Unlike traditional conferences, anyone interested in leading a session at ProductCamp St. Louis can submit a topic. Then, everyone in attendance gets to vote on which sessions they would like to see, and the most popular choices get on the schedule.
ProductCamp St. Louis 2026 was held on Saturday, March 28.
Anyone who proposed a session was given an opportunity to share slides, handouts, and other materials. Any materials that were provided by session leaders are available in this Google Drive folder.
If you have questions or are looking for more information about a specific session, please reach out directly to the person who submitted the session.
On this page:
- Proposed Sessions for ProductCamp St. Louis 2026
- Session Categories
- Session Formats
- Day-Of Logistics
Proposed Sessions
View the Schedule page to see which sessions made it on the schedule for ProductCamp 2026
- Session ID1: An Overview of Product Psychology: Designing for Engagement, Ethics, and the Human Mind [Hannah Davison.]
- Session ID2: 10 Common Pricing Errors and Tips For Avoiding Them [Dale Furtwengler.]
- Session ID3: Converting Confidence Into Influence And Opportunity [Dale Furtwengler.]
- Session ID4: AI: Your New Product Team Member (or Frenemy)? [Dave Mathias.]
- Session ID5: SILO is a Four-Letter Word – How Leadership Language Affects Group Collaboration [Stanton Brooks.]
- Session ID6: Your Customer Is Not Who You Think: How Smart Product Teams (Still) Get It Wrong [Brandon Towl.]
- Session ID7: Customers Told Us to Build It…So Why Didn’t They Use It? [Brandon Towl.]
- Session ID8: You Have Customer Data. So Why Are Your Big Decisions Still Guesses? [Brandon Towl.]
- Session ID9: Micro-Contract Development — How to Reliably Build Production-Grade Software with AI. [Stanton Brooks.]
- Session ID10: Hidden Risks in Hardware-Enabled Products: A Documentation Workshop [Rene Canady.]
- Session ID11: Who Gets Left Out? Identifying Equity Risks in Hardware Product Design [Rene Canady.]
- Session ID12: Documentation That De-Risks Hardware Development [Rene Canady.]
- Session ID13: Before You Launch… [Rene Canady.]
- Session ID14: Designing in the Dark [Rene Canady.]
- Session ID15: Design for Behavior Change: A Know–Feel–Do Workshop for GTM Leaders [Nia Li.]
- Session ID16: The Execution Gap: Aligning to Unlock Growth [Karen Loiterstein.]
- Session ID17: The Product Career Playbook: Strategies for Growth & Leadership [Karen Loiterstein .]
- Session ID18: PRD to Prototype: Ship an App without Coding [Joshua King.]
- Session ID19: Creating successful data science products [Tom Morrell.]
- Session ID20: What to Expect After Becoming an AI-Enabled 10x Product Manager [Brian Collard.]
- Session ID21: What Your Focus Groups Aren’t Telling You [Brian Collard.]
Session ID22: Culture-First AI Framework [Chris Feix.]- Session ID23: Kill Your Questions [Laima Mazeikyte.]
- Session ID24: Invisible AI: Orchestrating the Transition to Agentic AI for Product Leaders [Praveen Mishall.]
- Session ID25: Benchmarking for Impact: Great Strategy Starts with the Consumer, Not the Competition [Kenneth Dean.]
- Session ID26: Pitchforks at the Gate: Recovering from a User Revolt After a “Successful” Enterprise Rollout [Ian Garrison.]
- Session ID27: Business Basics for Reluctant Entrepreneurs [Mary Scott.]
- Session ID28: Dancing la clave: Building a sustainable accessibility program through the foundations of salsa [Jared Becker.]
- Session ID29: Internal Products Are Still Products (Even If Your Company Doesn’t Treat Them That Way) [Stan Ponder.]
- Session ID30: Agile Didn’t Break Your Product Team — Your Organization Did [Stan Ponder.]
- Session ID31: From Hype to Hands‑On: How We’re Actually Using AI [Angela Smith.]
- Session ID32: Ask Me Anything: Product Leadership [Jeff Lash.]
- Session ID33: Speed Networking [Jeff Lash.]
- Session ID34: Your Roadmap Is Not Your Strategy – Building a Foundation That Actually Guides Decisions [Raj Iyer.]
- Session ID35: AI Without Impact: Why Most AI Products Fail [Raj Iyer.]
- Session ID36: Why podcasting? [Melody Eye.]
- Session ID37: Product-Market Fit for Startups: Lessons From Building Host Analytics, Gainsight, and TopOPPS [Jim Eberlin.]
- Session ID38: From Report Requests to Data Products: Reframing the Ask [Elysia Berkery.]
- Session ID39: Evolving to an Enterprise Data Platform: A Product Manager’s Role in Data Transformation [Elysia Berkery.]
- Session ID40: Beyond the Hype: A Practical Framework for Using AI in Product Management [Jaikrishnan Pandurangan.]
- Session ID41: Spiritually Based Business Development: Finding Your True Passion and Purpose [Terese Messman.]
- Session ID42: Set Yourself Apart with Premium Customer Service [Terese Messman.]
