ProductCamp Austin - Summer 2010 Recap

ProductCamp Austin Summer 2010 has come and gone. Did you miss it? Don't worry, there's another one coming January 15, 2011 (so mark your calendar).

We are really lucky to have such an active community of Product Management and Marketing professionals in the Austin area. With each camp seems like we get more fantastic content, and great speakers who are all eager to share what they know. We have also continued to grow, which has its own pros and cons, but in general growth is a good problem to have.

Really the thing I love most about ProductCamp is that it is an unconference, and the emphasis is on collaboration of ideas instead of 'sessions and tracks'. One of the problems with growth is that I don't know that all of the newbies "get" that, really.

At the end of the event, attendees give feedback like 'why can't we vote for sessions ahead of time' and 'you should have content tracks'. This is a FREE, volunteer run event! Not only that, but with 'tracks' and voting ahead of time, the spirit of the unconference would be sacrificed in favor of just the plain old 'conference'. Blech. Who wants that?

So if you are a Product Management / Marketing professional who will be in the Austin area in January and you haven't been to a ProductCamp, you should come check it out.

Just remember, help keep the 'un' in unconference' - community contributed content and volunteer led.

http://barcamp.org/ProductCampAustin

Google Wave Goodbye :(

OK I tried Google Wave a while back and I confess -- I just didn't get it. Or get how to best employ it for some practical purpose (and lord knows that I am nothing if not practical).

So lately I heard it may go the way of the woolly mammoth and I confess I wasn't surprised to hear it. Some people are speculating the bits and bots that were in the 'Wave' may be consume by other Google apps, like Gmail or what-have-you.

Either way, kudos to Google for deciding to end-of-life a product that just wasn't cutting it. That had to be a tough decision, but I respect them for making it.