Do you have questions about Product Management, my book The Lean Product Playbook, or anything else? I’m excited to chat with you in my free online Ask Me Anything (AMA) session March 13th. Bring your questions! Learn more & RSVP at https://lu.ma/ij1wxqnf.
I had a great time speaking at Mind the Product San Francisco to over 1,600 product people at Davies Symphony Hall. I was excited to share advice from my book The Lean Product Playbook on how to master the problem space to achieve product-market fit. Here are my slides. I’ll share the video of my talk once it’s available. You can check out other talks I’ve given on my Speaking page. And you can sign up for my email list if you’d like to receive updates from me.
It’s an exciting time to work in product management. Product management has recently grown to become one of the hottest jobs. It seems like everyone wants to become a product manager these days. We’ve certainly come a long way since I was a PM padawan. Isn’t it great not having to explain to people the difference between a product manager and a project manager? (ok, maybe this still happens every once in a while).
If you’re a product manager, you know how rewarding the job can be – and how challenging. Top product managers know that to stay on top of your PM game, you need to invest time to sharpen your skills. Conferences are a great way to do that by learning from thought leaders and your peers. Quick question: how many product conferences can you think of off the top of your head?
I enjoy speaking at product conferences. As a conference speaker, I make it a point to keep track of the major product conferences that are happening. And this year, there are more product conferences than ever before. What if I told you there were over 20 product conferences this year? Would that blow your mind?
Wait, what’s that? You’re too busy product managing to research them all? Don’t worry, I got your back. So just close that Slack window, sit back, and relax. Here’s your guide to the top 21 product conferences of 2018 that you don’t want to miss (in chronological order).
Now, conference season doesn’t usually start until the spring, so I usually publish my list before any of them start. But this year some people just couldn’t wait. Believe it or not we’ve already had 4 product conferences this year.
January 18: Product Leader Summit New York City – I’m excited to be one of the organizers of the Product Leader Summit, a special conference designed for product leaders (VPs and directors). This was our second summit and our first time in NYC. We held our first Product Leader Summit last May in Redwood City, California. You can watch the videos of our awesome speakers at https://productleadersummit.com.
You can definitely tell there are way more PM conferences than there used to be when two of them happen to fall on the same dates:
March 20 – 21: ProductCon San Francisco & Silicon Valley – Product School, which offers training to people who want to break into product management, has been growing quickly over the last two years. This year, they are putting on their first product conference, launching in not one but four locations. The first one was in San Francisco, followed by Silicon Valley the next day. I spoke at both events and thought they were great. You can check out the videos to see for yourself. See below for their New York and Los Angeles conferences.
March 20 – 21: Pendomonium, Raleigh, North Carolina – Pendo’s product helps product managers better understand their users. Pendo threw their first Pendomonium conference last year: a mix of a product conference and a user conference. They’re back again this year with a two-day conference. In talking with the organizers, it sounds like they try to give attendees a taste of Raleigh plus a dose of southern hospitality. I hope to check out Pendomonium next year. Learn more at https://www.pendo.io/pendomonium/.
March 31: Product Camp Silicon Valley, Santa Clara – Organized by SVPMA, Product Camp Silicon Valley is the longest-running Product Camp. This year’s talks were recorded and should be published soon. There are volunteer-driven Product Camps all over the world. To find Product Camps near you, check out http://www.productcamp.org/schedule.html.
Okay, with those 4 out of the way, here are the top product conferences that are coming up in 2018:
April 19 – 20: MTP Engage Hamburg, Germany – Most of you have probably heard of Mind the Product (MTP) already, but in case you haven’t, they put on the world’s largest product conferences in London and San Francisco. They’re recently expanded to Hamburg with a different event format called MTP Engage. There are two tracks for the conference day as well as a pre-conference workshop day. Learn more at http://engage.mindtheproduct.com/hamburg/.
April 23 – 24: Industry Europe, Dublin – Industry is a great conference organized by Product Collective. They’ve been steadily growing their main conference in Cleveland for 3 years now and have decided to expand to Europe for the first time. The first morning is a half-day workshop, followed by one and a half days of conference. Learn more at http://europe.industryconference.com.
June 18 – 19, PM Festival Singapore – PM Festival has always held their annual conference in Zurich. This year, they are expanding to Singapore for the first time. Learn more at https://apac.productmanagementfestival.com.
