Greetings from Productcamp Helsinki 2019 Event

Posted by: Antti

Awareness of the product management has grown remarkably  during last years.

Also the interest towards the role of product manager or product marketing manager has increased similarly. Many companies have already grown to such a size that the product manager’s job can no longer be done only by the founder or the core team. Real product managers are needed.

Product management helps in business in scaling. It is mandatory that there is someone to be responsible that the products meet the needs of the market. Also products has to be marketed so that the interest of the buyers arises. Not only sales, but buying can also be made easier through product marketing.

Productcamp Helsinki has found it’s place 

Over the years (2019 was the 6th year in row) the nature of the Productcamp Helsinki event has stabilized through repetitions. The event has found its own participant segment and its own place among the events.

Participants are clearly aware of what this is all about, and a lot of product managers and people involved in product management and product marketing are present.

Productcamp Helsinki 2019 was organized as unconference

This year 2019, the organizing committee took into account the feedback from the previous years. We wanted to do more together and more activities to support networking. In previous years, there have been more presentations: good presentations and discussions of their own experiences.

This year, the number of performances dropped to a minimum, only the interesting Keynote By Tuğberk Duman (Futurice) Zero UI: Future of Human & Machine Interaction with Biometricsregarding   started us up.

Then the so-called “unconference” sessions were held at the event. In principle, anyone could present a topic related to the event and gather the group to deal with the topic.

List of session leaders and topics of 2019

Marjukka Niinioja: API Product Management
Terhi Hänninen: How to design tests for your Product Hypothesis
Antti Suvanto: Product Portfolio Management
Surbhi Marwah: Analytics is key for Product Managers
Kai Lemmetty: SWOT analysis – geographically distributed product development
Jalmari Kivinen: Testing valid marketing (distribution) channels parallel with product development since day one. 
Daria Zhuravleva:  Success criteria for niche (non-mass) Blockchain products and possible ways of their promotion

Even the slides were not required, although many session leaders had prepared a few on the subject to be processed or worked on. The proposers of the topic presented their topic so that it was easy to catch it. The actual content came largely from the participants, i.e. the idea was to arrange a session around the topic that the facilitator facilitated: through discussions, workshop or any other way that people quickly collaborated.

Who should take part in ProductCamp?

You are interested in Product Management

If you are interested in product management or product marketing, it is probably a good idea to come together with people who have been doing it for a long time.  There is always a possibility to learn more about how you could shine in your product work.

Planning to be a Product Manager

If you dream of moving from some other role to product management or product marketing is definitely worth listening to, what product management or product marketing really is. Always the view from outside  does not correspond to reality.

You are already an experienced Product person

Why should an experienced product manager join to the scene?

One easily thinks that, I have already seen everything (‘’been there done that’’ – thinking). In fact, product management and product marketing have changed a lot recently. Even if you work in a bigger company and there are clear ownerships and organisational structures, you would benefit for meeting others. The learnings from the event will help you to develop in your own work.

Also, if  you are recruiting product managers or looking for suitable people for your team, it may be a good reason to participate in this type of event.