So long, and thanks for all the fish.
They say that all good things must come to an end. Today we’re announcing that after six wonderful years, Jam is closing down.
To this day, we have thoroughly enjoyed everything we’ve done together. Our events were fun, different, and a pleasure to organise and run. You brought them to life and we couldn't be more grateful for all the great moments we enjoyed in your company.
In this announcement, we’d like to share the rationale behind this decision.
2020 has had a disastrous impact on society and the economy as a whole. From a business standpoint, companies operating in the events industry have been hit particularly hard.
Our revenues crashed, and we lost a considerable amount of money in deposits paid to venues – including Hawker House, who we were saddened to hear, are also in the process of closing down.
We successfully ran several online events throughout the year, but it quickly became clear to us that it was going to be impossible to recreate the experiences we'd created in the past, online.
But we didn't throw in the towel. At the end of the year, we attempted a pivot, and launched – Jam Club – an online community for our most committed members.
Our vision was to build a thriving space for growth-minded product leaders, offering intimate virtual workshops every month.
Pivoting from an in-person events company to an online community has proven significantly harder than we’d originally hoped, and the losses we accumulated in 2020 have proven too significant for us to overcome. And so now we’d rather stop here, celebrate the journey, and say a proper goodbye.
What now?
We’ll keep Jam Club open for the next six months. We won’t be moderating it or running any workshops, but you'll be able to access all workshop recordings, discussions, and member profiles. We hope you’ll be able to use it to reconnect with friends made at past events.
To claim your free invite just drop us a note at hello@makingjam.io.
You can also find all past talk videos on our YouTube channel.
Thank you
A huge thank you to our amazing team of staff and volunteers; Marta, Sunil, Jessie, Maria, Francesca, Stephen, Joan, Monica, Ecem, Steve, David, Michael, Mahtab, Eva, Gizem, Antoine, Jeff and all those that helped run our events every year. We’re deeply grateful for the friendship, shared memories, and support you’ve shown us over the years. We couldn’t have achieved everything we did without you.
Thank you to Doug and Chris at Intelligent People. You supported us from day one, and have always been a pleasure to work with.
Thank you to all our speakers and workshop instructors for all the brilliant content you’ve delivered over the years.
And thank you, for the good times we created together.
Seb & Mathilde
About
Blog
Remote PM 2020
Themes
This year, candour matters more than ever. We'll open up honest conversations about the themes that matter to you.
Stay sane and productive while working from home
Learn how your product peers have been adapting to remote work in these turbulent times. Hint: everyone is doing it differently, and that's ok! You'll have a space to vent, reflect and share personal experiences.
💪 Gain: assurance, confidence
Make difficult decisions over Zoom. Yes it's possible!
Effective remote collaboration goes beyond picking the right tools. It involves fine tuning your own habits, workflows and rituals. You'll learn from experienced remote product managers on what worked for them over the years.
💪 Gain: insights, motivation
Get your hands dirty. Remotely
How do you ideate and experiment at a distance? How do you motivate and lead your product team? You'll receive actionable tips from expert remote facilitators.
💪 Gain: knowledge, practice
The line-up
Sarah Milstein
Senior Director of Engineering, Mailchimp
In a career spanning tech and media, Sarah Milstein has led distributed and remote-first teams for two decades. She's currently a Sr Director of Engineering at Mailchimp and leads the company’s satellite office in Brooklyn.
Lauren Weinstein
Founder & Lecturer, Resonate Coaching
Lauren Weinstein is a communication coach and consultant who works with executives, start-up founders, and product leaders across diverse industries.
For five years, Lauren taught one of the most popular classes at the Stanford Graduate School of Business –– The Essentials of Strategic Communication. She has a popular TEDTalk on overcoming limiting beliefs that is now approaching a million views and her articles on effective communication have been published in Harvard Business Review and Stanford’s GSB Insights.
Through her company Resonate Coaching, Lauren works with private clients, helping them amplify their impact through powerful public speaking, leadership, and interpersonal communication skills. Lauren received her B.A. in psychology from Stanford University and her J.D. from Stanford Law School. She also studied coaching and leadership development at the international Coaches Training Institute.
Greg Storey
Senior Director, Executive Programs, Invision
Greg Storey is a design leader with many hats. He has earned a unique perspective of design services and leadership having started a studio that was awarded entry into the Inc 5000, led a hundred designers through IBM Design’s onboarding incubator program, and assisted in the development of the USAA’s Chief Design Office. He recently joined InVision for a range of roles. Greg lives in the Pacific Northwest with his amazing wife and writes occasionally at his personal site Airbag Industries.
Jeff Gardner
Head of Platform Partnerships, Intercom
Jeff Gardner is Head of Platform Partnerships at Intercom. In his 7 years at Intercom, Jeff has seen the company grow from 8 to 600+ and over and over again has experienced the importance of using storytelling to create high performing and culturally aligned teams through various stages of growth. Currently, in his role as Head of Platform Partnerships, Jeff remains focused on delighting customers by bringing Intercom together with partners to build apps and integrations that power relationships and fuel growth. Jeff lives in the Italian alps and spends as much time as he can outside; climbing, skiing, and running.
Sofia Quintero
Co-founder & CEO, EnjoyHQ
Sofia, CEO of EnjoyHQ shares her learnings over the last five years managing a fully distributed team working from Japan, different parts of Europe and California; Sofia will cover in detail the routines, tech stack, and techniques that have helped them build a complex product in 5 different time zones.
Gibson Biddle
Former VP Product, Netflix
Gibson was VP of Product at Netflix starting in 2005, then in 2010, he became the Chief Product Officer of Chegg, a textbook rental company that went public in 2014. Today, he’s an adviser for multiple consumer tech companies, and teaches entrepreneurship at Stanford.
Tim Herbig
Product Management Coach, Herbig.co
Tim is an experienced Product Management Coach and Author, who has been working with partial or fully remote teams for over four years. He doesn‘t consider remote collaboration to be just a necessity, but an opportunity to bring out the best in product teams.
Mathilde Leo
Co-Founder & Curator, JAM
Mathilde co-founded JAM in her first year as a product manager. She spent the last three years running new events and growing the community while traveling the world. She loves sharing her experience to help makers stay sane and productive when working remotely for the first time.
Matt LeMay
Co-Founder, Sudden Compass
Matt LeMay is the author of Agile for Everybody (O’Reilly Media, 2018) and Product Management in Practice (O'Reilly Media, 2017). He has helped build and scale product management practices at companies ranging from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. Matt was selected as a Top 50 Product Management influencer by the PM Year in Review for both 2016 and 2015. Previously, Matt worked as Senior Product Manager at music startup Songza (acquired by Google), and Head of Consumer Product at Bitly. Matt is also a musician, recording engineer, and the author of a book about singer-songwriter Elliott Smith. He lives in Portland, OR with his wife Joan and their turtle Sheldon.