| Session ID#:1 | An Overview of Product Psychology: Designing for Engagement, Ethics, and the Human Mind |
| Description: | By the end of this presentation, attendees will understand how behavioral psychology influences user behavior in digital products. They will also learn how to apply practical UX strategies, such as reducing cognitive load, strengthening visual hierarchy, and streamlining user flows, to ethically guide users toward desired outcomes. Participants will gain tools to evaluate their own products through a psychological lens and identify opportunities for improvement. Finally, attendees will be able to identify dark design patterns and understand the ethical limits of persuasive design, helping them create experiences that respect user autonomy, build trust, and prioritize long-term user well-being over short-term engagement metrics. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Design and Collaboration |
| Submitted by: | Hannah Davison. Hannah is a UX/UI Designer with three years of experience designing and delivering thoughtful, user-centered web and mobile products. She currently works as a Product and Design Lead, combining UX/UI design, project management, and product management within an Agile environment. In her current role, she is helping an organization transition its B2C website into a B2B SaaS product, bridging user needs, business goals, and technical constraints.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannahdavison15/ |
| Session ID#:2 | 10 Common Pricing Errors and Tips For Avoiding Them |
| Description: | Pricing is one of the most crucial, yet least understood aspects of business. In this program you’ll learn the most common mistakes businesses make in pricing and how to avoid making these mistakes. |
| Session Format: | Ask the Expert |
| Category: | Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategy |
| Submitted by: | Dale Furtwengler. Dale Furtwengler is the author of Pricing For Profit and Generate Greater Profit With Fewer Sales. Dale’s CFO background enables him to understand and appreciate what works when it comes to sales and marketing. |
| Session ID#:3 | Converting Confidence Into Influence And Opportunity |
| Description: | When others regularly say to you: You don’t think like other people do, you look at the world differently than others do, you see things others don’t see, yet what you say makes perfect sense, two things happen. People seek your counsel affording you tremendous influence and they invite you into their initiatives opening the door to countless opportunities for you. |
| Session Format: | Ask the Expert |
| Category: | Funding/Investors |
| Submitted by: | Dale Furtwengler. Dale Furtwengler is the author of Lead A Life Of Confidence. He’s also authored a trilogy of confidence programs teaching people how to: Be consistently confident…even when you have no background or experience, Converting Confidence into Influence and Opportunity, Tapping the Power of Your Subconscious MInd. |
| Session ID#:4 | AI: Your New Product Team Member (or Frenemy)? |
| Description: | Explore how AI is transforming product management, from automating repetitive tasks to enhancing decision-making. We’ll discuss practical ways to integrate AI into your workflow, address concerns about job displacement, and share real-world examples of AI-augmented teams.
Takeaways: |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Dave Mathias. Dave Mathias is a product and analytics leader with 15+ years of experience a passion for building amazing products and teams. His is in product at Cargill’s AI Hub, an author, and an adjunct instructor at the University of Minnesota, he brings energy and curiosity to every challenge. |
| Session ID#:5 | SILO is a Four-Letter Word – How Leadership Language Affects Group Collaboration |
| Description: | Product teams rarely fail because of tools or process. They fail because of language.
This session explores how everyday leadership language quietly reinforces silos, hardens group boundaries, and limits collaboration, even when leaders intend the opposite. Drawing from social identity theory and real organizational patterns, we’ll examine how teams form “us vs. them” identities, why those identities persist, and how small shifts in framing can increase boundary-permeability without forced alignment. You’ll leave with practical ways to recognize silo-creating language in product, design, and engineering contexts, and alternative frames leaders can use to support shared ownership, faster learning, and healthier cross-team dynamics. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Strategic Product Leadership |
| Submitted by: | Stanton Brooks. Stanton leads Product Management and UX innovation at the intersection of product strategy, user experience, and applied AI. His work focuses on building clear, scalable systems that help organizations make better decisions and deliver products that work in practice. His background spans product management, UX leadership, and cross-functional strategy, with experience shaping product direction and translating research into execution across engineering, design, and leadership teams. |
| Session ID#:6 | Your Customer Is Not Who You Think: How Smart Product Teams (Still) Get It Wrong |
| Description: | Many product teams work hard to be “customer driven.” Yet roadmap decisions are often built on outdated personas, secondhand anecdotes, or assumptions that have quietly drifted from reality.
In this interactive session, we’ll explore how even smart teams lose proximity to real customer insight…and how that gap creates risk in prioritization, positioning, and product strategy. This session will include a live diagnostic and group discussion to help attendees identify where assumptions may be shaping decisions…and where closer customer proximity could reduce risk. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Problem solving |
| Submitted by: | Brandon Towl. Brandon N. Towl is the founder of Words Have Impact and Human Driven Understanding, where he works with founders and product leaders to reduce costly assumptions and bring real customer evidence into high-stakes decisions. Through in-depth customer conversations, he helps organizations sharpen strategy, prioritize with confidence, and avoid building the wrong things. Connect with him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandontowl/ |
| Session ID#:7 | Customers Told Us to Build It…So Why Didn’t They Use It? |
| Description: | Product teams work hard to listen to their customers. Yet many features that seemed validated by feedback struggle to gain traction after launch. The issue is rarely a lack of input; it’s how that input gets interpreted.
In this interactive session, we’ll explore why customer requests often mask deeper needs, how confident teams misread useful signals, and where translation gaps introduce risk into product decisions. Using a quick diagnostic and guided discussion, this session will demonstrate how interpretation can shape a product roadmap…and how stronger customer understanding can help product teams hedge their bets. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Customer and Market Focus |
| Submitted by: | Brandon Towl. Brandon N. Towl is the founder of Words Have Impact and Human Driven Understanding, where he works with founders and product leaders to reduce costly assumptions and bring real customer evidence into high-stakes decisions. Through in-depth customer conversations, he helps organizations sharpen strategy, prioritize with confidence, and avoid building the wrong things. Connect with him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandontowl/ |
| Session ID#:8 | You Have Customer Data. So Why Are Your Big Decisions Still Guesses? |
| Description: | Modern product teams are awash in customer data. Yet high-stakes decisions are still shaped by interpretation, assumptions, and incomplete context. More data and better tools often amplify the noise rather than resolve the uncertainty.
