World Product Day

On Wednesday 26th May, product managers around the world came together to celebrate World Product Day. Here we share some of the highlights including talks from ProductTanks in New Zealand, Lagos, and Hong Kong, plus ProductTank award winners, and insights from the community.

ProductTank talks

In 24 hours, 65 ProductTanks around the world, worked together to deliver 46 amazing talks. Here’s a look at four from across the globe:

Beyond human centered — New Zealand

ProductTank Auckland and ProductTank Wellington kicked off the celebrations with special guest, Eli Montgomery. Joining from the US, Eli covered how putting individuals at the core of what we measure is both bad for products and bad for business, and what you can do instead to drive great products that are better for the world.

Chronicles of a B2B Product Manager — Hong Kong

In ‘Chronicles of a B2B Product Manager’, Clark Chahine took the audience on a journey through the entire life cycle of B2B products, from inception to retirement, and discussed how to overcome the challenges you might face along the way.

Product market drift — Lagos

ProductTank Lagos welcomed Dave Wascha to discuss ‘product/market drift’ — what happens when, all too often, we fail to realise that product market fit is only the beginning.

A World Product Day Celebration — Latam

In a group effort from ProductTank Latam, this World Product Day event featured special guests, Product Strategy and Design consultant Sol Mesz who delivered ‘The human side of Product’, and CEO and Co-founder of Pomelo, Gastón Irigoyen who offered advice to maximize your career in product.

ProductTank awards

Organising and running ProductTank meetups requires dedication, not to mention a huge amount of effort, and all of our ProductTanks do a fantastic job. This year, we wanted to honour a selection who have seen great success, and have gone the extra mile.

Most events in 2020

ProductTank Edinburgh and ProductTank Auckland tied on this award having both delivered 15 events in 2020. Impressive!

How did they do it? So glad you asked. 

Edinburgh wanted to share coping strategies during the Covid crisis and to keep the community connected with regular daytime Zoom events. As a result, they ran 30-minute, weekly web lunches (and sometimes web suppers!).

ProductTank Auckland, on the other hand, have been able to run in-person events since July 2020. This meant they could deliver a combination of in-person and online ProductTanks for their product community.

Best newcomer

In 2020, our best newcomer was ProductTank Louisville. 

Despite having been on the cards for a while, ProductTank Louisville didn’t get off the ground until the pandemic made it a priority. “The impact of Covid-19 meant that the lead organiser, Alex Jacobs felt the timing had never been better. He wanted the ProductTank in place so that product people in the area had a way of staying connected while remote,” says Mind the Product’s Community Manager Will Barritt. “Alex, and his co-organisers John Saxon and Mark Lorence, have been so proactive in finding speakers and in trying to organically build the community. They’ve also been hugely supportive to other organisers throughout the last year.”

Most viewed stream: ProductTank Brazil 

In 2020, this World Product Day special from ProductTank Brazil really struck a chord. It featured a selection of talks from’ How to make operations work with Product innovation and ‘New use cases for old features’, to ‘Five lesson that I learnt by failing’ and ‘Product Discovery with no-code tools’

It’s been viewed 3372 times.

Most viewed talk on mindtheproduct.com

At ProductTank San Francisco in August 2019, Jeff Lash delivered, What World Class Product Management Teams Do Differently. In the talk, published on mindtheproduct.com in 2020, Jeff shares some insight into high-performance product management teams covering the importance of customer understanding, and the importance of clear roles, responsibilities, and structure.

Product heroes

This year, we also wanted to use World Product Day 2021 to champion up-and-coming product speakers – people with insightful stories and experience to share – our local product heroes!

I learn from my #LocalProductHero, @k__k_g every time we chat. She’s as good with a discovery survey as she is with wrangling the product data, and asks questions that are truly on point, all while making everyone feel included and informed.

That’s a product hero, right there
— Janna Bastow (@simplybastow) May 26, 2021

When it comes to #LocalProductHero I have to call out @dreasaez for calling out my BS and keeping me honest. Aside from that, the usual rogue’s gallery, many of whom have been gracious enough to accept podcast invites 1/2

— Jason Knight (@JsnKnght) May 26, 2021

@thedailyem for patiently guiding me thru every insurmountable work challenge I’ve had in the last 4 years. @RichMironov for contextualising all my PM frustrations in a 30 min @producttank talk in 2015 & @bfgmartin for starting the thing that brought them to me @MindtheProduct

— Stephen Culligan (@cu_lligs) May 26, 2021

Product journeys

Members of the community even gave glimpses into their product career journeys and shared the GIFs that best sum up their careers to date.

Celebrate the nerd factor of our job. It’s not all glitter and glamour. We all started somewhere (like me at the local newspaper in 1994) and I think World Product Day is a great day to celebrate that! Where did you start? Share one of your “ #nerdmoments. ” #worldproductday pic.twitter.com/Rl7MFVw07K

— loomista – Petra Wille | STRONG product people (@loomista) May 26, 2021

How it started…. #worldproductday How it’s going pic.twitter.com/s92yuZJfr4

— Martin Eriksson (@bfgmartin) May 26, 2021

Sure, @loomista! Happy to share one of my #nerdmoments to celebrate #worldproductday: Me in ~1997 at a public-speaking competition me in 2021 still exercising public-speech for my new podcast series @produktmenschen pic.twitter.com/PxIrtiPN9X

— Tobias Freudenreich (@leiterprobt) May 26, 2021

— Alex Moore (@AlMorriarty) May 26, 2021

Facts. pic.twitter.com/DO2xpm16RE

— The Real Brian Piercy (@brianpiercy) May 26, 2021

pic.twitter.com/qep2uO4jEE

— Amit Godbole (@amitGodbole) May 26, 2021

We had so many engaging conversations throughout the day in our 24-hour networking room, and were treated to insightful product talks from our talented ProductTanks right across the globe. Don’t worry if you missed it, you can watch each talk on our ProductTank YouTube channel.

Now all we can say is bring on World Product Day 2022!