July 16 – 17: Mind The Product SF – MTP San Francisco is always a fantastic event, put on by Martin Eriksson, James Mayes, Simon Cast, Janna Bastow and the rest of the awesome MTP team. The organizers curate the world’s top product speakers for a 1-day, single track conference. The venue, Davies Symphony Hall, is impressive (and the seats are comfy). And they throw a rockin’ afterparty to boot. Don’t miss the chance to hang out with 1,600 of your soon-to-be closest product pals. I’m excited to be giving a talk there this year. The day before the main conference, Mind the Product offers great all-day workshop and a special invite-only all-day event for product leaders. I’ll see you there! Learn more at http://mtpcon.com/sf/.
July 20: ProductCon NYC – Product School is holding their first product conference in New York City. Learn more at https://www.productschool.com/productcon/new-york.
August 8 – 9: Traction, Vancouver – The Traction conference may not be on your radar, but it should be, especially if your product is transitioning to the growth stage. Many of the talks are focused on growth and marketing, but there’s a fair degree of overlap with product. Organizers Lloyed Lobo and Ray Walia always plan a great conference with fun networking events. Plus, Vancouver is gorgeous in August. Learn more at https://www.tractionconf.io.
September 7: Women in Product, Burlingame – Last year, Women in Product grew their annual conference to over 1,000 attendees.
October 1 – 3 Industry Global, Cleveland – I spoke at the Industry conference in Cleveland last year and really enjoyed it. Organized by Product Collective, this 2-day conference has been growing every year. In fact, they expanded to Dublin, Irelend, this year (see above). Organizers Mike Belsito and Paul McAvinchey do a great job bringing together lots of awesome speakers and PMs from all over. There is also an optional workshop day. Learn more at http://global.industryconference.com.
October 18 – 19: MTP London – The Big Kahuna of product conferences. Mix and mingle with 1,600 other product people at London’s Barbican Centre as you learn from world-class product speakers at this single-track conference. As they would say in Hollywood, this conference has high production value. There is also an optional workshop day beforehand. I’ll be giving an all-day workshop there. Keep calm, carry on, and be sure to RSVP quickly when tickets go on sale: they usually sell out in less time than your average stand-up. Learn more at http://mtpcon.com/london/.
October 18: Leading the Product, Melbourne, & Oct 23 Sydney – Do you like product conferences? Have you been looking for a good reason to visit Australia? Brainmates puts on a great set of Leading the Product conferences in Melbourne and Sydney, just a few days apart so you can attend both. I had a great time speaking there in 2016. The Brainmates team knows how to put on a great event that creates a sense of community with top speakers, enthusiastic attendees, and great venues. Learn more at https://www.leadingtheproduct.com.
October 19: ProductCon LA – Product School is holding their first product conference in Los Angeles. Learn more at https://www.productschool.com/productcon/.
November 1 – 2: Productized, Lisbon – André Marquet and his team put on a wonderful conference. I had a great time speaking there last year. The 2-day conference is chock full of great product speakers from around the world, and there’s an optional workshop day. Plus, Lisbon is an awesome city: do you really need an excuse to visit? Learn more at http://www.productized.co.
November 15: Product Leader Summit, Silicon Valley – I was one of the organizers of last year’s inaugural Product Leader Summit, which featured top speakers like Reid Hoffman, Aaron Levie, and product execs from Facebook, Slack, and Tesla. This year’s summit, sponsored by Spero Ventures, will be a similar event with top speakers and a curated audience of around 120 product leaders (the event is by invitation only; everyone has to apply to attend). View talks from past summits and sign up for the email list to be notified at https://www.productleadersummit.com.
November (date TBD): Lean Startup Conference, San Francisco – If you’ve never been to the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco, you may not know that it’s largely a product management conference. As a Lean Startup Co. Senior Faculty member, I’ve spoken at this conference several times. Most of the people I’ve met there were product managers, which makes sense because we’re the ones responsible for achieving product-market fit (those hypotheses aren’t going to test themselves). The conference itself is 2 days of great speakers sharing case studies and advice. There’s also a workshop day. If that’s still not enough for you, you can go all-in with a ticket for the whole Lean Startup Week. Learn more at https://leanstartup.co/2018-conference/.
November 14 – 15, PM Festival Zurich, Switzerland – This conference in Zurich, Switzerland, has been running for several years. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but you can learn more at https://productmanagementfestival.com/zurich/.
So, what do you think? Is that a lot of product conferences or what? Hopefully you found one or more from my list that you’re excited to attend.
Wait, what’s that? You’re still looking for more great product events? Okay, okay, I’ve got one more product event for you.
Lean Product (monthly in Silicon Valley) – If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area or are visiting, I invite you to check out my monthly Lean Product event in Mountain View. I founded it 4 years ago and we’ve grown to over 6,600 members.
