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On June 6th, I attended Atlanta’s first “ProductCamp.” This was an opportunity for product managers and related professionals to get together and essentially learn from and network with one another. ProductCamp is what some of the organizers would call an “unconference,” with little session planning by the event organizers, and with a lot of freedom to move around, ask questions, and have good discussion. When I first arrived, the networking was in full swing. I ran into a couple of friends from school and some other acquaintances in the Atlanta product development community.  

To start off the day, we assembled in the main auditorium and learned about the ProductCamp process, while also getting introductions from those who would be presenting their topics. The process works pretty simply. Anyone in attendance can essentially present on a topic they feel is relevant to the “campers.” The topics are posted on big sticky paper outside, and everyone gets three sticky dots to post their votes for the sessions they are most interested in. Within a few minutes, votes are counted, sessions are selected and are assigned rooms and timeslots throughout the day. Most of the presentations I attended were definitely planned before the event, but it was kind of intriguing to think that I could have shown up, made a fun name for a session, gotten votes, and led a session.  

When discussing this around Slingshot, we agreed this really applies to features, not entire products. For example, people don’t necessarily need a television, but once they have made the decision to buy the television, it will be the features that they need included in the television that they will pay for. A few extra features would be nice, but they will not pay a higher price if they do not need the feature.  So, financially it doesn’t usually make sense to spend money developing a lot of extra features that no one wants to pay for.  

Through years of designing products at Slingshot, I know that we focus on the consumer’s perspective, but it is interesting to discuss this from the top level perspective of the “need” vs. “want” features.   This concept echoed Ken’s whole presentation, which encouraged elegance or simplicity in a product. Typically when I design products, I am definitely a fan of simplicity and easy user interface, so I agreed with Ken’s points here.  ProductCamp events have also been held in Boston, Toronto, New York, and Austin, and their popularity seems to be growing quickly. The organizers of ProductCamp Atlanta felt that the event went really well with about 175 attendees, and they plan to do another in Atlanta during the fall. I also got a free t-shirt, so that’s always a plus!