In this interactive roundtable, participants will work through a structured product scenario and compare the different decisions that can emerge from the same evidence. The discussion highlights where ambiguity enters the decision process, why experienced teams can reach conflicting conclusions, and most importantly, what closes the gap between signal and real understanding. |
| Session Format: | Roundtable Breakout |
| Category: | Customer and Market Focus |
| Submitted by: | Brandon Towl. Brandon N. Towl is the founder of Words Have Impact and Human Driven Understanding, where he works with founders and product leaders to reduce costly assumptions and bring real customer evidence into high-stakes decisions. Through in-depth customer conversations, he helps organizations sharpen strategy, prioritize with confidence, and avoid building the wrong things. Connect with him at https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandontowl/ |
| Session ID#:9 | Micro-Contract Development — How to Reliably Build Production-Grade Software with AI. |
| Description: | Most people using AI to build things are prompting, iterating, and hoping. The output feels fast, but it’s not reliable — and it’s not repeatable. Micro-Contract Development is a structured method for getting production-grade output from AI, consistently. You define scope, constraints, and acceptance criteria in a build contract before you touch the AI. Then you execute against it. The contract is the interface between your judgment and the AI’s capability. This is a hands-on workshop. You’ll write a real build contract, execute it with whatever AI tool you prefer, and see the difference structured intent makes. You’ll leave with a method you can use Monday morning. No coding required. Bring your laptop and your favorite AI. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Stanton Brooks. Stanton is Director of UX & Product Innovation at Active Twist, with nearly two decades of experience in product management and UX leadership. He has used AI-assisted development to independently ship production-grade software across multiple platforms — including a zero-defect WordPress plugin and an iOS game built in four days. He is the author of an upcoming book on intergroup leadership. |
| Session ID#:10 | Hidden Risks in Hardware-Enabled Products: A Documentation Workshop |
| Description: | Recent AI advances have shifted product risk discussions to software. But hardware-enabled devices introduce material risks, body interaction risks, regulatory risks, and equity risks that software PMs rarely encounter.
In this hands-on workshop, you’ll work through a structured risk identification framework designed for products combining hardware and software. Bring a device concept and we’ll walk through documentation prompts that surface hidden assumptions about physical design, usability across populations, regulatory pathways, and market access barriers. Participants completing the exercises will be eligible for a free risk analysis report. Ideal for PMs working on wearables, medical devices, IoT hardware, or any product where software meets the physical world. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Data and Analytics |
| Submitted by: | Rene Canady. Rene is a sociologist, biomedical engineer and the founder of ES Biodesign, a design justice and medtech consulting firm focused on mitigating risk in hardware-enabled products where physical interaction, regulatory pathways, and market access add complexity beyond software. The firm has supported early-stage startups, academic labs, and innovation programs with product risk assessment, FDA-informed development practices, and usability across diverse populations. |
| Session ID#:11 | Who Gets Left Out? Identifying Equity Risks in Hardware Product Design |
| Description: | Hardware products make assumptions about bodies, environments, and infrastructure that exclude entire user populations—but most teams don’t realize it until too late.
Learn a practical framework for identifying equity-related design risks. Through guided prompts, spot exclusionary patterns in physical fit, usability barriers (vision, dexterity, cognition), infrastructure dependencies, and cost constraints. Analyze your own product or a case study. Complete the exercise for a free risk analysis report. Best for teams building wearables, medical devices, assistive tech, or physical products for diverse users. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Design and Collaboration |
| Submitted by: | Rene Canady. Rene is a sociologist and biomedical engineer and the founder of ES Biodesign, a design justice and medtech consulting firm focused on mitigating risk in hardware-enabled products where physical interaction, regulatory pathways, and market access add complexity beyond software. She has supported early-stage startups, academic labs, and innovation programs with product risk assessment, FDA-informed development practices, and usability across diverse populations. |
| Session ID#:12 | Documentation That De-Risks Hardware Development |
| Description: | Hardware products can’t “ship and iterate” like software—they require upfront thinking about materials, sensing, body interaction, regulatory pathways, and validation.
Learn core documentation elements every hardware product needs. Through interactive prompts, draft or refine intended use statements, system architecture descriptions, informal risk analyses, and regulatory pathway hypotheses. Complete the workshop for a free risk analysis report on compliance readiness and market access. Ideal for founders, researchers, and PMs exploring whether their hardware concept is viable and supportable over time. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Rene Canady. Rene is a sociologist, engineer, researcher and the founder of ES Biodesign, a design justice and medtech firm focused on mitigating risk in hardware-enabled products where physical interaction, regulatory pathways, and market access add complexity beyond software. She has supported early-stage startups, academic labs, and innovation programs with product risk assessment, FDA-informed development practices, and usability across diverse populations. |
| Session ID#:13 | Before You Launch… |
| Description: | Launching hardware without understanding risks is costly—unlike software, you can’t just roll back. Recalls, redesigns, and regulatory holds can sink a product.
This workshop supports teams preparing to launch or recovering from a misstep. Through a structured audit, identify assumptions standing in for evidence, usability gaps, regulatory blind spots, and market barriers. Work through real documentation prompts and complete the exercise to receive a free risk analysis report with prioritized risks—or a course-correction roadmap. Bring your product concept, pitch deck, or post-mortem notes. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Startup Ecosystem |
| Submitted by: | Rene Canady. Rene is a sociologist, engineer, researcher and the founder of ES Biodesign, a design justice and medtech firm focused on mitigating risk in hardware-enabled products where physical interaction, regulatory pathways, and market access add complexity beyond software. She has supported early-stage startups, academic labs, and innovation programs with product risk assessment, FDA-informed development practices, and usability across diverse populations. |
| Session ID#:14 | Designing in the Dark |
| Description: | What do you do when target users are hard to recruit, expensive to access, or ethically complex to study? Many hardware products serve populations outside typical research pipelines: rare conditions, under-resourced settings, stigmatized health issues, or communities with justified distrust.
This session addresses an uncomfortable reality: designing for users you can’t easily observe, interview, or prototype with. We’ll discuss strategies for limited user access, identifying hidden assumptions, leveraging existing research, and recognizing when “designing in the dark” becomes irresponsible. Bring tough questions. Attendees may receive free risk analysis reports. |
| Session Format: | Ask the Expert |
| Category: | Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategy |
| Submitted by: | Rene Canady. Rene Canady is a sociologist, biomedical engineer and founder of ES Biodesign, a firm specializing in equity-driven MedTech innovation workforce development. The firm helps teams navigate ethically complex or hard-to-reach user populations, applying community-driven design and design justice principles to turn uncertainty into actionable insights. Rene empowers teams to design responsibly and inclusively, untapping new markets, even when users are hardest to reach. |
| Session ID#:15 | Design for Behavior Change: A Know–Feel–Do Workshop for GTM Leaders |
| Description: | Most product and GTM initiatives fail for one reason: we design for information, not behavior.