One evening a month, I host the same world-class speakers who speak at the conferences I listed above. My speakers are experts in product management, Lean Startup, UX design, analytics, and marketing, and many of them have written leading books on those subjects. Past speakers include Marty Cagan, Geoffrey Moore, Ken Norton, Josh Elman, Laura Klein, Ash Maurya, Nir Eyal, Teresa Torres, Rich Mironov, Amy Jo Kim, Tony Ulwick, Hiten Shah, and Steve Portigal.
Our next Lean Product event is Apr 19th: design expert and author Tracy Osborn will be teaching “Design for Non-Designers”. Come join us for dinner, an amazing speaker, and great conversation. Learn more at https://meetup.com/lean-product/.
If you can’t make our April 19th event, you can join the Lean Product meetup group (it’s free) to be notified about future events.
You’re still here? Your thirst for knowledge is insatiable! You should definitely check out the Product Decoded podcast, then. Produced by the same folks that bring you the Product Leader Summit (Ha Nguyen, Gib Biddle, and me), Product Decoded features interviews with top product leaders. So far we’ve released episodes with Deb Liu from Facebook and Chris Abad from UserTesting. Soon we’ll be publishing episodes with Aaron Levie from Box, Todd Yellin from Netflix, Michael Sippey from Medium, Sarah Bernard from Jet.com, and Justin Bauer from Amplitude (with even more to come). Subscribe to Product Decoded on iTunes to receive the new episodes as they’re released.
I hope you found my article helpful. I look forward to seeing you at one or more of these events!
Dan
I’m heading to Cleveland, Ohio, to give a workshop and a keynote talk at the Industry Product Conference. This will be my first time participating in this conference, and I’m really looking forward to it! In case you aren’t familiar with the Industry conference, I wanted to share why I’m excited to participate.
I really like the format of the conference. The main conference is two days long (Thursday and Friday), so it’s going to be chock full of great PM advice. It’s a single-track conference, with each morning and afternoon focused on one of four topics: ideation, design, development, and growth. As if that wasn’t enough, there’s also an optional workshop day on Wednesday. There are three half-day workshops to choose from and they start at 1 pm, which gives you plenty of time to settle in after your travels. Industry limits the workshop size to 40 people to ensure they are highly engaging and interactive.
There’s also plenty of time baked into the schedule to meet and compare notes with your fellow product people (aka “PM Therapy”). There’s an early registration party Wednesday night for workshop attendees and anyone else who’s in town the night before. After the conference on Thursday, there’s a happy hour at the conference venue followed by a party at the Hofbräuhaus. Party on, Wayne!
Industry is a fast-growing product conference now in its third year. In my experience I’ve found that, just like most Microsoft products, it usually takes a conference until Version 3 to hit its stride. They expect over 600 attendees at this year’s conference. Industry earned a place on my list of the Top 10 Product Conferences of 2017 (which I published earlier this year).
Many product conferences in the United States tend to be in the San Francisco Bay Area. So it’s nice to see a product conference in a new city: Cleveland, Ohio. I’m personally excited to head back to the Midwest because I studied at Northwestern University. I’ve heard great things about Cleveland and look forward to checking it out. The city has a rich musical history, including the Cleveland Public Auditorium where the conference will be held. It will be pretty cool to give a keynote speech from the same stage that the Beatles played on back in 1964. The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, and many more talented musicians played there. Cleveland is also home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Industry is organized by Product Collective, and I really like what they are doing. They have a deep understanding of and passion for product management. Product Collective has created an impressive collection of resources for product people. In addition to their annual Industry conference, they:
Last but not least, I am grateful to the organizing team. Believe it or not, Product Collective and Industry are run by a small but talented team of just three people: Mike Belsito, Paul McAvinchey, and Rebecca Feliciano. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to organize a conference for 600 people. So be sure to give them a well-earned “thank you” if you run into them at Industry.
If this all sounds amazing and you have some serious FOMO right now: don’t worry, there are still a few tickets left if you act fast.
For those about to rock at Industry: we salute you! 🙂 Look forward to seeing you there!
I’m excited to be heading to London for Mind The Product this week. I’ll be giving an all-day workshop on How to Achieve Product-Market Fit, where I’ll be sharing advice from my book The Lean Product Playbook.
This will be my second time participating in Mind The Product (or MTP for short) London, which is typically held in September. I’ve also participated in MTP San Francisco the last two years, which has been held in May or June.
For those of you who have also attended the MTP conference before, you know how great it is. For those of you who haven’t yet, well, this post is for you. I wanted to share why I’m excited to be a part of the MTP conference again.
