Co development – the alliance manager will be the product manager of the next decade!

CoDev 2006 – Co-Development for Business Growth: Open Innovation and Alternatives
I just got back from CoDev earlier this week. It was one of the first focused PDMA conferences I have attended and it was quite good. The blend of topics discussed (from alliance frameworks to the need to innovate in teams across the value chain) was right down the middle of the conversation we are trying to have with our customers.
One this that was odd is that half of the sessions gave me a few things I can come back with and improve our internal operations of dealing with partners (our own innovation network) and the other half was good fodder for copnversations with customers about how they can improve their innovation network. The trick was figuring out which was which. Of course, you should always practice waht you preach, but there were clearly some pratical aspects of relationship management that are more down to earth that I can apply in our operations.
If there was one thing I could complain about it was the somewhat “clubby” atmosphere of the conference. It was clear there were some people that had been going to these shows for a long time…I wasn’t one of them.