SESSION PROPOSAL: The Princess Bride’s 'Guide to Product Management'

‘You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means’…Sound familiar? 

Not just a quote from, what we postulate, is one of the greatest movies of all time, but also a poignant statement of a common everyday occurrence when relaying requirements, acceptance criteria, and even your product vision amongst members of the team. One say, almost as dangerous as…betting against a Sicilian when death is on the line?

Join us for an active, and undoubtedly lively, discussion of how this can quickly lead us to near, if not complete, destruction – and learn tips, tricks, and best practices for how we can ensure that ‘these words’ mean the same to everyone on the team and that we have a shared understanding of the goal and desired outcomes.

Presenter Bio: Hali brings more than 16 years of experience in the financial services industry and software product management to her role in managing Sales tools for NCR Global Sales Operations. Passionate about the role of product management in the software development process, the evolution of payments, and overall making the world a better place, she is an Accredited ACH Professional as well as being a Certified Product Manager and has served on a number of industry work groups, councils and steering committees, in addition to helping organize ProductCamp Atlanta the last several years. Outside of all things product management, Hali's passions run the gamut from serving her community as a Skilled Supervisor for Atlanta Habitat for Humanity to dreams of being a gearhead, and – in her own words – a love of random furry creatures. 

SESSION PROPOSAL: How to Fix a Broken Product Before They Fire You!

So you've either created or inherited a product that isn't working. The users hate it, the company is angry and "they" are thinking of dropping the product altogether. You're the Product Manager, so it's your fault and/or it's your job to fix it.

This session will go over a turnaround success story and isolate the key factors that bought the time and the resources--as well as the executive backing--to turn the product around. Participants will be asked to contribute additional ideas and work through existing problems they are having.

Presenter Bio: Allen has over 15 years of Product Management experience; primarily at Healthcare companies across Atlanta. He has worked for startups and large companies with success primarily at small to mid-sized companies. He has an MBA from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and is a Navy veteran.

SESSION PROPOSAL: Actions Speak Louder than Words - Gathering Voice of the Customer Through Feedback and Behavior

Customer feedback is critical to improve your product experience, so how do you combine VoC with behavioral data for a winning strategy?

Presenter Bio: Aaron Aycock is the founder and Chief Product Officer at UserIQ, which was named one of Georgia’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies. Aaron loves building new technologies that combine analytics and automation to improve the customer experience. Prior to UserIQ, Aaron was the VP of IT and Application Development for TRX, which was acquired by Concur. Aaron holds a BS in Information Systems from USF and an MBA from Duke University.

SESSION PROPOSAL: The Product Manager's First 90 Days...

Taking on a new #prodmgmt role? How can you apply Watkins' "The First 90 Days" to create momentum for success?

Presenter Bio: Jason Brett is a Offering Management Director for IBM Watson Marketing's Personalized Marketing SaaS portfolio where he focuses on bringing revolutionary marketing technology products to the world. He has over 2 decades of experience in marketing technology and is a leader in product management with a passion for marketing innovation. Prior to joining IBM via the Silverpop acquisition, Jason served as a product manager for AT&T and was the founder of SiteTamer, an early SaaS web content management and email management startup. He currently serves on the Product Management Society board for the Technology Association of Georgia, is the founder of ProductCamp Atlanta and is President and Chairman of Play Me Again Pianos, a Georgia non-profit charity. Jason is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

SESSION PROPOSAL: The Tao of Product Management

Together in this workshop, we'll crowdsource great product management and career advice to begin building a compendium of great concepts for our community.

Presenter Bio: Jason Brett is the Offering Management Director for IBM Watson Marketing's Personalized Marketing SaaS portfolio where he focuses on bringing revolutionary marketing technology products to market. He has over 2 decades of experience in marketing technology and is a leader in product management with a passion for marketing innovation. Prior to joining IBM via the Silverpop acquisition, Jason served as a product manager for AT&T and was the founder of SiteTamer, an early SaaS web content management and email management startup. He currently serves on the Product Management Society board for the Technology Association of Georgia, is the founder of ProductCamp Atlanta and is President and Chairman of Play Me Again Pianos, a Georgia non-profit charity. Jason is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

SESSION PROPOSAL: Lean Design Thinking

How are modern teams making software today? In this session we'll take at how one team leveraged modern product practices such as lean and design thinking to "discover" the right things to build for their customers.

