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A product design and management conference for a post COVID19 world

Today we’re taking the covers off the program for our Product://Remote conference. Originally planned as a 2 day, 2 track in-person conference for Melbourne, combining our existing Product (for product managers) and Design (for product designers) conferences, Product://Remote will now take place across 4 Fridays in November.

In March, we’d largely programmed the original conference. The venue was booked, logistics in train to bring speakers from all over Australia and the World to Melbourne in August. But when the reality dawned that Product wasn’t going to go ahead the way we planned. Rather than simply try to drag the event online kicking and screaming, we started from scratch, asking what was the job our events did for our attendees, and how could we best do that in a remote-only world? (Yes, we do find Jobs to be Done theory very valuable at times).

Not only did we rethink the structure to adapt to the realities of people’s lives now (shorter sessions spread across a month) we’re focussing on high-quality pre-recording and editing, as well as completely new ways of presenting the conference content, as we have all reached peak Zoom fatigue.

We’ve thought deeply about the program, the difficulties that product design and management professionals are facing now, and into the future, from the impact of COVID19, and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which challenges us to acknowledge the biases and inequalities built into our society and culture, and address these. Let’s be blunt–the world has changed, and we are not going back to whatever we considered normal before February 2020.

What we design and develop, and how we do that has changed, as have the expectations, and in many cases the needs of our users. The nostrums, instincts, habits and approaches that might have served us well until then all need to be reassessed, and many to be discarded.

At Product://Remote we aim to help start and fuel these conversations. The schedule isn’t comforting acronyms, reassuring inspiration or cookie-cutter techniques, rather honest conversations about the difficult challenges we face now, and how to address them.

Each week focusses on a different area of practice for Product professionals. None of us have time to waste right now, so we won’t waste yours. Expect in-depth, high quality, thoughtful, relevant content to help you and your professional practice.

Session 1: Research and Discovery

Friday November 6th

Week one focusses on the challenge of product discovery, and research to ensure you and your team build the right thing, before you build the thing right.

Session 2: Strategy and Leadership

Friday November 13th

Week two addresses the challenges to strategy and leadership posed by COVID-19. How do we lead teams who we only see onscreen? And what does product strategy look like now?

Session 3: Professional Practice

Friday November 20th

Week three focusses on professional practice for Product Designers and Managers. From building creative and sustainable design systems, to Machine Learning for Product professionals, and much more.

Session 4: Ethics and Principles

Friday November 27th

It’s no longer sufficient to pay lip service to ethics and the consequences when we design and build our products and services. In the final week we’ll think more deeply about the ethics of our practice, and building right.

Who’s speaking?

Some names are well known, others not so, but all have unique, hard earned experience and honest, frank thoughts about their work, and the challenges they, you and your teams face now. Take a look at the full lineup of over 2 dozen speakers we’ve got up for you.

See two dozen world-leading experts on all things product design and management at Product://Remote November 2020

Product://Remote takes place across the month of November, and features two dozen world-leading experts on all things product design and management at an amazing price, just $195 before September 30th.

Learn more and register now

Conveniently timed for attendees from the North American West Coast, right across the pacific, and of course Australia, to Hong Kong and Singapore, Japan and beyond connect–with your peers at Product.