If you've been asked "How are we going to differentiate our product in the market?" You probably know that true product innovation goes far beyond a basic value proposition, but an execution of a true innovation. In this sessions you'll be given some innovation paradigms to think about your organization and product with key case studies in execution from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Linked In and more.

Come and share you stories about how you ended up in product management. Did you wander into this field? Did you plan your entry? How did you do it, and what can beginners start doing today to position themselves for success?

Insights about users and customer trends often are used to design and refine a product, but less often to shape the initial  strategy, where such information can make the most difference. Participants will learn a handful of tactics to first leverage existing user insights and trends further upstream for setting strategies, and to establish the practice more permanently as part of strategy development.

Product managers span a diverse set of products, companies, backgrounds, and cultures. In this session we'll get to the root of what we share in common and what sets us apart. Do you manage a software product or a hardware product? Are you hands-on or high-level? Do you truly own your product's P&L?

What can we learn from this? Perhaps you want to make the jump from hardware to software or vice versa.  Or maybe you're considering transferring into a product management role from something else.  This discussion will culminate in an understanding of the fundamental transferable skills across all PMs and those that are limited to certain situations. Come prepared to discuss your current/past PM experience and general thoughts.

If your product team is big enough, it includes directors or VPs of product management. What do those folks do -- that's different from line product managers? Interested?  And if you want that promotion, how would you prep/position/signal for it?

Here are a few suggestions for session topics I think would be of interest to attendees. My goal is to stimulate thinking about possible topics and to encourage people to propose sessions on these or other topics they are passionate about.

• Resources for self-guided professional development
• Customer collaboration in Agile
• How to increase executive support for product management
• How not to lose your long-term perspective when fighting fires
• Aligning product planning with corporate strategy

We all have a small set of tools that enable us to do our job, manage our workflow, and communicate internally and externally.  Let's share them - you might uncover a tool that will help your company be more effecitve.

I'd like to hear from product managers how they implementing lean UX related activities in their product development process.

The decision to patent an invention is not always straight forward. Startups and existing companies must wrestle with the costs and exposing their intellectual property vs the potential gain in their net worth and fundability. We will explore these issues and provide information on the process to get a patent.

Are they the same?  (I don't think so.)  Agile/scrum product owner training focuses on sprint-level execution and user stories; proudct managers have a much wider charter.  How can we fit these together in very small teams, and scaled up to many-multi-team product organizations?