for the BSG’s Senior Director of Technology. His current assignment is the care and feeding of high performance development teams using the adaptive leadership model that blends corporate strategy, multi-tiered stakeholder intentions, resource sustainability, Lean/Agile best practices, and technology advancements into a single management ethic in order to deliver quality products quickly and efficiently.

Title:

Destroying the competition through superior analytics

Session Leader:

Mark Wood

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

It’s not just what competitive information you get; it’s what you do with it that really makes a difference. We’ll talk briefly about where to get competitive data, and at greater length on ways to structurem analyze, and present this data for maximum effectiveness.

Approaches that we’ll all discuss:

* Deciding how your company will compete (product-to-product, product-line-to-product-line, company-to-company)

* The dangers of assuming the opposing product manager is competent

* Ways to present competitive information that will make sales and marketing salivate

* Three things you can produce for sales that will measurably improve their performance

Session Leader Bio:

I’m a 15-year veteran of technology product management and have led product management teams for Internet Security Systems, EzGov, Cloud Sherpas, and nCircle (among others). I’ve managed many successful products as well as some not-so-successful ones (and you learn more from the failures, believe me). By the time Product Camp rolls around, I’ll be with one of three companies (TBD).

Title: Operationalizing Social Media

Session Leader: Amanda Moore

Format: Presentation

Abstract: This session is designed to help organizations understand the fundamentals of operationalizing social media programs. Marketing campaigns are just the tip of the iceberg. The majority of the “work” involved in successful social media programs is on the operational side. This session provides tips and tools for working within the organization and across teams to orchestrate successful programs that strengthen the business and the brand.

Session Leader Bio: Amanda Moore brings over a decade of experience in consumer research and digital channel strategy. She has helped major brands across a variety of verticals understand their target audience and launch successful digital strategies. She is passionate about demystifying the channel for business owners, building confidence and bringing collaborative teams together to develop best ideas and actionable plans.

ProductCamp Atlanta sponsor The 280 Group is offering some valuable benefits for ProductCamp Atlanta 5 attendees!  After you have registered for the conference, email Melissa@280group.com to take advantage of this offer:

1) Ebook versions of all of the books in our 280 Group Press series ($50 value):

• The Phenomenal Product Manager
• Expert Product Management
• 42 Rules of Product Management
• Agile Excellence for Product Managers

2) Free download of the 280 Group Competitive Analysis toolkit and training ($99 value)

3) The 280 Group free template collection (12 templates) and white paper library (covering roadmaps, launches, role of product management versus product marketing and other topics)

4) $100 off of 280 Group training courses:  Including in-person courses as well as the Certified Product Manager Self-Study Course & Exam and Agile Self-Study course & exam

Once again, after you have registered for the conference, please email Melissa@280group.com to take advantage of this offer.

See you at ProductCamp on September 10!

 

 

Title: Digital strategy – What’s ahead and how to plan for it

Session Leader: Amanda Moore

Format: Presentation

Abstract:We are developing digital products and experiences in an age of innovation and flux. As the consumer is gaining more command over our brands and products, digital channel innovations and advancements set the stage for more integrated and immersive customer experiences. Creating product and marketing roadmaps requires an understanding of where digital is taking us and asking the question: how will consumers surprise us this year?

Session Leader Bio: Amanda Moore brings over a decade of experience in consumer research and digital channel strategy. She has helped major brands across a variety of verticals understand their target audience and launch successful digital strategies. She is passionate about demystifying the channel for business owners, building confidence and bringing collaborative teams together to develop best ideas and actionable plans.

Title: Keeping Product YOU Selling – A Workshop

Session Leader: Candi Stargell

Format: Workshop

Abstract: Keeping Product YOU Selling, centers on the Ps of Marketing to further educate professionals on how to keep themselves current, sane, and “hire” ready. Session Participants will create a workbook for themselves to keep that will outline their blueprint for success.

Session Leader Bio: Candi Stargell is a HR Professional and Writer in the Greater Atlanta area. After working for some of the biggest and best companies in the world, she has both navigated times of plenty and times of plight. Candi knows of what she speaks and advocates: a life of purpose rather than plenty.

Title:

Agile Product Management and the Product Owner Role – A Town Hall

Session Leader:

John Peltier

Format:

Town Hall

Abstract:

What organizational structure best allows product management to deliver incremental value when partnering with an agile engineering organization?   Should the product manager hunker down in the war room and be the “Product Owner” while version 1 is being built, in order to ensure the initial vision is adhered to?  Should the product manager appoint a proxy Product Owner, who can manage the backlog while the Product Manager continues to gather market data and guides the process from outside to improve the product through the cycle?  Is there an in between?

