Browsing Tag

event

PCamp Minnesota: See You Thursday!

This week’s travel brings me to Minneapolis and the folks from the ProductCamp are getting together.  If you are in Minneapolis on Thursday I hope to see you there.

Many thanks to Barry and Jennifer Doctor for again getting the Product Management and Marketing community together to talk shop.  I hope to see you there, below is an overview from the invite:

Join us for the first ever ProductCamp Happy Holiday Hour. If you were at ProductCamp last month, one of the big takeaways was to always keep your network alive. Here is a chance to hug old friends and shake hands with new ones in a very casual, festive environment. It is another chance to work on building a vibrant, local product community.

AT: St. Louis Park Woodfire Grill, 6501 Wayzata Boulevard, Minneapolis, MN 55426  http://www.slpwoodfiregrill.com7:00 PM – 9:00 PM

  

PLEASE RSVP: http://pcampmn4.eventbrite.com/  

Hope to see some Spatially Relevant readers there!

3rd time’s a charm: ProductCamp Atlanta is Back! Saturday 8/21/10.

Even though summer is almost over, it’s time for summer camp.  With the second PCampATL behind us this winter, the 3rd installment is rapidly approaching for technology Marketers, Product Marketers and Product Managers.  I’ve had the opportunity over the last couple of weeks to work with the team to put together the plan and help with organizing the latest Product Camp and it’s definitely going to be another great opportunity to learn, share and volunteer.

A big thanks needs to go to Jason Brett, the founder of PCamp ATL, who spent his weekends over the past year traveling around to see how things are done at other product camps (Product Camp SoCal and Austin) around the country in an effort to make this one even better.

Need some more information about what a ProductCamp is? Take a look at Paul Young’s overview.

So here are the details of the event:

When: August 21, 2010 from 9 AM -5PM, but breakfast starts at 8:30 AM

Where: GTRI Conference Center, 250 14th Street NW Atlanta, GA 30318

I look forward to seeing you there!

SOBCon08: A narrowcast effort for sponsors’ brands

SOBCON08 – definitely a good event on all fronts – hotel, venue, food, people and content. There are plenty of great re-caps online about what took place at SOBCon from a content perspective, lessons learned, visuals and a even musical spins, but not a whole lot on the sponsors of the event which definitely help make the event a success. Several key sponsors participated throughout the Jim Beam, Utterz, Buzz Logic and Network Solutions, which I’ve labeled “platinum sponsors” based on my ability to remember mainly. There were a couple of bronze and tin sponsors thrown in, but since no of the other stuck in my head, I’m focusing on the platinum sponsors.

With a focused group of bloggers north of 100, each of the sponsors below innately improve the impression of their brand with the group and create awareness for their offerings and brand.

Jim Beam

They brought the brand manager and his pitch seemed completely honest, if just a little bit unstructured. Even a little humorous with his public declaration of “what is blogger casual”? I didn’t know either, so my laughter was for a different reason. Brand guy spent 3-5 minutes doing a recap of their nascent social media strategy while acknowledging this was all a new thing for them and they came to learn. Thanks to his rambling confession of lack of knowledge, every Sicilian Kiss I order going forward will be with Jim Beam.

What is a Sicilian Kiss? A Sicilian Kiss is a drink which is 1/2 Whiskey, 1/2 Amaretto and a splash of orange juice chilled (shaken over ice) and served as a shot.

Utterz

The bald guy was there – he pimped a Bessie or two, did some demos and did the video ad thing which Jen won. The selection process Sim engineered was very egalitarian and represented the voice of the people. The process also offered another opportunity to meet folks and share ideas.

Overall the Utterz participation was a cool thing all around. I just seem to like this company just a little more after their sponsorship and am wondering when I will just make the call and shave my head. What was your tipping point Sim?

Buzz Logic

A company I had previously not heard of which apparently does influence visibility, ok I have see folks post on them like Jeremiah, but didn’t spend any time figuring out what they did. Know that I know, there are just a bunch of uses for this for businesses and bloggers alike. Uses from companies range I suspect from competitive intelligence, brand influencing and as strategic planning tool for social media. It could also be used potentially for demand shaping. Buzz Logic invested throughout the event starting on boat night. Great music and a reasonable liquor thanks to their willingness to throw down some hard earned VC cash.

Buzz Logic not only was nice enough to sponsor, but they sent two hotties as the demo team, Valerie and the other one. Both provided real-time product demos on topics of interest for each person they engaged – personalized demos WORK! Good stuff for everyone which got the opportunity to work with both of them over the conference.

Network Solutions

Active participants throughout the event. Provided web site analysis for the participants which I personally didn’t benefit much from, but I may not of asked the right questions or something which impacted the value. They even had a guy who was now going to blog after his attendance based his newly found understanding of blogging. Dude, let us know the the URL when you’re “online”, as I would like to see what you do. Your name would be cool tool.

A Humanized Brand

After re-reading my post so far, I’ve noticed a common theme – humanization. By deciding to engage people and not crowds with their sponsorship each company developed relationships with users/buyers/influencers/evangelists. While I may not remember all the components of everyone’s solution, stories or names – I do remember the effort. By sponsoring this event these folks have done more than an Ad, blog post or “coordinated” social media campaign could.

At the end of the day, that’s what SOBCon was about – meeting people, learning thier stories and trying to improve. There was very little personality driven discussion or focus it was more about process – trust me as the short guy with that cool chick Emily.

PLEASE NOTE: I authorized the use of the term hottie prior to posting with both Valerie and the other one, Sandra Ponce de Leon.