The return of Product Camp Austin

When I found out that Product Camp Austin Winter 09 was on the calendar, I immediately sent a note to the organizer, Paul Young, asking for the details. Take the day off for this event. This is going to be a good one.

Lynn Bender: The first Product Camp Austin was a huge success. You had a good crowd, and folks came away raving about how useful the event was. Given the word of mouth, I expect that you are going to have a bigger crowd for Product Camp Austin Winter 09. Will the venue be larger? Do you anticipate having to cap attendance?

Paul Young: We had a great time with the first ProductCamp. Over 130 people signed up and about 90 came back in June. We do expect a larger crowd for ProductCamp Winter, and are planning on about 150 people from Austin's marketing and product management community showing up! We were able to work with the University of Texas and get a great venue at the College of Communications, in the TV production studios - we'll have plenty of room for everyone and don't expect to have to cap participation.

Lynn: What things did you learn the first event that you will implement or change for PCA 2?

Paul: We learned a lot about the logistics of running a barcamp-like event for marketing people. 99% of the people that came to ProductCamp the first time had never had an experience like we provided, so it was new and fresh for everyone - that meant we made up a lot of what we did on-the-fly. Now we know where we need help in planning, volunteering, marketing, and so on. Thankfully, this time I had a very strong team step up to help with the planning and execution.

The first PCA was spread by word-of-mouth and a few blogs. After seeing how much our ProductCampers used social networking, this time we are heavily promoting on Facebook, Twitter, via our great sponsors, as well as word-of-mouth.

The biggest lesson learned was what worked and what didn't work for our participants. Because ProductCamp attracts smart, driven people in marketing and product management, there was a strong apetite for discussion and debate over slideware and presentations. So this time we are going to skew the sessions more strongly in favor of encouraging that kind of interaction. Since ProductCamp is completely participant driven, this is a great way for people to step up and be part of the PCA process - and we've seen a lot of validation, as of today there are about 80 people registered for PCA Winter with very little marketing.

Lynn: While the session topics at the first Product Camp Austin covered the spectrum of product management, they remained pretty much within the domain of product management. Even the sessions on usability and public relations were PM centric. Did you have to exercise any executive authority to reign the topics in?

Paul: Early on, I made the decision not to influence the sessions offered or chosen. Part of this was pragmatic - we needed sessions - and part of this was dogmatic - the spirit of ProductCamp is bottoms-up, not top-down driven. Product managers also made up the majority of the participants at the first PCA, so they offered sessions relevant to their peers. One suprise was that ProductCamp attracted such a diverse crowd outside of product management - we had marketers, operations, developers, lawyers, consultants, startup generalists, and so on.

I believe that at PCA Winter we will get a more diverse set of sessions catering to a wider audience. ProductCamp is committed to its core of marketing and product management, but we welcome anyone, and anyone is welcome to offer a session. However it is always up to the participants to choose which sessions they attend. For PCA Winter, Colleen Heubaum from Winnow Consulting has stepped up as our "Sessions Leader." She is focused on recruiting sessions and making them successful. She also has some great ideas we gathered from last time for some new kinds of sessions beyond the presentation/discussion and roundtable formats we used in June.

Lynn:The success of this first event shows that there is a huge demand for product management knowledge. Other than events like these, where can individuals go to specifically learn about product management? Are there degree programs? What did folks do before product camp Austin?

Paul: Product Management is still relatively new as a discipline for most companies. Technology and Biotech have adopted PM the most quickly, and there are vendors who support growing PM and Product Marketing (PMM). One of the oldest is a ProductCamp sponsor, Pragmatic Marketing. They offer an extensive training program for product managers, and have a certification program as well. Austin is also home to the Austin PMM forum, a user group for product management and marketing that helps ProductCamp with publicity and participants. Finally, people who are interested in product management have lots of blog options to read, and several are based in Austin, such as Scott Sehlhorst's Tyner Blain, Roger Cauvin, and my own Product Beautiful.

Lynn:: Barcamp was loosely based on foocamp, which was a designed to be a small somewhat intimate event.. How closely do you follow the original barcamp model? It seems like many *camp type events are actually a hybrid of a barcamp and a traditional conference? Do you think that there is an upper attendance limit beyond which the barcamp model doesn't scale?

Paul: The great thing about *camps is that they are very flexible. If you ask 10 people to describe them you'll probably get 10 different answers. Rather than focus on trying to replicate the exact or "right" experience from barcamp, we've tried to create a unique event in ProductCamp that works for our participants. We borrowed heavily from barcamp's central ideas such as "allow the event to self-organize," "impose as little structure as possible," "no 'attendees' only 'participants,'" "discussion and debate = good," and so on. Some things worked well, other areas we are improving for this round.

I'm honestly not sure what an original barcamper or foocamper would have to say about ProductCamp - they might be horrified that their concept had been adopted/co-opted by the darkside a.k.a. marketing. Or maybe they would think it was cool - either way, 100% of the ProductCampers from the first event said that they got value and would come again in our post-camp survey, so I'm very happy with the direction we've chosen.

There may be an upper limit on participants, but we're nowhere near hitting it in my opinion. Other barcamps have had hundreds or thousands of participants and we're nowhere near those kinds of numbers. The key will be retaining the spirit of the event, and that means small sessions with good debate, smart people, and relevant topics.

Lynn:: What kind of sponsorship opportunities will you have for PCA2?

Paul: We have several sponsorship options available for ProductCamp. This was one key lesson learned from the first event, we've split our levels of sponsorship available to create options at all levels.

When you think about an event with the quality and credibility of ProductCamp, it's pretty astounding that we're going to host 150+ people for a day, feed them, give them some goodies, amazing networking, super-relevant topics and discussion, at an event that is free to them - all for less than $10K total. Our sponsors love ProductCamp because everyone who comes does so because they really want to be there. No one participates to check a box or burn up budget - everyone is engaged and excited.

ProductCamp Winter has six sponsors already, and more are welcome. Potential sponsors can contact our budget and sponsorship lead, Bertrand Hazard for more info.

Lynn: What else do GeekAustin readers to know about PCA2?

Paul:: Yes.

* Anyone can register for ProductCamp - and anyone can offer a session.
* ProductCamp isn't just for Austinites - last time we had participants from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas as well!
* All the talking points about ProductCamp being an opportunity to teach, learn, and network are true, but the #1 thing I want people to know about PCA is that it is fun. People don't get out of bed at 8 AM on a Saturday for an optional event that they aren't excited about. That excitement is infectious and when you come you will be a ProductCamp convert too :)
* I have a story up detailing the ProductCamp experience.

Lynn: Paul, thanks for the time. I'll be there, but hope to run into you sooner.