Mobile engagement strategies that stand the best chance for success will also leverage every useful advantage within the rapidly shifting mobile landscape. A lot has happened in this arena since I presented “Going Mobile?” last summer. We will cover the new trends, best practices and emerging opportunities for mobile products and services in 2012 and arm you with enough facts to distinguish good information from the hype, untested opinion and ill-fitting strategy-du-jour.

Looking forward to seeing you Saturday!

This post added by guest blogger Pat Scherer discussing her proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 8.  Read more about Pat Scherer

This post added by guest blogger John Mansour discussing his proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 8. Read more about John Mansour

Almost everything we encounter in the world is part of a complex adaptive system (CAS). John Holland, a MacArthur Fellow and professor of computer science, engineering, and psychology defines these systems like this: “Complex adaptive systems are systems that have a large numbers of components, often called agents, that interact and adapt or learn.”

Doesn’t that describe every project you’ve ever worked on in your life? This also describes every market your company participates in. Agents can be your fellow employees, your customers, or your strange aunt Susan; and any system with more than a few agents quickly becomes a complex system. That’s why complexity science can give us many insights into the way the real world behaves.

One of the primary lessons of complexity science is that CAS’s are unpredictable. This may be obvious when you think about all the strange customer requests you’ve heard, but not so obvious when your boss asks you to predict what the monthly sales of your new product will be over the next 3 years.

We like to think that we can make reasonable predictions about the future. We can’t. This is an incontrovertible lesson that complexity science teaches us: CAS’s are fundamentally unpredictable, and no amount of data will change that. Some of our predictions may be correct, but a stopped clock also tells the correct time twice a day.

Even the smartest experts in the world can’t make accurate predictions about their domain. Here are just a few classic examples, but I’m sure you hear examples every day in your workplace:

“What use could this company make of an electric toy?”

- Western Union, when it turned down rights to the telephone in 1878

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”

- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of DEC, 1977

“Man will not fly for 50 years.”

- Wilbur Wright, American aviation pioneer, after a disappointing flying experiment in 1901 (their first successful flight was in 1903)

How is this relevant to product strategy? Because the reason most strategies fail is rooted in bad predictions: poorly-formed business goals, leading to the wrong scope, the wrong budget, the wrong time frame, the wrong objectives, the wrong sales projections, and the wrong products.

I am sure that if you trace the reasons for almost any failure, a bad prediction will be at the root. And what Complexity Science tells us, counter-intuitively, is that the solution for bad predictions is not better predictions. The prediction game is a guaranteed loser. The solution is better adaptation and learning.

Once again, this may seem obvious, but most traditional management practices generally limit adaptation and learning due to an inherent belief in prediction.

Want proof? The next time your product only sells one tenth of your projection, tell your boss that the reason was the inherent unpredictability of complex adaptive systems. That will either get you laughed out the door or fired.

But it’s the truth. An unfortunate response by management to unpredictability is to search for who to blame and punish those people. A better response would be to look at the situation as a key opportunity to learn about their market or company, and praise those who lead the internal revolution in thinking about markets for the company based on this changeable, complex new reality. (But I’m sure that’s not the first thing that comes to mind when your products don’t hit their projections.)

The ideal state for any organization is total transparency, adaptability, and flexibility. Clearly, this ideal will never be achieved. However, my session will discuss a 4-step process that will start your organization down this path.  You will learn to greet the unexpected with anxious joy, rather than fear and disappointment.  Even though organizations will never reach perfect transparency, adaptability, and flexibility, we will at least tackle the real problems and make real progress, rather than clinging to the hopeless, disproved falsehoods of believing that our success is dependent on how well we can predict the unpredictable.

Learn about the seven phases every product goes through and the related key questions and decisions. By understanding the phases, you can ship products that better meet you customer’s needs, deliver increased revenues and profits and avoid common mistakes that can be disastrous.

Phases include:

1. Conceive
2. Plan
3. Develop
4. Qualify
5. Launch
6. Deliver
7. Retire

Also covered: nine key documents that contain the critical decisions that must be made in order for a product to succeed. Ignore these decisions and you risk product failure.

Documents include:

1. Business Case
2. Market Needs (also called market requirements)
3. Product Description (also called product requirements)
4. Market Strategy
5. Roadmap
6. Beta Plan
7. Launch Plan
8. Marketing Plan
9. End of Life Plan

This post added by guest blogger Brian Lawley discussing his proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 8. Read more about Brian Lawley

By now, you’ve probably completely refocused all your marketing energy and dollars on the new world of social media. Trade shows are dead and email marketing is so passé. Instead you chat, tweet, IM, like, +1 all day long. #fail.

B2B technology purchasing decisions are not primarily made over social networks. In fact Twitter was ranked as the lowest amongst social sources that influence business technologists’ decision making. That’s according to a recent Forrester Research survey (2011 Social Technographics for Business Technology Buyers).