In this hands-on workshop, you’ll learn the Know–Feel–Do framework — a simple but powerful model for designing product launches, Sales Kickoffs, onboarding programs, training, and GTM sales plays that actually drive action. After a brief walkthrough of the framework (15 mins), you’ll apply it in small groups (25 mins) to a real initiative you’re working on. You’ll leave with a completed Know–Feel–Do map and a clearer path to influence behavior — not just check the box. If you care about adoption, alignment, and impact, this session is for you. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategy |
| Submitted by: | Nia Li. Nia designs high-impact GTM and enablement experiences that connect strategy to measurable behavior change. From Sales Kickoffs to onboarding and product rollouts, she applies the Know–Feel–Do framework to drive adoption, alignment, and real action—not just activity. Her work blends experience design, psychology, and AI to reduce friction and improve performance.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nia-li-429302242/ |
| Session ID#:16 | The Execution Gap: Aligning to Unlock Growth |
| Description: | Every B2B company faces the same seven go-to-market breakdowns, regardless of industry or growth stage. These issues may not appear in dashboards, but they show up in missed revenue, rising CAC, churn, and stalled execution.
This session highlights the patterns that quietly undermine performance, especially misalignment between Product and Revenue. From disconnected roadmaps to fragmented handoffs and weak enablement, these breakdowns are predictable and fixable. You’ll learn how leading teams close the execution gap using structure, shared operating rhythms, and clear accountability and leave with a practical framework to identify and fix the most expensive cracks in your revenue engine |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Strategic Product Leadership |
| Submitted by: | Karen Loiterstein. Karen Loiterstein helps Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success teams work better together to drive growth. She turns big strategies into clear, practical plans that teams can actually execute. Karen has built and led commercial teams at several national companies, improving revenue, ramp time, and performance. She speaks on go-to-market strategy, alignment, and how to turn plans into results. |
| Session ID#:17 | The Product Career Playbook: Strategies for Growth & Leadership |
| Description: | This session will equip you with the essential strategies to grow and lead in your product career. You’ll learn: 1. How to position yourself for leadership roles 2. Ways to expand your influence and visibility 3. Frameworks for navigating career transitions 4. Key skills that set top product leaders apart 5. Actionable steps to accelerate your growth Whether you’re looking to move up the ranks or refine your leadership skills, this session will provide the playbook to help you succeed. Walk away with clear, practical insights to take your product career to the next level! |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Job Search and Product Career |
| Submitted by: | Karen Loiterstein . Karen Loiterstein is a connector and mentor who is passionate about helping people grow their careers. She actively supports professionals in finding new opportunities, making meaningful connections, and navigating career transitions with confidence. Known for her strong network and practical guidance, Karen helps others clarify their goals, position their strengths, and open doors that move them forward. |
| Session ID#:18 | PRD to Prototype: Ship an App without Coding |
| Description: | You don’t need to be a developer to build real software. In this hands-on workshop, you’ll go from a plain-English product requirements document to a working, deployed app — using Claude as your AI development partner inside VS Code. No prior coding experience required. No toy demos. You’ll build something real and walk out with a live project you can keep iterating on. We’ll cover writing a PRD that guides AI development, setting up VS Code + Claude Code, prompting strategies that produce working code, debugging and iterating, and deploying your app live. Bring a laptop with VS Code installed, a GitHub account, and a Claude API key (setup instructions provided in advance). By the end, you’ll have shipped your first app and a repeatable workflow for building the next one. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Joshua King. Joshua founded Think Systems LLC, bringing Fortune 500 transformation expertise to mid-market companies, and MotoSetupPro, a data-driven motorcycle setup and telemetry platform used in MotoAmerica racing. With two decades at Deloitte, North Highland, and Isos Technology, he specializes in process improvement, operating models, and change management. He built MotoSetupPro from scratch with AI-assisted development and no coding experience — proof that the workflow he teaches actually works. |
| Session ID#:19 | Creating successful data science products |
| Description: | A short introduction to creating successful data science products: I’ll give a very high level overview of what data science is, and what it is (and isn’t) capable of, before introducing the many roles required to transform data into something usable (and keep it that way). I’ll then continue on to discuss some of the many considerations which arise during planning and execution, highlighting many of the common mistakes which prevent models from reaching customers and providing value. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Data and Analytics |
| Submitted by: | Tom Morrell. Tom Morrell is a full stack data scientist and applied mathematician with experience architecting, consulting on, implementing, and maintaining data and data science products across a variety of industries. |
| Session ID#:20 | What to Expect After Becoming an AI-Enabled 10x Product Manager |
| Description: | You did it! You have your agent systems setup. You can now research and prototype faster than your engineering team can review. You are an AI-Enabled 10x Product Manager.
Now what? Here’s what nobody warned you about: the humans didn’t speed up. Your stakeholders still take weeks to align. Your org still takes months to buy in. Your customers still take years to trust you. And the gap between what you can produce and what your organization can absorb is widening every day. In this session, you’ll learn: |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Brian Collard. Brian Collard is the CTO of Perspectives, an AI consultnacy in St. Louis. A three-time ProdCamp speaker, he’s spent three years building AI-powered products across consulting, research, strategy, and coaching. He is a certified New Product Development Professional (NPDP) and the founder of the St. Louis PDMA Chapter. |
| Session ID#:21 | What Your Focus Groups Aren’t Telling You |
| Description: | Traditional research is broken. Roughly 40% of focus group data gets thrown out. Surveys capture what people can articulate and every session is a snapshot you can’t replicate. This talk will cover what emerges when you run both traditional and synthetic research side by side — what both confirm, what only one catches, and what falls through the cracks.
