I think every conference is driven by an underlying topic. This year is the GenAI year.
So I was a little bit sceptical of seeing all those deck images generated by Dall-e and prophetic titles describing how everything has changed because of AI. But no, it was not ‘that bad’.
And why do I say bad? Just because I think GenAI will be another ‘given’ for any product manager very soon. We are now using Gemini and OpenAI day in and day out in our day to day work, nothing to be surprised with. Multiple clients are also deep into proof-of-concept cycles but our product work? I think remains the same – we just move faster.
Anyhow, enough with my rant and let’s get deep on what could be the largest product-people get together this year, with over 2k humans on site and 10k joining virtually.
The presentations were curated very well and provided several angles to ponder and think about our career.
Instead of going speaker by speaker, I’ve decided to summarize some key topics discussed during the day.
Using data to provide contextual travel advice: One of my favourite presentations , delivered by Joe Futty from Booking.com who did an outstanding job at explaining how the Amsterdam based company uses data to tweak travel recommendations based on the context of the user. Easier said than done, however as a Booking user, I can say their chatbot travel agent is surprisingly good. My main takeaway would be Booking design principles: Anticipate, Help, Allow broad to specific, Dont overwhelm the user and be intentional.
Watch the presentation #ProductCon London '24 Harnessing the Power of GenAI for Exceptional Product Outcomes (youtube.com)
Influencing without power or how should we sell and pitch like we were a VC: Fabrice des Mazery was the Head of Product for Tripadvisor – managing 21 product teams with a €21M budget to work with. His experience was invaluable to build a deep understanding on persuading stakeholders and getting buy-in from leadership – in a Jean Claude Van Damn themed presentation – Fabrice built on a story filled with insightful ideas about challenging the status quo and influencing on your stakeholders. Excellent for product managers on startups but also would apply for anyone in the corporate world
Watch the presentation #ProductCon London '24 Act Like an Owner, Challenge Like a VC (youtube.com)
Changing customer perceptions with Monzo: Monzo has 9 million users today (with 2M joining the bank in 2023) and so, they have a thing or two to say about changing customer behaviours. Fernando Fanton CPO at Monzo Bank made a tremendously insightful presentation on experimentation, changing customer behaviours through positive messages (I really liked how they flipped the way users access their mortgage information and by doing so, how do they feel about their debt) and manipulating every single variable to attract, retain and delight their users.
Launching, testing and learning: A tremendously intimate story on how the Financial Times made mistakes and learnt while launching a whole new proposal. To me this was a very interesting and ‘raw’ story on how large companies can also make mistakes when launching new proposals live.
Professional Growth and getting out of your comfort zone: The last section, was starred by Millie Zah from DAZN and Jessica Hall from Just Eat Takeaway.com whom were presenti different – yet similar - talks on how to ‘build you’ and by doing so, build winning teams. While Millie painted a vivid picture on owning her professional path and going the extra mile to stand out, Jessica had an excellent presentation with a core message: what brought you to this point on your professional journey will not take you to the next level. Her view on how to growth diagonally instead of horizontally was around team building and investing on the people around you.
Watch the presentation #ProductCon London '24 Synergy in Leadership and Product Excellence: A Blueprint for Growth (youtube.com) and #ProductCon London '24 Entrepreneurial Mindset: Strategies for Success, Innovation, and Prof Growth (youtube.com)
As you can see, just a little bit of GenAI and a lot of healthy food for thought.
Last but not least, Carlos Gonzalez CEO of Product School share 3 findings his company came across while researching our workspace last year:
1. Product teams contribute to revenue, not just adding user value
2. Product teams now seat at the intersection of tech and business teams, not just under tech
3. Product teams are doing more with less thanks to GenAI – this reinforces my initial thought of AI as ‘intelligence human augmentation’.
As you can see, the largest product event in the world came and go, and we were fortunate to meet other colleagues, witness world class speakers and just absorb this amazing and always evolving professional world we are part of.
