Yesterday I was invited as a guest speaker by the marketing club at Chicago Booth. The topic was “World Class Product Marketing”. A wonderful opportunity for me to go back to my favorite alma mater and give something back. But it wasn’t easy!
The challenge was to present something that such a smart audience (#1 ranked business school) can appreciate over and above what’s already taught extremely well in the marketing classes. When I was in school myself, my classmates and I always valued those guest speakers the most who talked “practice” more than “theory”. So I structured the presentation to provide a framework of success in product marketing and reinforced that with some practical tools and examples.
I was a bit nervous when I saw quite a turnout. We had space for about 20 and close to 50 people showed up. But it went quite well. The audience was polite, asked insightful questions and seemed engaged during the presentation. The post-session feedback so far has been positive. The marketing club Vice President, Bhavin Patel, who did a great job in running this event, told me that this was by far the most attended event they had.
Presenting in front of an audience has always been a high for me. Yesterday was no different but more than that I am thrilled that it may be helpful to someone in some small way. I would do it again in a heartbeat 
So long!
Tags: Chicago Booth, IBM, MBA, Product Marketing