You’ll Learn: – how to uncover insights customers can’t articulate — and validate the ones they can |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Customer and Market Focus |
| Submitted by: | Brian Collard. Brian Collard is the CTO of Perspectives, an AI consultancy in St. Louis. He is a certified New Product Development Professional (NPDP) and the founder of the St. Louis PDMA Chapter. He’s spent three years building AI-powered research, strategy, and intelligence products — and has learned that the hardest part is never the technology. |
Behavioral scientist and 25-year UX evangelist. I coach Fortune 500 CEOs and 4 person startups on proper AI implementation, ethics, and behavioral issues. I always put people over products. |
| Session ID#:23 | Kill Your Questions |
| Description: | Browser autofill exists. Validation libraries exist. So why are 70% of digital forms still broken?
Your product has a bottleneck, and it is likely where you ask users to do the work. Every extra field or vague label bleeds conversion. I am one of 36 Baymard Institute E-commerce UX Masters globally. Combining research with real-world examples, we will cover: – The “Kill Your Questions” Framework: How to cut inputs without losing data. Your users are tired of thinking. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Product Leadership |
| Submitted by: | Laima Mazeikyte. I make apps and websites easy to use, where every click feels natural and every task effortless. I am one of 36 professionals globally to hold the Baymard Institute E-commerce UX Mastery certification, widely recognized as the gold standard in UX research. I combine this elite theoretical foundation with AI coding workflows to build validated, high-usability products that people love. My portfolio: www.laima.design |
| Session ID#:24 | Invisible AI: Orchestrating the Transition to Agentic AI for Product Leaders |
| Description: | This presentation shows product leaders how to move beyond chatbots to agentic, workflow-native AI that delivers measurable business value. Using real-world case studies and concrete frameworks, it explains why chat-first copilots create AI fatigue, how autonomous agents compound risk without guardrails, and what it takes to design reliable, governable, ROI-positive AI systems. Attendees gain a practical playbook for evolving PRDs, embedding human-in-the-loop controls, managing security and legal risk, and prioritizing AI investments that outperform their compute cost. The session equips product leaders to shift from experimenting with AI features to orchestrating AI as a durable operating model before that advantage becomes table stakes. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Agentic AI |
| Submitted by: | Praveen Mishall. Praveen Mishall, Sr. Product Owner at World Wide Technology, specializes in ERP systems and customer-focused solutions. As a SAFe 6 leader and Oracle Fusion AI Agent Studio Associate, he advances Agentic AI adoption. At Deloitte, he led Oracle Cloud transformations and managed large-scale data integrations, building expertise in stakeholder alignment, data management, and roadmap execution. Praveen streamlines operations by integrating autonomous features to boost ROI. |
| Session ID#:25 | Benchmarking for Impact: Great Strategy Starts with the Consumer, Not the Competition |
| Description: | Traditional benchmarking often functions like a “weather report”- telling you what has already happened without offering specific ways to change it. By focusing solely on how they measure up against competitors, businesses risk “sideways benchmarking” where they merely copy the strategy (and/or mistakes) of their rivals. “Benchmarking for Impact” flips this model utilizing actionable, deployable, and holistic consumer information and tailored data displays. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Customer and Market Focus |
| Submitted by: | Kenneth Dean. Results-oriented executive with a diverse background spanning CPG, durable manufacturing, and the non-profit sector. Proven innovation in merging Industrial/Organizational Psychology with Quality Management tools to drive outstanding business results. Successfully implemented quality improvement tools into the customer-facing and demand side of the business. Notably led Nestlé Purina to become the only CPG company to receive the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. |
| Session ID#:26 | Pitchforks at the Gate: Recovering from a User Revolt After a “Successful” Enterprise Rollout |
| Description: | A power company replaced a major enterprise system used by 700 people across twelve power plants.
They approached it the “right” way: user research, a user-driven selection process, a scorecard emphasizing user needs, and users involved throughout implementation. Thirty days after go-live, the users revolted. Engineers closed hundreds of tickets in a month, but user sentiment barely moved. With pitchforks gathering at the gate, the team stepped back and redesigned their user engagement approach. Borrowing from product management and adapting it for enterprise environments with small user bases and massive operational impact, they changed the interaction model. Within weeks, stakeholders put down the pitchforks and began praising the team. This session examines how they did it. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Strategic Product Leadership |
| Submitted by: | Ian Garrison. Ian Garrison helps leaders understand why their organizations aren’t delivering the way they expect — and how to change that. With over two decades of experience working with teams across startups and large enterprises, he’s seen how often delivery struggles are rooted in the environment, not the technology. Ian is the founder of Waypointr which helps leaders see and address challenges within their organizational culture. |
| Session ID#:27 | Business Basics for Reluctant Entrepreneurs |
| Description: | An interactive workshop to help new business owners set up their business entity, and not leave anything out. It’s basic business steps with the appropriate links to do things like get an EIN number. 40 minutes including lots of time for Q & A, and a downloadable graphic with clickable links |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Startup Ecosystem |
| Submitted by: | Mary Scott. Mary Scott, New York former media producer, knows enough about all industries to get into some trouble. She is the Founder of PitchSTL & the Startup Resources Guide. As an advisor to hundreds of established businesses and startups, she works with inventors, tech & product founders, and solopreneurs to get them access to the resources and contacts they need to validate their ideas, learn to pitch successfully & get money from investors. This is going to be Fun! |
| Session ID#:28 | Dancing la clave: Building a sustainable accessibility program through the foundations of salsa |
| Description: | Put on your dancing shoes and come prepared to learn what salsa dancing can teach us about digital accessibility! We will discuss the parallels to rhythm and connection, how to recover when you misstep or get offbeat, and more. Through eight practical pillars, expect real-world examples and actionable takeaways you can use to build a sustainable, human-centered digital accessibility program – all while still moving fast and creating beautiful experiences without sacrificing quality. Plus, there’s music! Vamos! |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Design and Collaboration |
| Submitted by: | Jared Becker. Jared is a digital product and accessibility professional at Purina. With over 10 years of experience, his expertise ranges across product development, human-centered design, and analytics. His passion for accessibility is what drives him to build best-in-class digital products for people and their pets everyday. |
| Session ID#:29 | Internal Products Are Still Products (Even If Your Company Doesn’t Treat Them That Way) |
| Description: | Many product managers work on internal platforms, tools, or enterprise systems—but organizations rarely treat them like real products. Internal teams often become feature factories driven by stakeholder requests instead of user problems or business outcomes.