In this session, we’ll discuss the common approaches seen in today’s organizations and discuss the pros and cons of these approaches through the experiences of the group.

Session Leader Bio:

John Peltier is an experienced agile product manager with 12 years of designing, managing, testing, supporting and marketing software solutions to business problems. He has been in product management since 2007, leading agile transformation and serving in the scrum product owner role on four different teams since 2009.

John is also an accomplished social media marketer with experience building community by putting on unconferences including ProductCamps in Austin and Atlanta, and using social media to market various events.

Title:

Learn to turn your hidden mental illnesses into your next disruptive idea. Picasso, Mozart and you.

Session Leader:

Joe Kleinwaechter

Format:

Workshop

Abstract:

If you really want to generate a disruptive innovation you need to disrupt the way you generate ideas. This workshop will give you a few tools to help you generate that next big idea. Plus you may learn what mental condition that you, Picasso and Mozart have in common that you would never put on a resume but should.

Session Leader Bio:

I am currently the Director of Group Innovation for Fiserv here in Atlanta and the author of The Stranded Starfish (www.TheStrandedStarfish.com).  I was previously an Engineering Director with NCR in the systems management space and also spent 13 years leading various parts of the engineering organization at Internet Security Systems from cradle to acquisitional death.

I consider English my second language, having no first language to speak of, and think that PowerPoint was designed by an alien civilization to keep us from catching up with them.

Title: Obtaining Competitive Info: Tools and Ethics/Morals

Session Leader: Gary Palgon and John Mansour

Format: Presentation

Abstract:

In this session, we will present traditional as well as innovative ways to obtain competitive information and then discuss the ethics and morals behind using these techniques.  You will learn:

– How to download an entire website for evaluation

- How social media mining can help to find competitive information

– What SEO tools can be used to learn about your competitors keywords, ad spend, etc.

– What job boards can tell you about competitors

We will discuss (Warning, everyone may not agree :

– Should you ask customers for competitor presentations / RFP answers?

– If it’s right to act as a consult when calling into competitors

– Whether joining competitor user groups / mailing lists under an alias

Session Leader Bio:

Gary Palgon is the Vice President of Product Management and Strategy at Liaison Technologies, an Atlanta-based company focused on secure integration and data managements. Palgon has developed and marketed enterprise software for over two decades. His expertise bridges the gap between the technical and business aspects of data security and electronic commerce. Palgon is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP®) and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer & Information Sciences from the University of Florida.

John Mansour is a 20-year veteran in high technology product management, marketing and sales. Much of his success in those roles can be attributed to extensive operations management experience in retail, healthcare and software companies. John has experience directing large worldwide teams on domestic and international product and marketing initiatives as well as helping start-up companies launch new products.

Title: Sorting Things Out under Pressure

Session Leader: Rick Thomas

Format: Town Hall

Abstract: Sometimes it’s clear when a feature or task is needed, or not. More often, priorities conflict, relations are unknown, and predictions vary widely. What is your strategy for sorting out the complex constraints into a linear decision process?

Session Leader Bio: I’m the kind of person who’s good at cleaning out a packed garage because I can see the steps and priorities in the situation. It’s unlikely you’ll get me to clean out your garage, but I might help with business planning or software architecture.

Title: Who are you?  Where are you going?

Session Leader: Jon Gatrell

Format: Town Hall

Abstract: Product Management and marketing continues to evolve and represent a growing population of professionals who want to better understand their roles and career paths.  This session will look at responsibilities, roles, trends and career opportunities for Product Managers.

Session Leader Bio: Jon Gatrell brings more than a decade of experience in product management, marketing, sales and corporate development to Pragmatic Marketing. He specializes in product packaging and positioning of products for global markets.Prior to Pragmatic Marketing, Jon served in senior product management and marketing positions at a number of companies, most recently at Stonebranch and Inovis. He has successfully implemented the Pragmatic Marketing Framework at multiple companies, and integrated it into several acquisition plans. He has held leadership positions in numerous industry organizations..ʺEverything he says is dead on,ʺ ʺhas a great level of experienceʺ and ʺoffers practical advice and great ideasʺ are some of the comments from seminar attendees about Jon who has a particular focus on social media and its impact on today’s go-to-market programs that is not available in traditional market engagement methods.In addition to his role at Pragmatic Marketing, Jon writes the Spatially Relevant blog on product management and marketing best practices.

ProductCamp is independently organized by professionals in the Product Management/Marketing community and sharing experiences is what makes it a success every year. Whether you are new to the profession or a seasoned veteran, everyone adds value to this very interactive event.

