Reliving Pendomonium 2022: Day 2 highlights

After an action-packed and insightful first day of Pendomonium 2022, we headed back to the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts for even more learning, networking, and product-led inspiration. 

Whether you were here with us in person or following along at home, here’s a look at some of the top highlights from day two of the product-led festival of the year.

The morning: Building responsible products and the importance of customer validation

Attendees returned to Pendomonium and enjoyed breakfast sandwiches and coffee to fuel up for a full day of firsthand product-led insights. For our first keynote of the morning, Andy Vitale, Executive Vice President of Design at Rocket Companies, took the stage to talk about building responsible products.

“People deserve to feel safe. What we do [as product managers] has a lot to do with that.” – Andy Vitale

Vitale started out with a powerful message: “People deserve to feel safe. What we do [as product managers] has a lot to do with that.” He also shared an equally-powerful stat: Only 50% of Americans feels that technology companies have a positive impact on the United States. What does this mean for product leaders?

Technology by itself doesn’t have a conscience or context—it’s the way we design and build technology that matters. Vitale went on to explain that it’s critical for product managers and designers to understand the potential consequences of their actions, and build products for everyone. “We have the ability to make things better—we can iterate and improve and continue to add value [with our software].”

Here are some responsible product best practices that Vitale walked through:

• • Transparency. For example, by letting users know what data you’re collecting about them.
  • Prioritize usability. Understand how people use your products and if their needs are being met.
  • Products need to be equitable and flexible.
  • Have good intentions. Put the wellbeing of others before your product.
  • Assume, and be proven wrong.
  • Be data-informed. Data itself doesn’t have a moral compass or context.
  • Tolerate mistakes. For example, error messages shouldn’t be jarring or make people think it’s their fault.
  • Be people-centered. Put people at the center of everything you do, understand their intent and needs, and be empathetic to their situation.
  • Embrace diversity. This means people from different backgrounds, cultures, technical proficiencies, and experiences.

After a quick break to refill on coffee and chat with new friends, our second keynote of the morning featured Sean Kim, CPO at Kajabi. His talk centered around the question, “If you build it, will they come?” The short answer? No.

In order to build great products, customer validation is essential. Here are five steps Kim recommended for building products customers love:

1. 1. Know your customer. Talk to customers to understand their joys, pains, and motivations.
   2. Identify the customer problem you’re trying to solve.
   3. You don’t need all the data, only 50-60% of the data. If you have 100% of the data, you’re moving too slow.
   4. Create a Minimum Lovable Product—a first version of your product that solves the identified problem.
   5. Take risks. Don’t be afraid to fail.

Kim ended his keynote by taking a look back at some products he’s launched in his career and what made them successful or unsuccessful. His biggest lessons learned? Talk to your customers; make sure you’re solving a real pain point; personalize whenever you can; don’t assume customers know your product; and if something is working, quickly double down on it.

We closed out the morning with one set of breakout sessions, which included expert insights around the post-pandemic digital workplace, optimizing in-app guide engagement, effective product planning, and more.

The afternoon: Food trucks, breakouts, and Pendo success stories

If we know one thing about Pendomonium, it’s that the food never disappoints. Attendees grabbed lunch from some of Raleigh’s top food trucks, and there was something for everyone: from pizza and Korean style hot dogs to empanadas and dumplings. 

With stomachs full, we headed inside for an afternoon of breakout sessions led by both Pendo customers and Pendozers. Here’s a look at some of the sessions for each track:

1. Unlock efficiency track

Attendees learned how product ops fuels efficiency from leaders at S&P Global and Covetrus, what product-led customer success at scale looks like, how Citrix created a new product line from the ground up, and AdvancedMD’s governance strategies for Pendo guides.

2. Decide with data track

Leaders from Pendo and FACTS dug into Pendo’s new machine learning capabilities for NPS, and attendees learned how to build a product analytics dashboard that inspires curiosity, how Fidelity uses product analytics to drive retention, and how Morgan Stanley used a hackathon for implementation of a new product.

3. Delight users track

Okta shared how they use Pendo Feedback to gather product requests, Nelnet revealed how small touches can improve the customer experience, Alarm.com shared how they create unique learning experiences using Pendo guides, and Boomi and Sophean explained how to accelerate the path to “a-ha” moments for customers.

4. Drive adoption track

The Pendo team walked through how they use Pendo for product-led growth, and attendees learned proactive customer lifecycle guidance tips from Adobe, how Sumo Logic uses Pendo to build and scale user research programs, and why a tech portfolio is more than the sum of its parts.

It wouldn’t be Pendomonium without connecting with customers and hearing all the amazing ways they’re leveraging Pendo. Throughout the day, Pendozers were out on the plaza asking attendees to share their Pendo story (in exchange for some swag of course)—including how Pendo helps their teams collaborate better, what “Pendo’ing” means to them, and their favorite Pendo feature.

The evening: Freestyle Love Supreme+ and Pendopalooza

We ended day two of Pendomonium 2022 with cocktails and networking out on the plaza, followed by an epic performance from Freestyle Love Supreme+.

After that, Pendopalooza was filled with late night food truck bites, saxophonist Ellie Sax and a live DJ, glow bracelets, a glitter bar, a napkin artist, and plenty of killer dance moves.

To all of our Pendomonium attendees: Thank you so much for joining us this year, and we’ll see you in 2023!