Now does that mean that social does not matter in the B2B world?

It does. But only when done right can social marketing become a fantastic asset in your B2B go-to-market strategy. When marketers put aside the social hype, the Google + of the day, and focus on building a solid marketing strategy of which social is a component.

This is what I plan to cover this week at ProductCamp Austin 7 if my session “Social Marketing in B2B World: Reality vs. Myth“ gets voted.

From my own professional experience as a practitioner, I will be sharing some pragmatic examples of how social marketing can be successfully leveraged to accelerate your prospects’ buying decision process. I will also share some templates that I found very useful when devising the right (social) marketing strategy.

I look forward to seeing you on Saturday in Austin.

This post added by guest blogger Bertrand Hazard discussing his proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 7. Read more about Bertrand Hazard.

Think about you offering an online coupon to jump start your sales or as a great “pickme up and try me for less” for those “not yet” customers. Think what a great marketing opportunity! Think about you being an online coupon provider — one amongst a predicted thousand before the end of the year. Think about all that money! And, it all happens in one day.

Those are just a few of the “delights” of using online coupons.

Now think about how LONG FIVE YEARS are. Because, legally that’s how long you have to be willing to provide this discount or else… And the “or else” goes from lawsuits to losing your right to have a business in Texas. That doesn’t even include the federal laws, industry regulations, and more.

Did I mention the financial issues? I’m talking here about financing the deal: when you get paid, paying taxes, giving money back. Want to sell your business? These liabilities can hang on and on and on.

Of course, there’s also the marketing risk — even if you don’t offer coupon.  You can have “ghost competitors” who will steal your customers from you and deliver nothing at all.

You’re not going to offer coupons? OK. Think about where the tax revenue goes. What happens to people, communities and other businesses when there’s not enough money? You know, don’t you? You may not know that those who don’t offer these discounts can get sucked in or sucked under. They can affect your staff, your operations,  and your existing customers. You name it and it has an impact. And, what’s the short and long term payoff? You’ll see. Not what you think probably.

These are just some of the dangers of daily deals. This is definitely a case of “Seller and Buyer Beware”.

You say, “I didn’t know”. It’s ok. Not many do. But it’s no excuse. At Product Camp 7 on August 6th you have a great opportunity to learn about the major “whys” and “wherefores” at the “Dangers and Delights of Daily Deals” session. I’ll even let you tell your own happy and horror stories about buying or providing these “gift certificates”. They are out there. I’ve heard ‘em. And, you’ll learn some stats that will amaze you. If you are at attorney, accountant, thinking about buying a business or selling one, this applies to you and your clients.

There are affordable alternatives to the Daily Deal or if you still think you must do this, you can at least go in with your eyes wide open. We’re going to talk about some right here in Austin and other states.

Look at your email. I’ll bet just since you’ve been reading this, there’s at least one new daily deal calling your name.

By the way, I’d hold off thinking about investing in Groupon until after you hear what I have to say about legal issues, lawsuits and losses.

This post added by guest blogger Jan Triplett discussing her proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 7. Read more about Jan Triplett.

Some of us are 50 and female….and some of us, like me, started down this entrepreneurial path with zero business experience and little understanding of what things like “bootstrapping” really meant.

Yes, we have demands on our time that a younger, probably single startup owner does not: children, aging parents, mortgage payments, a minivan that still plays cassette tapes and an inability to live off of ramen and pizza without at least a halfway decent glass of wine to go with it.

The face of entrepreneurship is changing, and my proposed ProductCamp Austin session will cover three topics….

1) How the concept of “intersections” takes what you already know and helps you decide what sort of online business to launch.

2) How to become the go-to business in a specific niche, rather than trying to serve everyone.

3) How your age and life experience can become assets rather than liabilities, i.e., why my retired military ID card and my business partner’s liquor store help ensure the success of our business.

Here’s a 35 second Google Search Story video that may help you see some of the things I thought about as I co-founded a successful online business and, to my everlasting surprise, became an entrepreneur in my late 40′s.

Direct link to the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-5X9aYPZy4

This post added by guest blogger Sheila Scarborough discussing her proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 7. Read more about Sheila Scarborough.

Leaders, and particularly technical leaders, are typically reluctant to share their observations with people they work with. I’ll quickly show you why this happens, why it’s a problem, and how to turn it around–to your advantage. The popular impression is that giving someone feedback is like putting them (and especially yourself) in a torture chamber. The opposite is actually true. Where HELPFUL feedback flows freely and frequently, great things happen and people are HAPPIER!

You’ll get to pinpoint your own blocks to feedback and learn how to start doing feedback in the ways that will benefit your new enterprise the most!

This post added by guest blogger Anna Carroll discussing her proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 7. Read more about Anna Carroll.

