Most products either fail or under perform, a 1997 survey by the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA) found that new products had a failure rate of 42%; under performance being a more difficult metric to capture but which has been estimated to be in the 35% range. In the presentation, we will review the top reasons for product failure, a powerful technique used by other disciplines to determine the root/contributor to past and current failures, risk mitigation techniques and some additional suggestions aside from segmentation and targeting to make sure your new product “crosses the chasm.”
Presented by Alex Edsel, who is the Director of the Masters in Marketing program at UT Dallas and also teaches courses on marketing, brand/product mgt and direct marketing

A nightmarish scenario for product management/product marketing is to hear a multitude of different messages communicated to the market about your product. Executive management says one thing, the sales team has a variety of messages and marketing is communicating yet another message. This results in significant marketplace confusion, impacts revenue generation and reflects poorly on your product. We like to blame others for this, but the likely reality is that we are at fault. As PMs, we must own the message and then enable the organization to take this message to the market. This is an interactive session discussing six steps to guide you in the process of creating a compelling market message.

How can you position yourself to get hired or promoted over your competitors?

What are your Unique Selling Propositions as a product manager or marketing manager?

What can you do to accelerate your career in product management or product marketing?

We will discuss key tips to differentiate yourself and accelerate you career. You will learn how to convince a prospective employer why they should hire you or influence your current employer to promote you. We will identify how you can enhance your worth by increasing transferable skills. We will also discuss ways to identify your unique selling propositions.

Join us for an interactive discussion regarding the importance of career planning and positioning to market yourself.

What can you do as a product manager or product marketing manager to encourage innovation?

How do you harness the power of innovation to minimize risk and increase profit for your company?

Why should you lead innovation within your company?

We will share ideas and insights to help you create and implement a business strategy to drive innovation within your company. The speaker will identify key principles to help you increase creativity and collaboration and lead product development activities to turn product innovation to profit. He will identify the value of innovation, best business practices and proven methodologies. We will also ask questions, and open the floor for expansion and general discussion.

Join us for an interactive discussion regarding how to create an innovative environment within your company. We will identify concrete steps you can take to foster innovation.

Product innovation has been described as the way out of today’s difficult business environment. However, the rate of success of development projects, in particular white space or disruptive innovation projects remains too low.
We believe that a reason for the low success rate is the erroneous application of methods designed for incremental innovation like Stage Gate to projects with high levels of uncertainty. In this presentation we will discuss the different types of development projects based on degree of uncertainty, and the creation of different project tracks. Projects are managed using different tool sets based on the best fit between information available and decision making needs.

The Product Management X-Factor: How to be a Rock Star Product Manager Description: Product managers are asked to be strategic, tactical, technical, and business-oriented at the same time. Despite our diverse backgrounds, some product managers seem to be more effective than others. Join ProductCamp Austin founder Paul Young for a discussion about what makes regular product managers into rock stars. Session Format: Presentation Bio: Paul Young is the founder of ProductCamp Austin and currently an Instructor with Pragmatic Marketing - the most popular Product Management training in the world. Previously, he has over a decade of experience managing teams for hardware, software, services, and SaaS products. Topic Area: Product Management Careers. By Paul Young, Pragmatic Marketing

As consumers, we see it all of the time. A product exists. And we can’t help but wonder...Why?! Such products tend to not be successful, they lose money and that can negatively impact careers. Plus, a failure oven prevents new things from being tried in the future.
The biggest reason for the failure? The audience was ignored! Overlooking the needs of the produce user is typically detrimental. Using examples offered up by the audience, let’s create our own check list to make sure none of us ever ignore the audience.
Session Format: Interactive and real-time problem solving
Short Bio: Rani Monson is the founder of RainMaking Marketing. Rani Monson has been responsible for building digital products and services for B2B, B2C and nonprofit organizations. Rani also works with technologists to identify their audience so they can figure out how to monetize their new technology.

Description: The Three Most Common Pricing Approaches are... • Cost Plus Pricing • Value Based Pricing • Market Based Pricing Which is best, when do you use them, and how do you get started? Format: This will be a 45 minute presentation with 15 minutes for Q&A. Bio: Patrick J Taylor is a business and process improvement expert. Driving bottom-line results through focusing on pricing strategies and related pricing processes are his specialty. Topic Area: The objective of this session is to get product managers thinking about pricing new products from the customer perspective of value and alternatives offers. By Patrick J. Taylor, Strategy Process & Analysis LLC

Agile principles aren't just for development. Product management and Product Marketing has to apply its tenants to build clarity and manage strategic and tactical priorities. This interactive session will look at how you can create a backlog that best works for you. You'll take away new ways to think, act and build value in your role and have some fun. Break out the Post-It Notes and Markers! Jim Holland has enabled and led product management and product marketing teams for over 15 years. He currently is Director, Product Marketing at Rally Software. He authors the Product Management Tribe blog and can be found on Twitter @jim_holland.