July at ProductTanks: AI, career growth, and leadership

ProductTanks, created by Mind the Product, are informal meetups that bring local product people together and provide a space to new speakers to share amazing product insights. With over 200 cities hosting ProductTanks globally, we're excited to highlight some of these fantastic meetups.

July was another incredible month with 48 meetups across the world bringing together passionate product people to connect, learn, and share insights. In this roundup, we’re spotlighting a few events: From AI and intentional leadership, to real-world product strategy and career frameworks.

A huge welcome to ProductTank Glasgow, more about their first meetup in the round-up!
Also a warm welcome to our newest ProductTank organiser for Atlanta Akshay Karthik.

ProductTank Barcelona is looking for new voices and new spaces to keep the community fresh and growing. Check out this post.

London

ProductTank London: '..And that’s a wrap for our July meet-up!

Last night we explored key strategies for driving impact in established, complex organisations, from leading change and building strong product principles to storytelling, improving product quality, and embracing experimentation.

A huge thank you to our speakers Kiron Jones, Rachel Ilan Simpson, and Ben Cook for sharing their insights, experiences, and practical takeaways, and helping us reflect on how to bring these lessons into our own work. Thank you as well to our audience for all your engagement and interesting questions!

Finally, special thanks to Springer Nature for sponsoring and hosting us in their beautiful space!

If you missed the session or want a chance to rewatch the discussion, check out the full recording here: https://lnkd.in/ePXUKvJn

We will be taking a short break in August but look forward to seeing you in September. Until then, have a great summer! ☀️'

Glasgow

Valeria Khokhlova, our Product Community Lead, wrote:

'Talk about a running start! Huge congratulations to ProductTank Glasgow for such a successful inaugural event! I’ve been dying for more Scottish ProductTank chapters and I’m so glad we’re now bringing Glaswegians together to further their craft. Shout out Julie Regamey and Kevin Stewart for organising such a massive first meetup!

Also, thank you to Kevin Stewart, Gary Crawford, and Precious Agyei-Benhene, MBA for sharing their insights on practical AI application with the community.

If you’re keen on sponsoring or speaking at future PT Glasgow events, please get in touch with the organisers! We rely on the generosity of local companies to keep these events going. Thank you to LendInvest (LSE: LINV) for being the first partner to this community.'

Oxford

One of the organisers, Thor Mitchell, wrote 'Was great to welcome Emily Tate and Jason Knight to Oxford this week as our guest speakers at a small but perfectly formed edition of ProductTank! 😊

Emily discussed the challenges of managing products for internal teams including how to set goals and hold the team accountable to progress, the pressure of managing stakeholders who can escalate over your head, and the importance of connecting the work to the larger vision and mission of the business.

It was great to place a spotlight on the teams that are often the unsung heroes of the business, and don't get the glory of launching customer facing products, or generating direct revenue.

Next up, Jason gave a highly reassuring and empathetic talk on Why Product Management isn't Like the Books, based on hundreds of conversations with Product Managers and Leaders on his podcast, and experience coaching and consulting across a wide range of businesses.

Jason explained the pragmatic reality of Product Management, and how books, newsletters, and yes even podcasts, often paint an unrealistic and idealistic picture of the role, that can actually frustrate and demoralise teams who always feel they are never "doing Product right". Jason shared that even many of the highest profile product voices admit, either publicly or in private, that it's rarely that simple.

We wrapped things up with a round the room on our most recommended books, with "Product Management in Practice" by Matt LeMay getting multiple votes, along with "Contagious" by Jonah Berger, "My Product Management Toolkit" by Marc Abraham, and "Build" by Tony Fadell.

Thanks to everybody who joined us, and to Emily and Jason for great talks. We'll be back in late September, so would love for you to join us if you're in the area!'

Bristol

'This week we celebrated 🎂10 years🎂 of ProductTank Bristol and our 50th meetup; it was everything we hoped it would be!

We packed out the space at Hargreaves Lansdown, shared food, drinks, and genuinely brilliant conversations.

Our very own Lily Smith kicked us off by reflecting on how she started the PT Bristol chapter, and her career over the last 10 years since that moment.

Benji Portwin then reminded us how much context shapes our experience at work, especially for neurodivergent brains.

The teams from Hargreaves Lansdown and AND Digital shared a refreshingly honest look at what real transformation looks like.

And then the one and only Martin Eriksson lit the room up with clarity, challenge, and practical insight on why so many strategies fall short, and how we can do better.

We topped the evening off with cake, balloons and a happy birthday shout-out

Such a great evening; this one will be hard to beat, but we're up for the challenge!

We’re so thankful to this community. For showing up, for sharing openly, for welcoming first-timers and giving generously. You make it what it is 🫶

🙏 Huge thanks also to our sponsors for making it all possible on the night:
🔹 Hargreaves Lansdown
🔹 AND Digital

Roll on the next 10 years 🤩

With Big love; The PT Bristol Organisers 💙'

Manchester

One of our organisers, Holly Donohue shares '🎤 ProductTank Manchester Recap – Big thanks to our hosts at Maxwell Bond for another brilliant evening packed with challenge and inspiration!

Three standout talks this month:
David Cox "Kicking the Habit: Why Are Organisations Addicted to Low-Hanging Fruit?"
David explored our addiction to dopamine hits, from TikTok over albums, to teams chasing easy wins instead of lasting value.

His provocation:
→ Speed alone isn’t strategy, focus on ROI, not just delivery.
→ Bigger goals = bigger results. If the aim remains low and the ambition remains small then the adverse effects of not hitting the goal is bigger.
→ Prioritisation should be intentional, not reactive.

James Gunaca "Understanding Your Skills as a PM"
James turned product thinking inwards: what if we treated our careers like a product?
His framework:
Vision – where are you headed?
Strategy – what outcomes and experiences will get you there?
Roadmap – how can you break this down into actionable steps?

Back it up with the right mechanisms: retros, reviews, and feedback loops. Be as intentional with your career growth as you are with your product.

Colin P. "Vibe Coding: Accelerating Innovation, But at What Cost?"

Colin shared how his team used vibe coding: a blend of LLMs, tools like Replit, and API keys, to rapidly explore ideas in a 2-day hackathon.

Day 1: all about ideation, co-creation, and designing flows.
Day 2: arguing with the AI – “why have you built it like that?”

Vibe coding is fantastic for discovery: testing flows, building PRDs, learning fast.

But it's not a shortcut to shipping. Speed must still be paired with thoughtfulness.

If you give AI something, it will make it. The value we can add as humans is figuring out what will be valuable.

We're back for the next Product Tank on the 17th September with an exciting speaker announcement to come – watch this space 👀
https://lnkd.in/eN5HUx4Z'

Hamburg

One of our organisers, Arne Kittler wrote: 'Fancy venue for my first ever product talk in my hometown Hamburg.
Thank you ProductTank Hamburg and hosts Engel & Völkers for this very nice #ProductTank event.
I spoke about Intentional Product Leadership in the AI Age and really enjoyed the conversations afterwards, including those that challenged my perspective as too deeply rooted in old-school collaboration ideals. Challenge accepted!

I loved Emilie Lindström's talk on Working with Humans. I feel that our talks connected well and she found a very beautiful way of talking about the importance of finding common ground in collaboration.

Thank you Dr. Kris Lohmann, Anja H., Tobias Freudenreich, Jan Hoppe,
#Tischhussen'

Don't miss out on these free community events! Check out a ProductTank near you: ProductTank meetup page.