ProductCamp NYC 2010

Published on December 6th, 2010 by Natasha McEachron

On November 6, 2010, I attended ProductCamp NYC 2010 at Microsoft’s New York Office. ProductCamps (aka unconferences) are held in cities around the world and provide Product Managers, Developers, and Marketers with an opportunity to network and discuss industry topics without the confines of typical conferences. The event was hosted by The New York Product Management Association and The Product Development and Management Association (NY Metro Chapter).

There were many interesting sessions but I selected the sessions which most closely related to marketing.The day consisted of an introductory session,

Keynote Speech – Jeff Stewart
+ Great project managers are great entrepreneurs and visionaries
– Lack of data upfront is not necessarily a bad thing
– Gather whatever data is available
– Create and deliver product
– Gather research from the market
+ Fine tune project/ product and introduce improvements
+ Don’t be afraid to take risks and learn from failures

Stop Telling Prospects Why You Are Exactly Like Your Competition – Gerry Lantz
Development workshop focused on using brand audit exercises to identify what a brand “is” / “means” and develop a brand story that describes the essence of what sets a company’s products or services apart from competitors in efforts to form a meaningful connection with customers.

Social Media Lunch Discussion – Vidar Brekke
Open Discussion about social media especially Facebook and the social media graphs.
+ The Social Graph: Knowledge of your social network contacts and their social network contacts
+ The Open Graph: Radical social media network developed by Facebook which gathers knowledge of your likes across the web

An Engaging Customer Experience – Donna Cholpak
Presentation about how adding consideration of processes and people to the 4P’s of Marketing (product, promotion, placement, and price) could result in achieving positive customer engagement.

The unconference ended with raffle prize giveaways and an after-party at City 55 which offered an opportunity for more in-depth conversations.

Additional information about ProductCamps can be found on the Pragmatic Marketing website.