MTP is the largest product conference in the world with a distinguished history. Many conferences come and go, but MTP has been going strong since starting in London in 2012 with 600 attendees. Since then, the conference has grown to 1,400 people strong. As a result, they’ve moved to increasingly larger venues. MTP San Francisco has been held in Davies Symphony Hall and MTP London has been held at the Barbican Centre. Both are wonderful venues with great seating and an impressive stage setup.
I really like the format of the MTP conference program. The conference spans two days. Day 1 consists of several all-day workshops, where you can really learn a topic in-depth. Each workshop is capped at 30 or 40 attendees to ensure an intimate setting. I’ve really enjoyed giving workshops at MTP: my attendees are serious about learning and are really engaged. I like being able to do a deep dive on how to product-market fit and bringing the concepts to life with lots of interactive class discussion and group exercises. Day 2 is a single track of around 8 or 9 speakers. Many conferences offer multiple tracks concurrently, but the MTP team places a lot of value on everyone sharing the same experience so they can discuss and compare notes about the talks later. The talks are usually between 25 and 35 minutes long, which is a good length: short enough to keep you engaged but long enough to establish context and teach you something new.
MTP has hosted many great speakers. There are too many to list, but some of my favorite speakers who I’ve seen speak at MTP are Marty Cagan, Ken Norton, Josh Elman, and Laura Klein, to name a few. This week, I’m really excited to hear my friend Teresa Torres’ talk. The speakers always know their stuff and the production value of the talks is top notch. Martin thoughtfully curates the speakers and topics for each conference to create a well-balanced program. There’s always a mix of product management and design speakers, and often a “wildcard” speaker from a different discipline. I always leave the conference learning something new, gaining a new perspective, and feeling inspired.
There is also plenty of time baked into the schedule to socialize and compare notes with your fellow product people (all 1,400 of them!). On Day 1, after the workshops there is a happy hour that is a lot of fun and several other sponsor events. On Day 2, breaks and lunchtime give you time to chat with folks in between talks. And that night they throw a great afterparty, which is always fun. I really enjoy connecting with product people from around the world at MTP, hearing their stories, comparing notes, and engaging in the “PM Therapy” that inevitably takes place whenever PMs get together 🙂
Last but certainly not least, what I also enjoy about the MTP conference are the organizers. This small team of talented people are super passionate about product management. They are really good at designing, planning, and executing a great product conference. It takes an amazing amount of commitment, work, and attention to detail to pull off a great conference, especially at this scale. So if you bump into Martin, James, Janna, Simon, Analisa, Emily, Marc, or Chris at the conference, please be sure to tell them what you think about the conference (and give them a well-earned pat on the back).
If you’re at MTP London this week, I look forward to seeing you there. If not, MTP San Francisco will be taking place again July 16-17, 2018. Hopefully I’ve convinced you why you should check it out. Tickets always sell out quickly, so when they go on sale, don’t miss your chance.
Hope to see you at an MTP conference soon!
It’s an exciting time to be working in product, especially since product management has become the “new dream job” according to the Wall Street Journal. I’m passionate about how product managers learn their craft and share best practices. That’s why I’ve been coaching product teams for over 8 years and why I wrote The Lean Product Playbook.
Conferences are a great way to learn about product management and to compare notes. Plus, whenever a bunch of PMs get together, there’s always plenty of product manager therapy that naturally happens: “Your developer told you what??? Oh no he didn’t!”
Thankfully, there are more product-focused events than ever before. But you’re a busy PM with backlogs to groom and total product domination to plan: how are you supposed to figure out which ones are worth going to?
Don’t worry, I gotcha covered. So close that JIRA window, sit back, and relax. Here’s your guide to the top 10 product conferences in 2017 that you don’t want to miss (in chronological order).
By the way, I plan to be at 8 of the 10; hope to see you there!
May 19: Product Leader Summit – I’m excited to be one of the organizers of a very special conference for product leaders (VPs and directors) in Redwood City, California. Hosted by Omidyar Network, we have a stellar speaker line-up that includes Reid Hoffman, Aaron Levie of Box, OG Sean Ellis (that’s Original Growth-hacker), and product leaders from Facebook, Slack, Tesla, and Netflix. Learn more and apply for this invitation-only event at https://productleadersummit.com.