If would like to lead a session but don’t have a topic in mind, consider the following ideas that have been requested:

1. Product Management 101
2. How to “manage up”
3. Good Product Requirements
4. Offshore Development
5. Transitioning to Agile
6. Utilizing Predictive Analytics for your Product
7. Effective prioritization of solutions (features) amongst multiple existing products
8. Product Manager’s Guide to Getting the Marketing Support You Need
9. Optimizing Your Product Marketing Budget: How to Create Evergreen, Future-Proof & Tablet-Ready Product Marketing Assets
10. Product Road Mapping; Managing open APIs/web services as part of a product/solution offering
11. Food/Specialty Food Product Development & Marketing

Submit your session proposal for the September 10 event!

Title:

Getting Started with Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Session Leader:

Jeffrey Costa

Abstract:

This session will give you the basics needed to begin using Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). This is a hands-on session that will require an Amazon account, a laptop, and an Internet connection. At the end of the session, you will be able to create and use EC2 instances to deploy your web application.

Leader Bio:

Jeffrey is currently a Solution Architect for Virima Technologies, focusing on data center consolidation. Jeff has a deep background in software development and system administration, and spends his free time digging deeper into DevOps. He is currently learning Ruby and Chef to make life easier for Developers and Administrators.When he is not on the computer, you can find him on the computer.

Title:

Start-Ups & Screw-Ups: How To Beat The Odds

Presenter:

Andrea Walker

Abstract:

One of every nine or ten businesses make it past the early startup phase. Out of that statistic, about less than half make it to 5 years. We are seeing more entrepreneurs enter the market and will continue to see an increase in small business. So, how can your startup beat the odds?

We’ll break down the vast and often complicating strategies, formulas and processes most entrepreneurs have to go through into simple steps and will help you answer the most important question..can I make money with this idea?

Presenter Bio:

Andrea Walker owns and operates her own consulting firm W. Social Marketing and runs business development/partner with MyMarketStreet Media. In addition to helping companies launch their online businesses through online marketing and social media, she is working to launch an online share-source for small merchant communities in Alabama. Andrea also runs the Birmingham Entrepreneur Women’s Series and is co-founder of S.H.E.-Network, which aims to educate women in business on technology tools and foster women tech start-ups.

Unlike any other event, ProductCamp is owned collectively by those in the Product Management/Marketing Community. Whether you are new to the profession or a seasoned veteran, everyone has valuable information to share or questions to pose that may ignite a lively discussion. Interactive sessions go over best, so you need not worry about preparing 45 minutes of material! For those of you that are on the fence about leading a session, consider the following benefits:

1. It’s a great way to gain exposure for your organization. This can aid your organization’s recruitment and business development efforts.
2. You can help establish yourself as a thought leader and improve your individual exposure. Professionals that are insightful with solid communication skills are attractive to potential employers.
3. Leading a discussion can assist you with solving some complex challenges. The knowledge and experiences shared by others provide valuable “take-aways” for everyone.
4. Most importantly…if you submit a session proposal you will be entered into the drawing to win an iPad! (must be present during the drawing)

Please submit your session idea topics at the link below. Good luck to everyone!

Session Proposal Form

Not everyone is ready to lead a session. We are busy collecting ideas from attendees about what kinds of sessions they’re interested, and as those suggsestions come in, we’ll be making them visible here.

Please keep an eye on this page to see the session ideas others are suggesting!

This session has been proposed for ProductCamp Atlanta 4:

Title:
Sketching for Product Managers: Design Techniques for Creating Better Products

Presenter:
Terry Allen

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
“New product creation is a major investment for companies and ensuring innovative, successful products is critical to the future of any business. This presentation details design approaches that help ensure better, creative solutions to new products. The session starts with a review of design processes and techniques for product managers, and then the hands-on sketching portion focuses on rapid idea capture and development. Finally the floor opens for discussion of audience techniques.

The session is geared for product managers that want to understand some of the thinking behind the design process and want to apply new methods to their own processes. The sketching portion focuses on software not 3D products, but the same principles can be applied. The ability to draw is not required for this session and will benefit non-designers most, but designers are welcome to come add to the discussion.”

Presenter bio:
Terry brings more than 15 years of experience in product design and marketing, focusing on the software products for Fortune 500 companies for the past decade. Currently the Director of Marketing at GeoFields, he leads all marketing activities and oversees the design and user experience across all enterprise applications. Terry holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design from Georgia Institute of Technology.