This session explores how product thinking can transform internal systems. We’ll discuss why stakeholders aren’t the same as customers, how to define value for internal products, and practical ways to prioritize work when every department believes their request is critical. If you manage internal platforms, enterprise systems, or tools used by employees, this session will help you bring real product management principles to environments that often operate like project delivery. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Specialized Areas |
| Submitted by: | Stan Ponder. Stan Ponder is a product management leader who has spent roughly two decades working in the messy intersection of product, agile, and organizational change. He enjoys helping teams move beyond frameworks and buzzwords to actually build products that deliver value. Stan regularly speaks about product leadership, internal platforms, and why many agile transformations fall short. |
| Session ID#:30 | Agile Didn’t Break Your Product Team — Your Organization Did |
| Description: | Many companies say they “do Agile,” yet product teams still struggle with slow delivery, unclear priorities, and endless backlog debates. When results fall short, Agile often gets blamed.
But the real issue is usually organizational design—decision structures, incentives, and leadership expectations that prevent product teams from succeeding. This session explores common organizational patterns that quietly sabotage product teams, even when they follow Agile frameworks. We’ll discuss why Agile processes alone cannot fix product problems and how product leaders can influence change within complex organizations. If your company claims to be Agile but your product teams still feel stuck, this conversation will likely sound familiar. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Stan Ponder. Stan Ponder is a product management leader who has spent nearly two decades working in the messy intersection of product, agile, and organizational change. He enjoys helping teams move beyond frameworks and buzzwords to actually build products that deliver value. Stan regularly speaks about product leadership, internal platforms, and why many agile transformations fall short. |
| Session ID#:31 | From Hype to Hands‑On: How We’re Actually Using AI |
| Description: | AI is everywhere—but how are product teams truly using it day to day? This practical, candid session shares real examples of where AI accelerates research, streamlines workflows, improves customer insights, and strengthens decision‑making. You’ll hear what’s working, what isn’t, and lessons learned across different organizations and product roles. After the panel, attendees will break into small groups to discuss their own AI practices, ask questions, and learn directly from their peers. Whether you’re new to AI or already experimenting, you’ll leave with realistic takeaways to bring AI from hype to hands‑on impact in your own work. |
| Session Format: | Roundtable Breakout |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Angela Smith. Angela Smith is a Group Product Manager leading Product Operations at Nestle Purina PetCare. She energizes teams to integrate AI into everyday work through practical experimentation and collaborative learning. With an approachable style and a steady, motivating presence, she helps people feel capable and excited to embrace new tools. |
| Session ID#:32 | Ask Me Anything: Product Leadership |
| Description: | What does it take to be a great product management leader? Whether you’re looking to move from an individual contributor (IC) to a leadership role, or you’re already leading teams and want to level up, this “Ask the Expert” session is for you. Nothing related to product management leadership is off limits! Your expert guide for this session is Jeff Lash, a recognized product management thought leader with nearly two decades of experience leading product management teams. Additionally, Jeff spent years advising product executives on how to elevate their product management teams and practices. Bring your questions and join a dynamic discussion on what it takes to succeed as a product management leader! |
| Session Format: | Ask the Expert |
| Category: | Combination of Go-To-Market and Marketing Execution |
| Submitted by: | Jeff Lash. Jeff is currently VP, Product Management at Insperity, where he is responsible for enterprise product management strategy and leading product innovation and management across this $6B+ public company that provides HR services to small businesses. He has spent 20 years in product and service development and delivery, including as an advisor to product management leaders at Forrester/SiriusDecisions. He is founder of the St. Louis Product Management Group and Chair of ProductCamp St. Louis. |
| Session ID#:33 | Speed Networking |
| Description: | Forget the awkward small talk and “wallflower” moments! Join us for a high-energy, fast-paced networking session designed to help you build more meaningful connections in one hour than most do in a year. Using a structured “speed” format, you’ll have 5-minute lightning rounds to swap insights, share your biggest product wins (or epic fails), and expand your local STL circle. Whether you’re looking for a mentor, a new hire, or just a fresh perspective, this session is the ultimate shortcut to meeting your next “product bestie.” We provide the conversation starters; you provide the passion. Come ready to talk fast, listen well, and leave with a pocketful of new contacts! |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Networking |
| Submitted by: | Jeff Lash. Jeff is currently VP, Product Management at Insperity, where he is responsible for enterprise product management strategy and leading product innovation and management across this $6B+ public company that provides HR services to small businesses. He has spent 20 years in product and service development and delivery, including as an advisor to product management leaders at Forrester/SiriusDecisions. He is founder of the St. Louis Product Management Group and Chair of ProductCamp St. Louis. |
| Session ID#:34 | Your Roadmap Is Not Your Strategy – Building a Foundation That Actually Guides Decisions |
| Description: | Product teams today are busier than ever—shipping features, managing backlogs, and delivering against committed roadmaps. Yet despite all this activity, many teams struggle to demonstrate meaningful business impact. Why? Because delivering features is not the same as delivering value.
