ProductCamp Seattle Survey Results part 1 of 2 - #pcs12 by the numbers

This is the first of two blog posts that dive into the feedback we received on ProductCamp Seattle 2012.  This post focuses on the quantitative data - the next will explore specific feedback.  By sharing this with our community we hope to start conversations about what we can do better next year. 

ProductCamp 'releases' are a year in-between and the market changes more quickly than we can iterate.  For example - during the tougher economic times a couple of years back we found job-search was a high priority for attendees. This was emphasized at #pcs12 with specific sessions and job posts. However this year the attendee focus seemed to shift back toward content, and the data indicates there are likely a few different personas within our audience - I will talk about those a little more in the next post.  The annual cadence of the event makes gathering feedback and testing new 'features' a little more challenging, however despite this, post-event surveys as well as ad-hoc feedback on the day are currently our best barometer of market insight.  As always - please send any comments, questions of feedback to info@pmcnw.org - or comment below!

53% of registered attendees showed up on the day

PCS is a free-to-attend event and as such we planned for attrition. This surprised us though.  Our organization team and community did a fantastic job in marketing; to the extent we actually sold out two weeks ahead!  After that we were actively managing the waitlist to try and find tickets for as many people as possible.  We had planned for 200 (1/3 attrition) and had a contingency if we were over-attended.  It was a shame that we had campers on the waitlist who we were unable to release tickets to but we (and you) don't feel the lower turnout affected the quality of the day.

We still haven't got to the bottom of why this number was lower (out-of-town location? weather? Saturday?) and if you were registered but were unable to attend we would love to know why.  Next year, attrition management will be a key planning item. Blog post coming on that topic alone....!

In case you were wondering, a total of 34 attendees completed the survey for a conversion rate of 21%.

88% would 'definitely' recommend ProductCamp to a friend

In a twist on the traditional NPS format, we simplified this question. We decided that simplicity was more important that detail, as we suspected (correctly) that the QR code would encourage a lot of people to complete the survey on their mobile device.  Thus we used a three point scale as opposed to the standard ten point.

This would give us a pseudo-NPS score of 88 which we are pretty happy with.

64% would 'definitely' attend the next event

Again a very positive reaction from attendees with no responses in the 'bottom box'.

48% responded ProductCamp 'definitely' increased their skills or knowledge

In itself a good benchmark, but without the qualitative data we cannot glean much insight from this number.  We are happy that ProductCamp Seattle contributed the learning it did back to the community.  In the next post I am going to segment the data to the 52% that did not answer 'Definitely' - we will see some patterns emerge.

How did you first hear about ProductCamp Seattle 2012?

Most of you guys heard about us through PMC - we had expected this, the chart below (click for larger image) shows volume of tickets sold by date - you could probably guess which day we sent out the mailer!  More of you heard about it through social channels than last year though which indicates our profession is still on the SM growth curve.

In case you are interested, of the 8 who selected 'other option':

• 4 discovered PCS through a friend or contact
  
• 1 discovered PCS via Google
  
• 1 discovered PCS through the University of Washington
  
• 1 could not remember
  

Summary

We are extremely happy with the feedback we got for ProductCamp and it will provide a great benchmark going into next year's event.  In the next post I will take a deeper dive into specific comments as well as segment the happy campers and the not-so-happy.

Until then please let us know what you think of the results, this post or the survey design using the comment boxes below!

Jon White – @jonwhite123