Tag Archives: PCATX

Word Cloud: Who Am I?

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I recently attended a session at ProductCamp by Marc Miller of Career Pivot about how to maximize your professional brand on LinkedIn. One of the techniques he recommends is to create a word cloud of your resume so you can easily see what key words stand out. Just for fun, here is mine! I used wordle.net to create mine.

Dyer Resume Word Cloud

Word Cloud from resume of Stacy Dyer

Words are important. Regardless of whether you are marketing yourself or your product, drifting too far from the core focus dilutes your message and bores your readers. Worse than that, when writing for publication online, in the the world of SEO and Google-bots, having too many of the wrong words could translate to attracting the wrong audience altogether.

Word clouds can be a fun way to visually see the most frequently used key words and ensure your writing stays on target. What does yours say about you or your product?

8 Things I Learned at ProductCamp Austin

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After so many recommendations and endorsements from my fellow product management and product marketing colleagues, I am pleased to report that ProductCamp 10 lived up to its reputation as a can’t-miss event for product management professionals. Networking, learning, and innovative ideas abounded at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in Austin, Texas this past Saturday.

ProductCamp 10 Austin

Thom Singer presenting, “Giving Better Presentations” at ProductCamp

While I knew I had already missed a few ProductCamps, I had no idea Austin was actually one of the first (following Silicon Valley) to launch an un-conference ProductCamp (2008) and that it has now spread around the globe. Comparing the perspectives of representatives from other cities with our own here in Austin was fascinating.

By far, the best aspect of the conference overall was how open and friendly everyone was. Networking is a pleasure in such an accommodating atmosphere–even for introverts!

My Favorite Learnings from ProductCamp 10 Austin:

  1. Kanban process — Forget Agile, this is the newest trend in product management! It involves managing a queue of user stories, but not grouping into sprints. Very interesting…. (via @johndeo)
  2. Avoid “Tyranny of the Install Base” — Once your product gets going, you tend to only listen to sales and your existing customers. (via @mhelmbrecht)
  3. As an extrovert, I should warn people when I am “thinking out loud.” (via @mhelmbrecht)
  4. Agile experience is irrelevant; executives consider it a check box.
  5. Content isn’t king, it’s the mayor. Audience is king! (via @thomsinger)
  6. LinkedIn Premium membership allows you to see what keywords people are searching on you and prevents others from seeing that you were stalking viewing their profile. (via @MrMillerAustin)
  7. Well written user stories should be able to be re-purposed as sales script. Write as problem/benefit; never feature/function. (via @proficientzppm)
  8. I want to be a “foxy” PM, as opposed to a “hedgehoge” (agile generalist, rather than narrowly focused and intractable) (via @PGopalan & @joshua_d)

What I Missed Most:

PowerPoint Karaoke - This session, while offered, was not actually voted in. That was a shame because it looks hilarious! It basically involves making up a story to go along with the random slides you are given and having been handed a deck by my old boss to present at a major user conference myself, I know how important it is to be able to think on your feet! I hope this is resurrected at an upcoming ProductParty soon. As a former theatre geek, this sounds right up my alley!

Presenting “Architecting a Successful Whitepaper” - Unfortunately, my colleague with whom I had planned to offer a workshop session on Architecting a Successful Whitepaper had a family medical emergency and was not able to make it on Saturday. Talking with several attendees, I am sure the material we were planning on presenting would have been relevant and interesting. And I know it would have a lot of fun! I look forward to the next ProductCamp so we can try again!

Useful links:

Throughout the day, I picked up useful links to resources, articles, and online tools. Here are some of my favorites, in no particular order!

Word Cloud generators:

“Best Session” winner which I missed – boo! (I’ll have to make sure I catch Mike presenting at the next ProductCamp in July…)

 

Do you have a favorite resource, moment, or funny story to share from PCATX?

ProductCampATX: 5 Steps to Architecting a Successful Whitepaper

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Technology that allows marketing professionals to endlessly segment audiences and target campaigns is driving more and more content into the marketplace, but more is not necessarily better. While marketing teams need a constant stream of fresh content to fill the sales funnel with qualified leads, creating vital marketing assets like whitepapers can’t be a haphazard afterthought to product management.

Lori Witzel, a demand generation and content marketer, and I have proposed a session for ProductCamp 10 Austin on February 16, 2013 which will address this issue specifically with product managers and product advocates in mind!

Please join us for our session, 5 Steps to Architecting a Successful Whitepaper, Faster to learn our systematic approach to architecting and driving the creation of successful whitepapers, faster. This will be fun, lively, interactive discussion with a hands-on activity.

Also don’t forget to check out the rest of the great sessions proposed for ProductCamp Austin!

See you there! Follow the fun on Twitter with hashtag #PCA10

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5 Steps to Architecting a Successful Whitepaper, Faster

Experienced tech product managers know that Information-rich “written for people not search engines” content drives inquiries that convert to sales quickly. Whitepapers are one such tool to help your product out-perform revenue goals. All too often, though, it takes months and high-priced outside resources to create good whitepapers.

This session will teach you a systematic approach to architecting and driving the creation of successful whitepapers, faster.In this session, product managers will learn 5 steps to faster whitepaper creation—and will also receive a handout that’ll make it easier to architect the next whitepaper. One product manager will be selected from the audience to participate in a hands-on whitepaper activity, so all can share in the experience of putting these steps into practice.

The session leaders (Product Marketing Management and Demand Generation Marketing Management) have worked with software product managers in the rapid development of whitepapers that drive product sales.