Thoughts On ProductCamp Atlanta
I’d definitely call ProductCamp Atlanta a success. Colleagues, friends and sponsors have been asking for a post-mortem or a wrap-up post, and now that I’ve had about a week to let it all gel, here it is. I’ve also got some survey results that I’ll post in a few more days. (If you registered for ProductCamp, and haven’t taken the survey yet, please do so, even if you didn’t attend!)What Happened?
Credit where credit is due: Stewart Rogers of Ryma Technology Solutions is the guy who gave me just the right nudge to quit asking when somebody was going to do a ProductCamp in Atlanta and actually do it. A conversation with Paul Young, the founder of ProductCamp Austin convinced me that it would be easy to pull together in 6 weeks to 2 months. Paul was right, but who wants easy? We did it in about 5 weeks. Thank God for volunteers.
On the day of ProductCamp over 180 participants showed up. After about 40 pitches and 5 minutes of frantic voting, the session crew assigned 24 timeslots and rooms to session leaders. At the end of the day at least 125 had stuck around for all of the sessions. I picked up a stack of 70 onsite surveys, and 68 of those respondents said they would be back next time.
What Worked?
Overall, the event went very smoothly. The GTRI Conference Center was a fantastic venue. We were so fortunate to have Georgia Tech Research Institute sponsor and provide this excellent space.
Attendance was high, and the sessions were great. I have heard one rave after another about the wide variety of sessions and the quality of each of the presentations and roundtable discussions. Participants haven’t been able to easily select a favorite.
I sent out a call for volunteers a couple of days in advance. I wanted to make sure that we had at least 10 people on hand to help out at the beginning of the day. I think there were about 25 volunteers on site when I arrived at 7:55 AM, and more kept coming in. Thank you to everyone who came out to help.
Jason’s Deli provided catering for both breakfast and box lunches, and that was an excellent choice. The food was reasonably priced, conveniently packaged, delivered and set up for us.
But here’s the big thing: A new product management community surfaced in Atlanta. There were scores of products people who got a real sense that we are not alone. Steven Newman commented on his blog:
“The best part to me was that you got to hear perspectives from Product Managers that came from all different types of markets and arenas. I have a broad background of industry experience, but to hear points from the auto industry, media, environmental, and others really was interesting. They have the same basic big picture challenges to solve (how to build a product someone wants to buy), but they are immersed in very different constraints in how to reach that goal.”
That statement is exciting; because it was one of the key results we were hoping for! It is my firm conviction that some of the greatest innovations in products come when we look at our portfolios from a completely new perspective. Hopefully the conversations at ProductCamp Atlanta helped a few folks to do just that.
What Needs Work?
The event went so smoothly and the surveys have been pretty positive as well. There have been a couple of recurring themes that present some real opportunities for improvement. They both revolve around session scheduling.
This time, we used 8 ½ X 11 sheets of paper with session titles and authors, which were then taped to a larger piece of poster paper so that voters could easily fit their votes onto popular sessions. Other ProductCamps have used 3 X 5 index cards instead, which are then taped to larger sheets of paper. After voting, the volunteers tally the votes under each card and write the number on the card itself. We can then pull the small cards and lay them out very quickly for scheduling. It should make scheduling much faster (and kill fewer trees).
At about 11 PM the night before ProductCamp my wife convinced me to compile a list of all the pre-submitted sessions. The idea was that this would give the participants a way to easily keep track of the sessions they want to see (and vote for). That turned out to be a big hit. So big that the participants seem to have assumed it was part of the plan all along! The suggestion I have received repeatedly (and that I agree with) is to simply number the list of sessions, so that each session leader can direct voters to their session more easily.
There are quite a few other good suggestions and some minor tweaks we’ll make for next time, but these seem to be the big two. And that’s not bad.
What’s Next?
Since I announced ProductCamp back in April, people who couldn’t attend have been asking if we’ll be doing another one. Since June 6th, participants and folks who found out about ProductCamp too late have been asking the same question. The answer is absolutely yes. I’ve already started gathering a mailing list of prospective volunteers, session leaders and sponsors. If you’d like to throw your name in, then by all means click here and sign up.
The date isn’t set yet. My original idea was to do it in the fall, but based on event scheduling, sponsors’ schedules and Georgia Tech home games, we may make it January or February. Make sure you are following @pcampatl on twitter or subscribed to the ProductCamp General Mailing List to get the announcements!
In the mean time, a few people have asked for some smaller roundtable discussions and events. I may put together a few small events here and there if demand supports it. Of course, the TAG Product Management Society, Georgia PDMA(the calendar says “no”, but I know better!) and Institute for Enterprise Innovation all have great programs as well, so we’ll see.
Special Thanks
Okay I’ve got to thank a few folks. ProductCamp would not have been possible without the generous support of GTRI, ZIGZAG Marketing, Pragmatic Marketing, Sequent Learning Networks, AIPMM, Georgia Center of Innovation for Life Sciences, Brainshark.com, BuildaSign.com and TAG.
And the volunteers; there are far too many volunteers to name everyone, but I want to throw some thanks out to a few who really rose above and beyond: John Mansour, Brandy Nagel, Stacey Helenbrook and Doug Spears. And extra special thanks to Michael Mealling who helped coordinate the volunteers, plug the holes in the plan, and allowed me to focus on hosting the event.
Future Posts
This post is pretty long, so I cut some stuff out. Yeah. Really.
In a few days, I’ll post the results of the surveys for those who are interested. I’ll also do a little post with some extraneous thoughts of interest to anyone thinking about hosting an unconference like ProductCamp or BarCamp. So check back in a few days or subscribe to the RSS feed. I promise the others won’t be this long.
Probably.
