It’s ProductCamp Season!

As summer draws to a close, ProductCamp season is upon us again.  There are a dozen ProductCamps scheduled between August 1st and the end of the year, starting with ProductCamp Austin this weekend on August 6th.  It’s been a big year for ProductCamps around the world: the global product management community has created camps in dozens of cities, at least seven countries, and three continents!  We should all be proud of what we’ve created, and how much better connected the product management world is today than it was just a few years ago.  If you’ve been a ProductCamp participant, bravo.

Yet, for as far as we’ve come, we still have a long way to go.  I see the next hurdle for the community as sustaining the initial spark that got everyone excited.  In Austin, as I’ve transitioned out of leadership of the team, we’ve put in place a non-profit organization with an elected board of directors.  That team is doing an excellent job.  In other locales, such as Silicon Valley and Atlanta, I know the original organizers have also or are in the process of stepping aside for the next generation of leaders.  ProductCamp is too important to become a cult-of-personality around a few people in any given city.  For it to take the next step, it must become a movement, one that everyone in the product management and marketing community feels a part of and vested in its success.

Beyond the organizing aspect, other aspects of sustainability include thought leaders and content capture.   Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to coax new presenters out of the woodwork.  Presenting in front of your peers is daunting, and as someone who makes his living from presenting I understand the stress involved.  But we can’t let it become an excuse, because everyone is stressed and everyone is busy.  The danger is that ProductCamp will start to stratify into the “presenters” and the “watchers.”  One of the core tennants of ProductCamp is that there are no passive attendees, only active participants.  There are lots of ways to participate beyond presenting, however getting new presenters is always a challenge.  I challenge you, the reader: make it a goal to present at your next local ProductCamp.  It doesn’t have to be a high stress event, it can be fun – it can even be a game!  Ping me if you want some ideas.

ProductCamps are also creating a wealth of knowledge.  Unfortunately, that knowledge dissipates at the end of each camp.  Most camp are capturing presenter’s slides for SlideShare, but slides without the voice-over is a poor substitute.  We need a video archive.  What’s more, we need a unified video archive across all camps that makes it easy to search and reference topics.  How great would it be to find a presentation by an expert in another city on a topic that you need to know about.  Call it a Kahn Academy for product management.  I am sure that if we had enough interested parties to set it up, that we could find a way to make it happen.  Who is with me?

ProductCamp as a concept has done remarkably well at defining a brand for itself, by staying simple.  I am often asked by potential camp organizers about what make a ProductCamp “work.”  On the other hand, I’ve been contacted by companies wanting to put on for-profit “ProductCamps” in the past, which is all wrong.  For this reason, I believe it is important to lay down some markers about what ProductCamp is and is not.  To my knowledge, nearly every ProductCamp sticks to these guidelines:

1. ProductCamp is free for participants (or as close to free as possible), the only cost is your participation.
2. ProductCamp is by and for its participants, the product marketing and management community and is open to all.
3. ProductCamp has no passive attendees, only active participants.
4. ProductCamp is a no-pitch zone.
5. ProductCamp participants drive the schedule of the day, and determine through their votes what they want to hear.
6. ProductCamp does not censor or edit presenters’ presentations (other than to enforce no-pitch rules).
7. ProductCamp does not claim intellectual property rights on its presenters’ presentations or sessions.
8. ProductCamp is an all volunteer organization and not run for profit.
9. ProductCamp is independent of any vendor and is neutral with regard to processes and methodologies.
10. ProductCamp protects its participants privacy and does not sell, rent, or give away personally identifiable information to 3rd parties.

These 10 guidelines seem like common sense to me and follow what we’ve already been doing.  Of course, if you are planning a ProductCamp, what makes it great is that you can mix things up for your locale.  No one can force anyone to do something one way or the other, and experimentation is a good thing.  Let’s just strive to keep the ProductCamp brand strong and simple, so that when participants come to a camp, they know what they are in for!

You can always see the full list of upcoming ProductCamps at productcamp.org.  If you are a ProductCamp organizer (or want to be one), email me and we will get your camp listed.