Bootstrapping Your Professional Development as a Product Manager

As a product management professional, I'm always on the look-out for new ways to increase my world dominance skill set.

But, let's be honest, there is really not a lot of options out there for training on product management / marketing, outside of the fine folks at Pragmatic Marketing. Especially options that are FREE!!

So if you are like me and looking for a way to bootstrap your professional development, then here are a few tips.

• Participate in or start a ProductCamp in your area. A community-organized volunteer led unconference, ProductCamp is a great opportunity for information sharing, learning and networking.
• Join specialized groups that intersect with how you bring your product to market - even if it isn't in your area of responsibility. For example, my company's product is software, so the development of that software, even though not my 'job', is very much critical to the success of my products. So I joined AgileAustin to learn more about that methodology and how those philosophies can be extended into areas outside of 'development'.
• Find industry events that are free or low-cost to attend. Some conferences also now offer lower-cost or free virtual attendance with much of the same content you would get in person -- like PIPELINE 2010.
• Forums, online communities and groups are a great way to engage with others in our profession for advice, direction and tips on how to succeed. I've never met a product marketing or management pro who wouldn't willingly share their advice if you ask. Check out LinkedIn, Facebook, and Yahoo! Groups to start.
• Twitter! Add a gadget to your Google desktop and follow search #prodmgmt. Great blog posts, tweets and articles will start flowing your way in a matter of minutes.
• Search the web for great blogs on Product Management and setup an RSS feed for the latest and greatest content to come directly to you, so you never miss a post. Check out my blog roll for a few good ones to get you started. :-D

So even if you are stuck at a job with no growth or challenge you can challenge yourself with a litany of great information and resources. OK you won't earn any PDU's, but who really does anything with those nowadays anyway?

You couldn't look that up yourself?

My FAVORITE thing. Okay -- a little passive aggressive I'll admit, but it is a guilty pleasure.. give a girl a break!

Does this happen to you? People ask me things all of the time -- and I immediately think, "You couldn't take 5 minutes and Google that yourself?"

Really... because I'm too busy to be the Google of my work / personal life / whatever. If my cats had thumbs, I'd teach them how to Google. Seriously. Google cats. It's the next big thing (I predict). But I digress...

What is the word for library in Spanish? Well, let me Google that for you...

Sunglasses Haiku

perfect sunglasses
pretty but cheap from Target
easily broken

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.

SXSW is here again...

One more time around we go, where we stop, nobody knows!

Well this year I'm going to stay in my own house and not a hotel, so that should keep things a bit more calm.

I also have a whole new crew to manage and want to be engaged for that.

But it should be fun being back in the mix again. Can't wait to see the bands, grab some swag and walk till I can't feel my feet -- then walk some more.

Google Wave - Hello!

Have you tried Google Wave? I asked my husband to send me an invite, so I can see if it will be a good collaborative space for a project I am working on now.

I'm still trying to figure out how best to use it.... the user interface looks like a lot of fun, but it is a little hard to navigate (or at least it doesn't seem all that intuitive to me).

So right now my wave is more of a ripple.... but we'll see!