To attract new customers, the sales and delivery teams often rely on marketing to create the tools to support the sales process. These sales enablement tools help the sales organization improve their effectiveness at generating revenue and earnings by giving salespeople the right information at the right time to increase their rate of success. One tool more and more organizations are leveraging is buyer personas.

The presentation VisionEdge Marketing has proposed for ProductCamp 7 on August 6th titled, “Personas – A Product Marketer’s Gift to Sales” will show you how to leverage this important sales enablement tool. Buyer Personas are archetypal users that represent the needs of larger groups of customers, in terms of their goals and personal characteristics. Think of them as “stand-ins” for real customers. A buyer persona seeks to zero-in on customer behavior and characteristics. It is a concise description of a specific customer type.  As part of this session learn:

• The benefits to developing buyer personas.
• The differences between personas, profiles and roles.
• How to create personas to provide valuable insight into the motivations and personalities of specific buyers and users.
• How to use research to develop buyer personas.
• How to leverage personas to help the sales and delivery teams.

Buyer Persona Example
A persona might begin this way.  Let’s meet Helen:
Helen is a director of sales growing, mid-sized manufacturing company. She’s 32, works long hours often coming in before others and leaving well after the sales team most nights. Helen is single, a competitive runner, and is partial to 80s rock. She drives a new BMW convertible. She struggles with managing a dozen salespeople, many who are 10 to 15 years older than her. Helen wants the company to invest in a new CRM system to replace the contact management they long ago outgrew, but wonders how she’ll convince the company’s CEO and CFO to spend the money.

It’s important not to confuse buyer personas with profiles. A profile contains information about the type of user/buyer relevant to product being offered. Profiles contain general characteristics about your groups of users/buyers. Profiles are the foundation for constructing personas. And while these two concepts seem similar, they are different. Profiles describe types of prospects, customers, or users.
Buyer Personas describe specific people and sound like people you know; they take on a reality that encourages empathy and facilitates thinking from the customer’s perspective. Think of personas as narrative descriptions that bring user profiles to life. Personas present and communicate an alternative representation of user profile data that is easy for the sales team to keep in mind during the buying process. A good persona helps the salesperson recognize and identify with the prospect as people rather than as a collection of facts.

Why Go to Effort to Create Buyer Personas?
Buyer Personas bring customers to life by giving them a name and/or title, personality, and in some instances even a photo. They are an ideal way to help guide decisions about product functionality, design, positioning, messaging, and overall marketing. The purpose of a persona is to identify a customer’s motivations, expectations, and goals. Even though personas like the one about Helen, are fictitious, they are based on knowledge of real customers. A well-crafted persona enables you to stand in your customer’s shoes and take a more customer-centric view.

While they are simple in form and structure, the information they contain is powerful; it can be applied to decisions throughout the sales-enablement process. When well-crafted, personas can help with understanding specific requirements, facilitating alignment, and expediting the sales cycle.

Creating Buyer Personas
It often takes some research to create personas because you want your buyer personas to actually represent the customers rather than reflect internal opinion. In our presentation, we’ll show you how to design you research to identify trends or patterns in user behaviors, expectations, and motivations.

Turning Personas into a Sales-Enablement Tool
Using personas allows you to better focus your sales and marketing training and materials, improving your overall effectiveness. They enable the sales team to identify and communicate customers’ needs efficiently and effectively. These “stand in” customers, based on real customer data, help the sales organization connect and engage with prospects.

This post added by guest blogger Laura Patterson discussing her proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 7. Read more about Laura Patterson.

The presentation I’ve proposed for Product Camp is grounded in research of non-human primates. After all, we share 95% of our DNA with our non-human primate cousins. It’s just that they’re better to observe than human beings – humans lie.  By observing our cousins in their natural habitat, we’re able to learn a lot about our own primal instincts and discover more about who we are at our primal core. Researchers have observed the behavior of non-human primates and extrapolated that data in order to better understand human behavior.  That research lends interesting insights for those of us in marketing.

Human social groups like military units, church congregations, modern hunter / gatherers, and even our facebook friends are dictated by our primitive evolution. Regardless of your industry, product or service, sales and marketing is all about people and our relationships. With today’s emerging technology and consumer sophistication, it’s more important than ever to understand why we do what we do

In this presentation, I have applied research theorem, spanning over 65 years, from psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology, and several other “ology’s” to sales and marketing. By combing two concepts, cognitive social limitations and the parasocial relationships, I demonstrate how businesses can realize the benefits of social evolution.

We’ll answer these questions and more:

• How is social media interrupting our evolutionary process?

• Why are some people so exhausting to talk to?

• Why should my business hire a chief story-teller?

• How do I recognize important relationships and maintain them?

• What would happen if we took 150 monkeys and launched them into cyberspace?

This post added by guest blogger Chad Peevy discussing his proposed session for ProductCamp Austin 7. Read More about Chad Peevy.