This session has been proposed for ProductCamp Atlanta 4:

Title:
Sketching for Product Managers: Design Techniques for Creating Better Products

Presenter:
Terry Allen

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
“New product creation is a major investment for companies and ensuring innovative, successful products is critical to the future of any business. This presentation details design approaches that help ensure better, creative solutions to new products. The session starts with a review of design processes and techniques for product managers, and then the hands-on sketching portion focuses on rapid idea capture and development. Finally the floor opens for discussion of audience techniques.

The session is geared for product managers that want to understand some of the thinking behind the design process and want to apply new methods to their own processes. The sketching portion focuses on software not 3D products, but the same principles can be applied. The ability to draw is not required for this session and will benefit non-designers most, but designers are welcome to come add to the discussion.”

Presenter bio:

Terry brings more than 15 years of experience in product design and marketing, focusing on the software products for Fortune 500 companies for the past decade. Currently the Director of Marketing at GeoFields, he leads all marketing activities and oversees the design and user experience across all enterprise applications. Terry holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Design from Georgia Institute of Technology.

This session has been proposed for ProductCamp Atlanta 4:

Title:
Stop Competing With Your Fellow Product Managers & Marketers

Presenter:
John Mansour

Format:
Roundtable

Abstract:
The product enhancement beasts have an appetite that can never be satisfied.  The same goes for the satisfying the appetite of sales force when it comes to marketing collateral and programs.  Hats off to zealous product managers and marketers who continue to fight for resources to feed those beasts in an effort to meet product specific goals.  But as product teams take turns winning small resource battles at the product level, the organization may be losing the overall market war.  This roundtable discussion will feature a few outside-the-box perspectives that encourage product managers and marketers to collaborate instead of compete, to meet the organization’s goals and objectives with initiatives that have more staying power and do a better job of aligning all disciplines to a common agenda.

Presenter bio:

John Mansour, founder and Managing Partner of ZIGZAG Marketing is a 20-year veteran in high technology product management, marketing and sales.  John has experience directing large worldwide teams on domestic and international product and marketing initiatives as well as helping start-up companies establish market and brand awareness.

John’s areas of expertise include market assessment, company and product strategy, product management, product marketing, product launches, product demos and sales.

This session has been proposed for ProductCamp Atlanta 4:

Title:
The Art of Continual Education for Teams using PechaKucha 20×20

Presenter:
Peter Saddington

Format:
Presentation

Abstract:
“We are expected to continue to learn and grow throughout life. It is expected and assumed from everyone on the planet. Why wouldn’t we, then, also assume that our teams need to continue to grow and learn? How do you get your teams to continually learn and grow? The PechaKucha is a useful tool that was created in Japan in 2003 and I have taken this tool and modified it for my clients and teams with success. Enabling teams to continually learn is essential for the increase of value to teams and companies alike. Try the PechaKucha with your company and team. You won’t be disappointed!

Process/Mechanics:
Introduction with several questions for audience. Introduction to theme. Introduction to topic. Example How to apply to your company. How to facilitate it. How to keep it going!

Learning outcomes:
Learn what a PechaKucha is and how it applies to teams.
Learn why PechaKucha is Agile.
Learn why PechaKucha is Lean.
See a real PechaKucha in action!
Learn how to hold a PechaKucha.
Learn how to facilitate a PechaKucha.”

Presenter bio:
“Peter Saddington is an Independent Agile Transformation Coach. He has been in Agile software development for over 10 years. Previously a software developer in the mid 90’s, he has since helped the Department of Defense (DoD), United States Airforce, Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and various private and Fortune 500 companies reach agility within their development teams.

An avid writer, he is the Executive Editor of the popular AgileScout.com news blog with reaches thousands of viewers per day all over the world. He is also the author of the Scrum Pocket Guide book.

www.agilescout.com
www.scrumpocketguide.com”

This session has been proposed for ProductCamp Atlanta 4:

Title:
Powerpoint Karaoke

Presenter:
Jason Brett

Format:
Workshop

Abstract:
How well can you think (and present) on your feet? Have you ever been handed a powerpoint deck created by someone else and asked to present it on very short notice? If it hasn’t happened yet, it probably will!

You can be great at feature prioritization, writing business cases and win-loss analysis, but if you can speak effectively on a moment’s notice, you will excel no matter what you do. We have 100 slides. You’ve probably never seen any of them. Come take the mic for 2 minutes and 30 seconds and tell us what they mean! Want to just watch? Come on!

It’s fun, it’s fast, it’s a little (or a lot) silly, and you can justify it as professional enrichment if you try just a little!”

Presenter bio:
“Jason is Senior Product Manager at Silverpop Systems, founder of ProductCamp Atlanta and a one-man buzzword bingo game.

He should write more on his blog because he has lots of important things to say, but hopes you’ll just walk up and ask him to tell you instead.”