Most product teams have a vision. Very few have a strategy their team can use to make daily trade-offs. This session closes that gap. We’ll break down the difference between vision and strategy, then walk through a three-layer stack: the north star statement, strategic bets, and the connection to execution. You’ll apply the north star formula to a real product in a small group exercise — and get instant feedback on whether your statement is specific enough to actually make decisions. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Personal Success in your Business Role |
| Submitted by: | Raj Iyer. www.letsconsultllc.com; www.linkedin.com/in/consultiyer
Raj is a Professional Certified Coach and creative, customer-centric transformation leader with enterprise-wide proven measurable results at multiple global Fortune 500 organizations across various industries. Raj specializes in Digital and Product Transformation through design thinking approach. Raj leverages servant leadership and emotional intelligence to collaborate cross-functionally in attaining strategic OKRs. |
| Session ID#:35 | AI Without Impact: Why Most AI Products Fail |
| Description: | AI is everywhere in today’s product landscape, but impact is not. While organizations are rapidly embedding AI into their products, many of these initiatives fail to deliver meaningful value or gain real user adoption. The problem is not the technology. It’s the approach. Many AI-powered products fail not due to lack of capability, but because teams start with the technology instead of the human problem. Through real examples, we will examine where AI initiatives go wrong, including over-automation, lack of trust, and solutions in search of a problem. If you’re a product manager, leader or innovator, exploring or already building AI-driven solutions and want to ensure they actually matter to your users, this session will help you rethink your approach. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Raj Iyer. www.letsconsultllc.com; www.linkedin.com/in/consultiyer
Raj is a Professional Certified Coach and creative, customer-centric transformation leader with enterprise-wide proven measurable results at multiple global Fortune 500 organizations across various industries. Raj specializes in Digital and Product Transformation through design thinking approach. Raj leverages servant leadership and emotional intelligence to collaborate cross-functionally in attaining strategic OKRs. |
| Session ID#:36 | Why podcasting? |
| Description: | How to start and promote a podcast and to engage with listeners? |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategy |
| Submitted by: | Melody Eye. Melody Rachel Eye is a researcher & educator with over 15 years of experience in product research and digital strategy. As the founder and host of the “Rachel on Recovery” podcast, she has reached a global audience of over 40,000 viewers, focusing on sensitive topics such as psychology. She has a Master’s in Information Science and Technology with her background in qualitative research to interview survivors and professionals, creating a platform grounded in empathy and evidence-based insights. |
| Session ID#:37 | Product-Market Fit for Startups: Lessons From Building Host Analytics, Gainsight, and TopOPPS
|
| Description: | Startups often scale before they’ve truly established product-market fit. In this session, Jim Eberlin shares lessons from Host Analytics, Gainsight, and TopOPPS on how teams can find their beachhead before investing, expanding, or growing too quickly. Attendees will leave with a practical framework for knowing where to focus, where to hold back, and when they’re actually ready to grow.. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Strategic Product Leadership |
| Submitted by: | Jim Eberlin. Jim Eberlin is a St. Louis entrepreneur and founder of three market-leading companies: Host Analytics (now Planful), Gainsight, and TopOPPS (now Xactly Forecasting), each with a successful exit. His awards include the 2022 Arch Grants Entrepreneur Award, the Dealmakers Hall of Fame Award, the Business Journal Lifetime Achievement Startup Exit Award, the 2021 LaunchCode Moonshot Startup Award, and the 2015 Missouri Governor’s Award for Entrepreneur of the Year. |
| Session ID#:38 | From Report Requests to Data Products: Reframing the Ask |
| Description: | Most data teams are inundated with report and dashboard requests, yet many of these outputs fail to drive meaningful decisions. This session reframes common “asks” as deeper decision gaps and explores how product thinking can transform reactive analytics work into scalable data products. The facilitator describes stakeholder requests, identifying the underlying decision need, and determining when to deliver, redirect, or redesign the solution entirely. Participants will break into small groups to analyze real-world examples, separating signal from noise and proposing more durable approaches. The session will conclude with a discussion on patterns that lead to sustainable data solutions, improved stakeholder engagement, and reduced one-off work across teams. |
| Session Format: | Roundtable Breakout |
| Category: | Data and Analytics |
| Submitted by: | Elysia Berkery. Product Manager of Data with experience in enterprise data platforms, analytics, and BI. Focused on scalable data products, stakeholder alignment, and data adoption. Background in translating business needs into technical solutions. |
| Session ID#:39 | Evolving to an Enterprise Data Platform: A Product Manager’s Role in Data Transformation |
| Description: | Transitioning from legacy, siloed systems to a centralized data platform is often framed as a technical initiative, but its success depends heavily on product thinking. This session examines the role of the product manager in guiding data evolution within an enterprise environment. It will cover how to balance short-term delivery needs with long-term architectural goals, prioritize evolution without disrupting critical workflows, and navigate stakeholder resistance to change. The talk will explore connecting business intent to technical transformation and how to position data platform work as a series of valuable, iterative product investments rather than a one-time overhaul. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Data and Analytics |
| Submitted by: | Elysia Berkery. Product Manager of Data with experience in enterprise data platforms, analytics, and BI. Focused on scalable data products, stakeholder alignment, and data adoption. Background in translating business needs into technical solutions. |
| Session ID#:40 | Beyond the Hype: A Practical Framework for Using AI in Product Management |
| Description: | Product teams don’t need more AI hype—they need a better way to decide what AI should actually do. In this session, I’ll introduce a practical framework for using AI across product management without weakening product thinking. We’ll look at common PM work—customer research synthesis, PRD drafting, backlog refinement, stakeholder updates, prioritization, and roadmap discussions—and evaluate each through a few simple lenses: risk, ambiguity, reviewability, context sensitivity, and decision ownership. To make it real, I’ll show one end-to-end workflow that uses AI to turn scattered inputs into structured insights and draft artifacts. Attendees will leave with a repeatable model, and clear guardrails for using AI with confidence. |
| Session Format: | Presentation |
| Category: | Product Development Execution |
| Submitted by: | Jaikrishnan Pandurangan. Jai Pandurangan is a Senior Solutions Architect and technology leader with 16+ years of experience helping business and engineering teams deliver enterprise-scale solutions. He brings a practical perspective on AI adoption across product, engineering, and operations. Jai is a Certified ScrumMaster and has practiced Agile for 15+ years, helping teams deliver value through iterative, collaborative execution. |
