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Misc (and Just for Fun)

Minnesota Product Camp v2.0

I’m excited to be able to catch up with some old friends, but also to make new ones next month in Minnesota.  Based on the feedback from last years on the official PCampMN.org’s site and the stories from a couple of people I know who went last year, this event should again be a good one.  Here are some of comments from last product camp in Minnesota:

“Product Camp is a great way to meet and network with people in the Product world right here in Minneapolis. We often hear about these kinds of opportunities on the “coasts” and don’t get to participate since we live in MN, but this is our chance! I loved getting to talk with others that can truly understand what I do every day and actually relate. Keep it up.”

Eric Swanson
Product Manager
PLATO Learning

“PCamp was a fabulous opportunity to meet  many product management-focused individuals in one place.  Great way to share interests and ideas and have fun.”

Joan Watson
Senior Product Manager
Lawson Software

“Product Camp Minnesota was a great way to meet product managers and marketers from different industries.  There were also other disciplines represented who were interested in learning about the community.  The surveys and comments all strongly indicated that we should keep this going. It serves a useful purpose by filling a void in the local market.”

Harvey Andruss
Andruss Consulting

What: Product Camp MN

When: 11.13.2010 @ 9:00

Where: University of St Thomas – Minneapolis1000 Lasalle Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55403

Slide Week: A Brief History of Open Source

Open source has apparently been around for 35 yrs according to this presentation.  There is no doubt how open source availability has changed the economics of enterprise software and helped fuel the growth of the cloud and this history of open source is very helpful to better understand how we got to where we are today in software. Many thanks to Francois Marier for putting this presentation which puts open source in a historical context.

The ROI of Brand: Top 25 Innovators 2010

BusinessWeek recently announced the Top 25 Innovators for 2010 in a slideshow on their website and it’s interesting which companies bubbled to the top and which companies didn’t/never do in these types of surveys.   The Top 25 is part of a broader unit of work which looks at the Top 50 innovators globally.

The survey of “global senior executives” is an annual activity which is done in partnership with Boston Consulting Group and has been tracked since 2005.    The methodology purposefully did not define innovation, which in and of itself is difficult to define.   After reviewing the results, looking at the content provided as proof-points in BusinessWeek’s online summary of the returns, it looks like brand spend had a significant influence on the list, since nearly every company in the Top 25 is also a Top 100 spender in media.

So while we as marketers are always looking for the ROI of brand investment, it definitely appears that the ROI for these companies is realized when people recall their brands in these types of surveys over competitors.