Product Camp Wrap Up

What an incredible event! I have been in product management for a long time and it still amazes me when I get in a room of product managers and we can all speak the same language. At Saturday’s ProductCamp, many of the product managers were from industries that fit in Austin, tech, software, hardware and some Internet. I was the odd man out with my background in health care product management…coming late to the game of things like “User Experience” and things like “release dates.”

There were over 100 people when we started the day and to my surprise many stayed until the bitter end…the bitter end being my presentation on navigating the political minefields of product management. Perhaps my age showed when I saw the shocked faces at the mere suggestion the product management is a “political minefield.”

I enjoyed the round table discussion on sales and it got heated! Product managers and sales have a love/hate relationship and it was great to talk through those relationships that are the same no matter what industry you’ve chosen.

The session on startups was overflowing…not a surprise. Austin Ventures (the venture capital group in Austin) was one of the sponsors and Austin has rebounded from the tech bust of the ’90’s and is a hotbed for new ventures once again.

Many other folks blogged about the event and the twitter page was a great source of what was happening during the day. I will definitely go to the next one. The other attendees did seem to enjoy my last presentation on “Navigating the Political Minefields of Product Management” which I will post here as a video along with my “Time Management for Product Managers” presentation.

A special thanks to Paul Young and John Milburn for organizing the event. I can’t wait for the next one.

And for my fellow “participants” I hop you’ll join me on LinkedIn!
My presentations as videos are below. I used authorStream to make them.
Time Management for Product Managers

Navigating the Political Minefields of Product Management