If you haven't heard of ProductCamp, you are spending too much time defining features, irritating your marketers, scaring finance and yelling at your developers, and not enough time following #prodmgmt on Twitter! Known as the "unconference" because there are no fees, no pre-planned agenda and no selling, a ProductCamp is basically a set of round table discussions with product managers, marketers and whomever else is interested.

At ProductCamp, there are no "attendees," since everyone participates in some manner: presenting, leading a roundtable discussion, sharing their experiences, helping with logistics, securing sponsorship, or plain volunteering. This is a self organizing collaborative event that is fun, rewarding and a cool experience! ProductCamp is a great opportunity for you to learn from, teach to, and network with professionals involved in the Product Management domain in and around the Washington D.C. area.

Learn more about this dynamic and organic approach to meeting your peers here: ProductCamp.org.

ProductCamps are based on the concept of BarCamps, the first of which was held in Palo Alto, California in 2005. So why BarCamp? It’s a reference to the hacker slang term, foobar. BarCamp arose as a tongue-in-cheek spin-off of Foo Camp, an annual invitation-only participant-driven conference hosted by open source publishing luminary Tim O'Reilly. 

The first ProductCamp (aka P-CAMP) was held on March 15, 2008 in Mountain View, California. Word-of-mouth spread fast about this “unconference” (no registration fee, no agenda, no selling) and about 170 people showed up on a Saturday to discuss topics of interest to product managers, product marketers and a host of related roles.

Following this event, many participants commented both privately to their colleagues and publicly via blogs, wikis, and tweets. The idea went viral, and several other cities started ProductCamps of their own. Austin was first out of the gate with others following over the subsequent months in 2008 and into 2009.

Sometimes, when you go to a conference, it feels like the content is owned by the vendors and sponsors as opposed to the attendees. ProductCamp is user-sponsored so you drive the content to get the most out of your time. It's a great, unique way to learn new ideas, network with peers, engage in thought provoking discussions, push the creativity envelope, and have FUN!

As we know all too well, training and travel budgets have been cut significantly these days, if not completely, so this may be your only chance to expand your product managing and product marketing mind. Also, as you well know, the DC metro does not have any networking events for product managers and innovators, so you have to take these opportunities when you can.

ProductCamp DC is a 100% volunteer run event, and as such, is organized and run by a group of hard working volunteers dedicated to making it an engaging and fun event. Read about the team that works to plan and organize the various activities that go into making ProductCamp DC happen. Also check out our manifesto where we share our mission, values and vision for ProductCamp DC.