Don’t ban yourself. That doesn’t help anyone. As a thought leader in the product management community, you help everyone when you present and share what you know about the profession. Your blog is one of the top ones in our space, and you have an obligation to share what you know.

Would it be possible to share the iphone app with other ProductCamp organizers? We’re holding our next event at the end of May and having a similar app for our event would be great.

I support Paul in having given his “pitch” (I’m in both groups 2 & 3), and I also support you in calling him out on it. I also will support/tolerate Paul not giving a presentation for a while. I’m thrilled with the discussion that’s happening now – certain to make future product camps better.

Thanks to everyone who organizes, presents, and attends the product camps! Since I’m (temporarily) travelling full time, they are the number 1 way I can stay tapped into “my” community back home in Austin.

@sehlhorst on Twitter – my #2 way to stay connected with all of you.

The collective mind at ProductCamp can surely come up with a more creative and imaginative punishment than any of these that I have suggested. I have some more thoughts on what people learned at ProductCamp in an article I just submitted to the http://examiner.com/austin

http://www.examiner.com/x-44059-Austin-Web-Development-Examiner~y2010m4d13-What-did-you-learn-at-Austin-ProductCamp

I’m the one who made the comment during your session. Though I understood where you were going with the discussion, I felt strongly that I needed to speak up. I did struggle with deciding if I should wait and tell you in person. I hope I made the best decision.

Integrity is important for any business to be sustainable, so it’s a lesson for each one of us to walk our talk, and in the process we discover new things about ourselves.

I do want to say that I think you are being too hard on yourself. Life should be fun! If I can do anything to help, please let me know.

(I didn’t want to hurt your feelings that day, I just wanted you to follow what you told everyone that morning in keeping with the integrity of the conference.)

Love and Light,

Anne

That said, I don’t see that this “ban” should stop you from helping the ProductCamp efforts. Of course you knew that by looking in the mirror and taking the action you did. It is yet another example for others to live up to.

Thanks for the guidance!
Larry
@lmckeogh

You took this much further than I would have, but I think that this is a good statement of your integrity and how much you value the concept of ProductCamp. It is good to stick by the rules, and I think that it is an important rule that “ProductCamp sessions are NOT for selling your product, your service, or you (e.g. consultants and recruiters).”

I really enjoyed your session, and I thought it was a great opportunity to participate in a product launch up close – to see it first hand. I do agree with you that it was a pitch, but it wasn’t the kind of pitch that made me feel taken advantage of or uncomfortable. However, there was obviously at least one person in the room that as noticably affected by it.

The concept of the 2-foot rule is great, but if presenters bend the rules and start including product pitches along with excellent content then it makes it hard to exercise the 2-foot rule. I would probably endure a 5-minute pitch if the rest of the content was really valuable. However, this detracts from the experience of ProductCamp overall and changes the spirit of the event.

Rather than hosting product launches at ProductCamp, which will inherently be a pitch, it seems like there are other alternatives that could work within the rules:
- a case study on how to launch a new product
- an interactive workshop to develop a launch plan
- a panel discussion about strategic choices that were made

Mike
@Mike Boudreaux

Don’t be quite so harsh. You should consider asking the offended person for a fair penalty. One year of not presenting when people can vote with their feet sounds harsh. Maybe you should have to go to 3 of the sessions that get the least votes to show support? Austin does have nice enough weather for a dunk tank; each Camp could have 5 people voted to sit in the tank? You get the first 3 slots ;)

Seriously, we owe you a lot for your support of PCA and Camps nationwide. Reconsider and make the punishment fit the crime. It also provides you the credibility to enforce that type of punishment of anybody else that the community believes does a pitch versus presentation.

If you open up to pitches than you can get into the whole mess of sponsorships; how do you limit them; etc… Maybe more than you want for such an already great event.