Monday the President calls you in to his office, he had a brain storm ..... lets build a Gold Plated Widget. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to sleuth out the market size, competitive market share, how many potential customers are there, price points etc. Just who is doing what in the market. Oh and can we sell enough Gold Plated widgets to make money ???
The interactive session will cover methods of uncovering data when there simply aren't any established sources or published reports. Ways to intuit what is really going on at competitors. Several real life actual studies will be presented, names will be changed to protect the innocent....

Product management has grown and matured over the last 20 years, but what does the next decade hold for product management? Will product management grow or will Apple's "benevolent dictator" model win? What skills will hiring managers look for in the coming years? Will lean principles create as much disruption as agile? How will the next generation of "millennial" product managers change our industry?

Most importantly, what do YOU need to do to prepare yourself for the next 10 years?

Join Pragmatic Marketing Instructor and ProductCamp Austin Founder Paul Young for a look into the future - and how to make sure you are leading the way instead of following.

We’ll bring in a panel of local gourmet food truck operators to share their experiences in this new industry – how they got started, where their product ideas came from, how they developed their brand, how they’ve implemented social media marketing, how they partner with their competitors to reach target markets, the challenges they’ve faced and the lessons they’ve learned. Then, we’ll ask the audience/participants in the session to share their perceptions and feedback for the truck operators in a focus group format.

Food trucks have been a part of America since the chuck wagons of the 1800s. But a new phenomenon has occurred over the past couple of years – the advent of the gourmet food truck. Whether it’s a fad or a permanent shift in our culture, gourmet food trucks have developed a loyal and rapidly-growing following.

This new industry provides a great case study for many things that product managers and marketers are involved in every day. Most food trucks have developed new and innovative menu items and have created a unique brand, based on the concept. They rely heavily on social media marketing and word of mouth to grow their business. They frequently partner with their competitors to create instant food courts in parks and parking lots around Southern California.

This will be a fun session of learning and engagement. We can all learn something from these culinary small business innovators. They will benefit from your marketing expertise that you share during the discussion.

As a manager of Global Marketing Strategy at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, I think a lot about what it means to be a leading brand in the new consumer-driven world. Is it possible to lead as a company while also following your consumers’ needs? The best companies do things that have never been done before. And yet, as marketers, we are constantly asked to relinquish control of our brands to our consumers – to give our consumers exactly what they want. How do we do both at the same time?

This presentation explores the ideas behind a consumer-centric marketing organization - how such an organization behaves, what difficult questions it requires, and the simple and valuable answers it can surface.

Given the decline in effectiveness of business-to-business (B2B) advertising, more companies are turning to blogs to promote their products and services. B2B technology marketers are publishing applicable content on corporate blogs to educate prospects, embrace current customers and gather leads. But how do you turn content into sales?

Did you know:

* Business.com reports 81 percent of B2B companies maintain company-related accounts or profiles on social media sites.

* Seventy five percent of B2Bers participate in micro-blogging, such as Twitter.

* Demand Gen Reports reveals nine out of 10 buyers say when they’re ready to buy, they’ll find you online.

* Cision and The George Washington University reports 89 percent of journalists make use of blogs while conducting their online research and 96 percent turn to corporate websites. Sixty three percent of C-suite execs turn to the web to locate information, and six out of 10 conduct more than six searches a day.

Considering the escalating prominence This presentation will highlight the benefits of B2B blogging and demonstrate how companies can incorporate it into their integrated marketing mix.

This program will feature a case study from Roland DGA's social media and blogging best practices, metrics, wins and disappointments.

Based on Jeof’s upcoming book about Customer Experience companies and how they change products, markets and people’s lives (Published by Brigantine Media). Social media is an important part of product development and customer experience. Why not use it to your advantage? We’ll discuss-

• From Buyer Beware to Supplier Beware – social media has given tremendous power to the buyer.
• How Starbucks first used social media to reinvent its customer experience helping the company turnaround.
• Where did Starbucks idea for using social media come from?
• How did the customer experience change for the better?
• What do the lessons from Starbucks mean for companies small and large?
• Avoid the most common and costly mistake made in using social media
• Why a presence on Facebook or Twitter does not always mean effective use of social media
• What should an effective social media strategy begin with?

Join Jeofrey Bean at ProductCamp 2011 for this engaging and practical discussion about how the best companies, large and small, use social media effectively to build meaningful relationships and contribute to the bottom line.