Thanks Pragmatic Marketing!

Thanks to Pragmatic Marketing for promoting ProductCampToronto in your July 2008 news letter.

Help shape and promote ProductCampToronto!

ProductCampToronto is gaining momentum. Our August 6th pub night is full, our Facebook membership is up to 34 and Toronto Product Management Association has joined us along with you as we move towards our goal of making this event a learning and networking success.

We'd like to begin gathering ideas and thoughts around many things but two important areas are around session topics and publicity.

• We've started a discussion thread called "call for session topics" where we need you to suggest Product Mgt/Marketing topics that you'd like to put forward for PCT. Also, let us know if you want to lead the session too.
• Also, we are looking for those who have blogs to promote PCT. I see two types of bloggers being important to us. First, there are those who will do the odd post to promote and help us out. No complaints here from us! The second type of blogger is someone who plans on persistently blogging on PCT. Either way, we're not picky!

So, if you want to get involved in the "call for session topics" discussion visit our Google Groups site here. If you're interested in our planning activities feel free to visit here. If you do a post on your blog or want to become a PCT blogger let me know and we will add you to our Delicious site here.

Welcome Chris Gurney to ProductCampToronto

Welcome Chris Gurney to the ProductCampToronto planning group. Chris is a Technical Marketing Manager at Blueprint. They develop a pretty cool requirements definition tool called Requirements Center.

In the past Chris has worked in positions in quality assurance, development, consulting, technical sales, and product management. Over this period he has developed a good sense of how to effectively translate customer needs into great product ideas — it involves talking with them!

Chris is a member of the Toronto Product Marketing Association. He recently wrote about the value of having a ProductCamp here on his blog. He also lays out how we are using social media applications for this event.

ProductCampToronto pub night!

The wheels are in motion for our first PCT pub! To kick things off we're planning a pub night at Fionn MacCool's tentatively set for Wed Aug 6th (it was originally July 31st). The goal will be to hook up, network and talk about PCT, and what we want out of it. We're limiting this to 20 seats for the time-being. Stay tuned for registration details.

UPDATE: It was a blast.

"The Association"?!

I'm concerned about the cost to join associations. With unconferences, social media and mesh events you've got to wonder what value does an old age association provide me as a professional marketer.

Look at the dues to join the Canadian Marketing Association. Wow! Add another associations dues of about $10K and I'm looking at a cost of $25K for just two associations. As a member I get discounts on events but hey it ain't much! Add the fact that I have to invest my time in participation and the ROI on this investment is looking pretty grim in my eyes and the President of my company.

I imagine many marketing professionals are looking for more valuable ways to network and learn. Unconferences and social networking is the way to go IMHO! I'm hopeful that associations like these will think about how they price their services in the future. They may want to think about getting involved as sponsors for various unconference events like ProductCampToronto.

Meaningful online video conversations?

An interesting video based conversation on the topic of social marketing and education. Can Seesmic be used to engage with customers to get authentic feedback on your products and services? Let's watch to see how the online conversation evolves. See below.

FriendFeed Room for ProductCampToronto

FriendFeed seems to be heading in the same direction as Twitter in popularity. If you're interested in knowing more about FriendFeed pop over to this post.

I've set up a FriendFeed room for ProductCampToronto. A room is like a mini FriendFeed for a particular subject or group of people. Everyone in your room can share stuff with each other and leave comments that only other people in your room can see. Check it out and join our FriendFeed room.

The core social media tools are in place for networking, communication and collaboration. In the next week I'll be putting together a proposed plan for this event. Stay tuned!