| Session ID#:41 | Spiritually Based Business Development: Finding Your True Passion and Purpose |
| Description: | Thinking about an entrepreneurial venture of your own? Or increasing your effectiveness within your company? Many of us long for work that uses our gifts and talents to improve life for others through a meaningful product or service, but sometimes fear and “imposter syndrome” get in the way. We will discuss techniques for seeking and finding a spiritually-led path to purposeful and service-based work. Fine-tuning our spiritual listening as well as overcoming common blocks to our progress will be addressed. You deserve to have work which makes you leap out of bed in the morning with joyful intent to embrace infinite possibilities to grow and serve in practical ways. A presentation will be followed by some small group discussion of entrepreneurial aspirations and overcoming blocks and Q&A. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | General Knowledge |
| Submitted by: | Terese Messman. Terese Messman of Inner Voice Empowerment LLC worked for Steve Jobs in marketing at Apple Computer Inc. . For 28 years her import business, Microfibers Unlimited, has trained hundreds of entrepreneurs on how to effectively sell eco-friendly cleaning systems. Terese is an entrepreneurial coach, speaker and author of inspirational articles and her book “Stop People-Pleasing and Listen to Your Inner Voice”. She speaks internationally and loves helping people find their true passion and purpose. |
| Session ID#:42 | Set Yourself Apart with Premium Customer Service |
| Description: | Whether your company deals in a product or service, we all need to have some interaction with our clients. Customer service can be the make-or-break engine for business growth for your company, but we have all experienced what it’s like when it falls short. This session will help you address common concerns and overcome hurdles in this important face of the company so that you can be known as responsive, responsible and caring for your clients. After a brief 15 minute presentation the session will break into small group discussion for brainstorming, then reconvene to share and have Q and A. |
| Session Format: | Workshop |
| Category: | Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategy |
| Submitted by: | Terese Messman. Terese is a veteran of the sales and marketing world, selling in retail settings as a teen to delivering sales training programs for Apple Computer Inc. . She has trained hundreds of salespeople in her sustainable cleaning import business, Microfibers Unlimited, and offers customer service training as part of her entrepreneurial coaching via Inner Voice Empowerment LLC. She has a special heart for training young people to get off their phones and interact meaningfully with customers. |
Session Categories
While it is not required that a session topic falls into one of the categories listed below, it’s a helpful guide for some of the topics that may be covered.
- Strategic Product Leadership (Prioritization, Stakeholder Management, Product Visioning, Product Mindset Leadership, Product Management Frameworks, Finding Product-Market Fit)
- Product Development Execution (Agile Processes, Requirements Gathering, Product Delivery and Operations, Automation, Reinventing Legacy Products, Total Cost of Ownership)
- Data and Analytics (Data Product Management, Product Analytics, Journey and Empathy Mapping, Market Research and Intelligence)
- Customer and Market Focus (Customer Centricity, Product Adoption, Product Research, Transforming Creativity into Commercialism: Aligning innovation with market demands.
- Design and Collaboration (Product and UX Optimization, Design Thinking and Human-Centered Design, Product Design, Ecosystems)
- Marketing and Go-to-Market Strategy (Sales Enablement, Positioning and Messaging, Lean Canvas, Business Cases)
- Team Management and Operations (Team Dynamics, Idea Intake, Organizational Focus)
- Startup Ecosystem (Funding, Investors, New Ventures)
- Specialized Areas (Manufacturing, Patenting, Non-Consumer-Facing Products)
- Other
Session Formats
In general, the most enjoyed and talked about sessions are those that have been very interactive. That said, you can structure a session however you wish. To help align expectations of the session leader and participants, we offer a list of format descriptions. This list is intended to be a guide but not intended to be limiting, so feel free to be creative.
- Presentation – The speaker presents on a specific topic, followed by opening the floor for expansion, comment, questions and general discussion.
- Roundtable Breakout – Similar to a presentation, except that audience breaks out into small groups and typically shares findings, comments, or team responses with the room at the end of the session.
- Workshop – In this format, the audience is actively involved, collectively or in groups, in an exercise or application of a technique or process which has been presented by the session leader. The description should mention the portion of the session spent in the exercise and what the attendees will produce. Proposers are encouraged to have knowledgeable assistants to help answer questions and support the exercise.
- Panel Discussion – Popularly seen, this format has several people qualified to talk about the subject of the session, preferably from diverse or even counterpoint perspectives or roles. A moderator facilitates questions from the audience or a series of prepared questions for the panelists, but a significant part of the session is still interactive Q&A with the audience.
- Ask the Expert – This format is most successful with a recognized authority on a subject of wide interest, or a direct participant in some particularly interesting event or phenomenon. The expert or a moderator introduces the topic and frames some appropriate discussion and then opens the floor for questions, including those that might be somewhat specific as long as they are applicable to more people than the individual questioner.
- Demonstration – Formal presentation on how to use or apply a tool or concept. This may can also include providing hands-on experience.
For Session Leaders: Logistics
If you are proposing a session, and it gets chosen, then you should be prepared to lead the session. Here are some details to help you make sure you’re prepared. There will be computers and projectors in each room. You can either…
- Bring your laptop or other device to present off of, along with any connectors you may need to hook up to a projector (especially for those with Mac laptops or tablets). Most rooms should have an HDMI connection and VGA connector.
- Or, store your slides online using a service like DropBox or Google Drive and then use the computer in the room to your presentation from there.
- Or, bring your slides on a USB drive and load them onto one of the computers in the room.
- Or, more than one of the above. (Things do go wrong, after all.)
We will have volunteers on hand to help with A/V as needed, and we have tested all of the equipment out in advance. That said, it’s always a good idea to have a backup plan in case you can’t get your slides to present. We’ll do the best we can to help, but no guarantees. If you need something specific, bring it with you; for example, if you want to play a video and want people to be able to hear it, we suggest bringing your own speakers.
The rooms will be set up “classroom style” with tables and chairs facing the front of the room, most likely in rows. For simplicity and logistics purposes, we won’t be able to accommodate other setups (e.g. arranging chairs into a circle). If you want to do something interactive, for example, you can ask people to pair up or get in small groups — that will be possible without moving furniture around, but we ask that you don’t move equipment or furniture otherwise.
If you have specific logistics questions, contact Sarah Ramrup.
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