A Different Kind of Product Conference

In December, we announced Pendo’s first annual product conference, Pendomonium. Located in Raleigh, NC, we want to bring together individuals from across the industry for a discussion about the future of software and how you can start to implement a product experience for your users.

So what is Pendomonium?  What should I expect?

Well…one definition of pandemonium is “uproar.” By combining pandemonium and our company name Pendo, we try to hint at what we hope you will get out of this conference.

Why an uproar?

We think the time has come for software to be easy to use, and intuitive for users.  Most software, and especially business to business software, has been too hard to use for too long. Pendo exists to change this and improve society’s experiences with software.

While software is eating the world, producers of that software have not been given the tools and the data they need to easily build great product experiences.

This conference is the first step in starting that movement. As our first conference, we expect this to start with some of the earliest adopters. But this is just the beginning. We expect this movement to gain momentum as software builders are armed with better tools and best practices that make their jobs — the jobs of making software that people love — easier.

Product is central to the company

The quest for better product experiences doesn’t begin and end with product management.

Teams across the enterprise must work together to optimize the customer’s journey within the product from onboarding, to adoption, to retention, and beyond.  Each team has a critical role to play:

• Engineering, UX, and the Product teams must deliver a product and prioritize the individual features that will provide maximum customer value.  They must be intimately involved with the onboarding experience to ensure that new customers are able to realize value quickly.
• Sales teams need to shepherd the trial or freemium experience, directing prospects to the features and areas of the application that maximize conversions.
• Marketing must move beyond a top of the funnel focus and ensure that campaigns appropriately target and include current customers.  “Always be announcing” is the new imperative.  Customers need to be aware of everything the product is delivering for them.
• Customer Success and Support teams own the customer relationship.  They must closely monitor customer activity and sentiment to get ahead of churn.  They must understand that onboarding truly never ends and ensure that customers are fully educated about new product features.

This conference is an attempt to touch on all of that. We’ll be hosting speakers from SaaS companies who have effectively created a product experience for their users – companies like Act-On, Gainsight, Rapid7, Invoca, Sirius Decisions, and more. The event will be interactive and role based to ensure that each attendee brings home extremely useful best practices to incorporate user experience across all aspects of their firm.

On Monday, we’ll begin with hands-on workshops designed to help practitioners begin to transform their user experience. The sessions will dive into the main aspects of product usability, include user guides, product data, and how to create an exceptional onboarding experience.

Tuesday, we focus on the concept of product experience, why it is important, and how to modernize your product teams with detailed examples from some of the software industry’s leading companies.

On Wednesday, we’ll wrap up the event with break-outs to discuss product data and guidance, and how the product experience affects every function of a company.

As the conference is only a month away, we hope everyone is just as excited as we are. Check out Pendomonium to learn specific details about the event, and follow us on Twitter for updates and announcements.