Presenter Bio: Alex is currently a product manager at Pivotal Labs where he helps startups and enterprises build valuable products through Lean, Agile, and XP practices with balanced, collaborative teams. He also helps organize ProductCamp Atlanta to help educate and bring together the Atlanta product community. In the past, he's worked at companies that range in size from startups to IBM.

SESSION PROPOSAL: The 11.5 Videos Every Product Must Have To Be Successful!

With YouTube being the second largest search engine, recent research shows that 71% of marketers say video converts more customers than any other marketing content or materials. Cisco notes that by 2019 82% of all Internet traffic will be video. Video has the capacity to invoke more emotions online than a static list of features and benefits or a downloadable PDF brochure. 

Since videos have been proven to demand more consumer attention than any other medium, how you use video to set your product apart from the competition is paramount. This workshop is designed to give you a solid strategy for adding video to your product collateral mix and a roadmap to follow to put your product in demand!

Mark will also give you a 80+ page training guide, 100% free, just for attending the workshop filled with information and resources to build your own video marketing program around your product or service starting Monday morning after ProductCamp! Please note that there will be a very limited number of training guides available and will only be available to those that attend the workshop on a first come bases!!

Presenter Bio: For over 35+ years Mark has been labeled as a maverick right from the start of his professional sales and marketing career because he refuses to accept the marketing status quo! He has a long career of stirring the pot, questioning why, tipping over sacred cows and also a passion for finding unique uses of today's modern technology to get his clients voice into the minds of potential customers. With over 24+ years in Internet marketing his simple, logical, diverse and down to earth approach to marketing will challenge your thinking way beyond the box.

SESSION PROPOSAL: Does Your Product Speak Prospect?

Is your product messaging creating new customers? Nobody cares about your product's features and benefits. Prospective customers want to know, "What are you going to do to solve my problem?" and "What's in it for me?" This workshop gives you a new marketing language to effectively communicate your product's message in terms customers can understand.

Presenter Bio: For over 35+ years Mark has been labeled as a maverick right from the start of his professional sales and marketing career because he refuses to accept the marketing status SN!l· He has had a long career of stirring the pot, questioning while tipping over sacred cows and demonstrating a passion for finding unique uses of today's modern technology to get his clients voice into the minds of potential customers. With over 24+ years in Internet marketing his simple, logical, diverse and down to earth approach to marketing will challenge your thinking way beyond the box.

SESSION PROPOSAL: Product-Market Fit Job Applications

Veteran creative/ux/product-focused recruiter, Sherra Bell will share tips and tricks for positioning you as a perfect fit for your next dream job. Sample job descriptions will be provided or, feel free to bring your own! Companies that are hiring and want to discuss having your job description(s) provided to potential candidates as part of the workshop can contact Sherra in advance of the session at sherra@ck-who.com

Presenter Bio: Sherra Bell has been recruiting in Atlanta for 20 years. She has her BFA from Auburn University and a Masters in diversity studies from Iliff School of Theology in Denver. In 2015, she completed the 10-week Product Management program at General Assembly taught by Chidi Afulezi. In addition to working with companies on retainer to source top talent, Sherra coaches individuals through career transitions from first jobs to last. Additionally, she helps individuals and small business owners develop their prospect lists, customer discovery and promotion strategies.

SESSION PROPOSAL: When Wonder Woman Leads...

Whether it's directing off-shore teams, presenting to executives or managing sprints, women face certain biases and challenges - even in environments that value their contribution. They also unintentionally say and do things that undermine their own authority. Without blame or shame, let's gather for an open conversation about how female product managers differ from male counterparts and what challenges and opportunities come with leading 'like Wonder Woman'.

Presenter Bio: Sherra Bell has been holding space for a few weeks to encourage female presenters preparing for Product Camp 2017. The "Wonder Women of Product Camp" moniker started tongue in cheek, until her appreciation of Wonder Woman's leadership traits grew from deeper exploration. A 20-year veteran recruiter driven to level playing fields for candidates, Sherra advocates for diversity in the workplace, especially at management and executive levels and particularly for women. College friends nicknamed her "She-Ra, Princess of Power" so she feels a kinship with Wonder Woman and all women who stand in their power.

