ProductCamp Atlanta 8 was held on October 18th and had all of its usual ingredients: awesome sessions, easy and casual networking, intra-company learning, and knowledge sharing with some added buzz from a crowd larger than ever and seriously Sublime Donuts.
The crowd had many of the regulars, but also had new faces, many from industries beyond software. There were teams from larger companies like Home Depot, IBM, Silverpop along with startups from ATV or ATDC and even Georgia Tech students. The topics of discussion ranged newly minted ideas and trends to battle hardened methodologies. It’s the energy of this intermingling of ideas, frameworks, people and realities that ProductCamp brings every year to the Atlanta product management, UX, and product marketing communities.
For the sessions (voted on by the attendees) had the usual suspects – sessions on customer experience, agile, product design, and marketing but also some newer ideas such as linking sales and customer discovery and using improv in business. Here are some top moments – Add yours!
- Walking into the un-conference’ vibe at 7:30 am and getting pulled into an ever growing volunteer group, packing bags, stapling session proposals and assembling sign in paraphernalia.
- Seeing the filled up auditorium for the kickoff and soaking in the energy and expectation of some great sessions and networking
- Listening to the (over 40) session proposals– from executives at large companies and entrepreneurs
- Using text voting and feeling like I am part of American Idol
- Seeing many companies from around Atlanta pitch at least 12 job opportunities for the community and feeling that the economy is definitely on the way up
- Listening (and joining in) to some great sessions on a variety of topics, and being able to choose how to mix up my day on the fly – doing a workshop, then a townhall, then listening in on a presentation.
- Walking off with tools that can be used the next day at work such as a 60 second business case framework or customer discovery worksheets.
- Learning after the first Kindle Fire giveaway, that there was a second
- And I am sure, for many, winding down an Ri Ra Irish Pub
So how was your experience? Did you attend? Let us know.
Oh and one more thing……it was all free.