May 31 – June 1: Traction – I attended the Traction Conference in Vancouver, Canada, for the first time last year and was really impressed by the high quality of the event. The speaker list includes top CEOs and experts in product, growth, and marketing. In addition, organizers Lloyed Lobo and Ray Walia put a lot of thought into selecting great venues and designing the networking parts of this 2-day conference, including an impressive reception at the Chinese Garden. Plus, for you SF Bay Area folks, Vancouver is just a short 2-hour flight away. I look forward to speaking there again this year. Learn more at https://www.tractionconf.io.
June 12 – 13: Mind The Product San Francisco – If you’ve never been to Mind the Product (aka MTP), you’re in for a real treat. Picture yourself at Davies Symphony Hall sitting back in a comfy seat surrounded by over 1,000 fellow product people while you learn from the world’s top product and design experts. After all those amazing talks, your brain cells won’t be able to take any more; but don’t worry, you can put them out of their misery at the sweet afterparty. I’m excited to be giving an all-day workshop there. Tickets sell out fast, so grab yours quickly at http://mtpcon.com/sf/.
August 17: UserVoice BASiS – UserVoice is putting on a new all-day product conference called BASiS in San Francisco. UserVoice designed this conference for data-driven product teams and leaders to learn about cutting-edge product management methodologies, processes, and technologies. I look forward to speaking at this inaugural event.
September 7 – 8: Mind The Product London – MTP London is the world’s largest product gathering, put on by Martin Eriksson and the MTP team, who know how to throw an excellent conference. Held at the gargantuan Barbican Centre, it’s always a well-curated, high production value event with top speakers. I’m excited to be giving an all-day workshop there. Learn more at http://mtpcon.com/london/.
Sep 12 – 14: Industry – I’ve been following this up-and-coming product conference in Cleveland, Ohio, for a while now. I’m impressed by the work that Mike Belsito and Product Collective have been doing and am excited to participate for the first time (I’ll be giving a workshop and a keynote talk). This conference will be 2 days of pure product goodness. You can also tack on a workshop to really fill your brain. Learn more at http://indsum.com.
Oct 19 & 24: Leading the Product – I had a great time speaking at Leading the Product’s conferences in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, last fall. The Brainmates team knows how to put on a great event that creates a sense of community with top speakers, enthusiastic attendees, and great venues. Learn more about this great reason to go Down Under at https://leadingtheproduct.com.
Oct 25 – 27: Productized – I haven’t been to this product conference in Lisbon, Portugal, yet, but it’s been on my radar. I’ve heard good things from other speakers and have been learning more about it from founder André Marquet, who is passionate about product management. Did you know that Portugal has more product managers per capita than any other country? That may or may not be fake news, but who really needs a good excuse to visit the Iberian Peninsula? (not me: I grew up in sunny southern Spain). I plan to give a workshop and a keynote talk there. Learn more at http://productized.co.
Nov 1 – 3: Lean Startup Conference – If you’ve never been to the Lean Startup Conference in San Francisco, you may not know that it’s largely a product management conference. Over 70% of the people I’ve met at past Lean Startup Conferences were product managers, which makes sense because we’re the ones responsible for achieving product-market fit (those hypotheses aren’t going to test themselves). The conference itself is 2 days of great speakers sharing case studies and advice. There’s also a workshop day. If that’s still not enough for you, you can go all-in with a ticket for the whole Lean Startup Week. Learn more at https://2017.leanstartup.co.
Nov 15-16: Product Management Festival – This conference in Zurich, Switzerland, has been running for several years. I haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, but you can learn more at https://productmanagementfestival.com.
So there you have them: the top 10 product conferences of 2017. I think it’s awesome that there are 10 major product conferences in the next 7 months, all over the globe.
Wait, what’s that? You’re still looking for more great product events? Well, nice work, my friend: you just discovered the post-credits trailer…
Lean Product (monthly in Silicon Valley) – If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area or are visiting, I invite you to check out my monthly Lean Product event in Palo Alto. I founded it 3 years ago and we’ve grown to over 5,000 members.
One evening a month, I host the same world-class speakers who speak at the conferences I listed above. My speakers are experts in product management, Lean Startup, UX design, analytics, and marketing, and many of them have written leading books on those subjects. Past speakers include Marty Cagan, Geoffrey Moore, Ken Norton, Josh Elman, Laura Klein, Ash Maurya, Nir Eyal, Teresa Torres, Rich Mironov, Amy Jo Kim, Tony Ulwick, Hiten Shah, and Steve Portigal.
Our next Lean Product event is May 18th: growth expert Sean Ellis will be sharing advice from his new book Hacking Growth. Come join us for dinner, an amazing speaker, and great conversation. Learn more at https://meetup.com/lean-product/.
I look forward to seeing you at one or more of these events!