SESSION PROPOSAL: Tell me about a time when...

A Town Hall-styled session where we learn from each other! I'll throw out prompts and ask attendees to tell stories from their experience. We all profit.

Presenter Bio: Peter recently joined NCR as a product management director responsible for next generation banking solutions. Previously, Peter led products at Internet Security Systems and IBM. Additionally, he is currently participating in the Flashpoint startup engineering program Georgia Tech.

SESSION PROPOSAL: You control your Product career, no one else does!

Increase your value as Product Manager by discovering great things to do, even if no one is asking you to do them! 

This interactive Workshop is about sharing our collective experiences in taking charge of our careers, while doing what's best for the company.

Presenter Bio: Werner Wingen began his career in Product Management at ADP in the late 1980's and has been directing Product teams in several companies, firms ranging from $2 Million in Revenue to $ Billions. Werner is proud to be a holistic Product Manager, with deep experience in all aspects, ranging from Target Market Research to Agile Development and Launch Planning, and everything else in-between. Werner's SME areas are Financial Services, Talent Management, and Compliance. What Werner enjoys most is mentoring individuals in the finer points of Product Management. He serves on the Board of Talegent and his day-job is with SAI Global (Product Manager for Knowledge and Assurance Portfolios).

SESSION PROPOSAL: Bitter to Better: Harnessing Pessimism to Improve Products and Lives

What if our belief that optimism is vital for success while pessimism is damaging were wrong? In this surprisingly sunny session, I will cover the science behind how pessimism actually can benefit us, and how I learned to apply it to achieve better products, happier teams, and more satisfied customers. 

This combined talk and group discussion will include summaries of studies that show the benefits of practicing pessimism, as well as practical examples showing how to use strategic doses of pessimism, without driving your optimist teammates crazy. 

Some of the topics covered in these examples include:
- Providing a counter-balance to team over-optimism that leads to avoidable pitfalls in development.
- Catching instances of over-promising in sprints and projects before they happen, without being seen as ‘the negative voice in the room’. 
- Say this instead of that - phrases for saying ‘no’ and providing a voice of realism to help guide your team.
- Earning more trust from your team members when bad news has to be given or things go wrong.

Presenter Bio: Caitlin is an agile project manager working who is fascinated by how things fit together. Her focus is working with distributed and local teams building software products across a range of industries, for clients ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 50. She is especially interested in helping the different pieces of organizations work better together by applying agile lessons to company operations. 

Forever fascinated with the way great products, agile development, and random nerdy topics interact, she’ll be speaking at Agile Cambridge 2017 this fall on how neuroscience and pessimism can help us work better together, and build better products.

SESSION PROPOSAL: A Millennial's Approach to Better Meetings

Meetings suck. They take too long, are too frequent, and often aren’t that productive. What if we could make them more effective and enjoyable by learning from an unexpected source? In this practical and interactive workshop, we’ll look at the key traits of Millennials and how they can teach us specific techniques for running meetings that leave you and your teams feeling happy and productive. We’ll apply these techniques together to common meeting scenarios to see them in practice. We'll share tips and tricks we have found that make meetings with our teams and/or customers more productive.

Presenter Bio: Caitlin is an agile project manager working who is fascinated by how things fit together. Her focus is working with distributed and local teams building software products across a range of industries, for clients ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 50. She is especially interested in helping the different pieces of organizations work better together by applying agile lessons to company operations. Forever fascinated with the ways great products, agile development, and random nerdy topics interact, she’ll be speaking at Agile Cambridge 2017 this fall on how neuroscience and pessimism can help us work better together, and build better products.

SESSION PROPOSAL: Visual Storytelling on Steroids!

Description: Which 3D-VR-360º-Google Street View for Business solutions are you using or have questions about? Share your expertise in this Town Hall session, or ask questions about cameras, platforms and related solutions.

Presenter Bio: Dan Smigrod is the Founder of a Community of 10,000 3D-VR-360º-Google Street View Photographers around the globe as well as the Organizer of the Atlanta Mixed Reality Meetup. His Company, 'We Get Around Atlanta', creates 3D-VR-360º-Google Street View for residential and commercial real estate, hotels and TV/entertainment.