In this vlog‑style recap, Bob London reviews the CAMCON 2023 conference (also known as KAMCon) organized by CAPTA, the account‑management platform. He opens with travel anecdotes before describing the event’s central theme – customer outcomes – which Alex Raymond deliberately architected to flow through each presentation. Bob highlights key statistics shared by Alex (e.g., only 31% of companies believe suppliers understand their needs) and explains the Jobs‑to‑Be‑Done perspective that value is utility, not a product. He then spotlights several speakers: Emily Garza (polished presenter from San Francisco), Dana Alvarenga (customer marketing), Gail and Bruce Montgomery (using improv in business relationships), Jennifer Pinter (the “glue” holding the organization together), Jermaine Edwards (fantastic talk), and Mary Grothe (compensation strategy). Bob also recounts the social side of the conference – dinner at a Thai restaurant, bowling, yoga, and networking – noting humorous moments like low bowling scores. Throughout, he expresses strong enthusiasm, praises the content as far beyond software, and encourages viewers to follow CAPTA/KAMCon on LinkedIn and consider attending future events.
Chapters
Okay, so a long overdue recap post of CAMCON 2023, um, put on by CAPTA, the account management platform. Um, just a few things to go over here. So this is like every trip of mine starts, making sure I have a full tank of gas and remembering where I parked, because that's just how it is when you're me. Um, at the airport, um, man, Just something about the scenery and all that there is just incredible. Just incredible to be at a place like that. And cool, cool shot at a Thai restaurant. Had dinner with Emily Garza and Dana Alvarenga. And I don't know, man, look at the colors. I got the Baltimore Orioles orange right there. This was just a great— this is a great, a great event, great opening. Sorry, it's a little twisted there. But let me just say, Alex Raymond started the event by saying— he kind of threaded this unbelievable needle by, by saying, like, we architected the theme of outcomes, customer outcomes, and we, we kind of created the entire sequence of presenters to lead up to that theme and to support that theme. And darn if it didn't work. Really well. It seemed like each presentation fit right into the next in terms of topics, so it was just really cool to see that. I— probably one of the best examples of architecting a great conference that I've seen. There you go, there's Alex doing his thing on stage, and he had some great stats. Your customers are easier to lose and harder to engage than ever. Only 31% of companies believe the supplier understand their needs. So there's a lot of great stuff in here. I thought the carpet in the conference room was really interesting. As you can see, um, what the customer buys and considers value is never a product, it's always utility. So that's a Jobs to Be Done reference, in essence, which we, we talked about. Don't just see the person across from you as a user or even a customer of yours. They have a job to do that they want to get credit for and be— feel satisfied in. And then their job fits within, in the context of what their company's trying to accomplish. And you need to understand all that. A lot of great stuff. Oh my God, who's this guy? This was good. I felt good about it. Looking forward to seeing the survey results and the video to get a true read on how it went. Someone went crazy taking pictures of me. It obviously wasn't me. And this is a social media post. My good friend Emily Garza traveled in from San Francisco to talk about her topic, which was excellent. She did a phenomenal job, very polished speaker. And I would say the same for all the speakers. Dana Alvarenga, my, my another good friend from the customer success and account management community, did a fantastic job talking about customer marketing. I learned a lot of things. Yeah, I really did like the carpet, but on this one I used it as an intro. Martin Scorsese. Getting a little carried away there. And I also want to highlight, you know, this is from the CAPTA page. You know, it was fun too. It was a lot of fun. And here is a classic. I had the privilege of meeting this unique couple, Gail and Bruce Montgomery, who thank goodness we all have the same sense of humor because we got off on the right foot. But these are two very impressive people that talk about using improv in business relationships and communications, and that's kind of one of my love languages. It was very cool. I learned a lot from them, and I look forward to staying in touch and learning even more from them. But this is her comment on the bowling. I'm thrilled you can't see my score. So aren't you— aren't supposed to treat the scoring like golf? So very funny, true to form. Had a great time bowling, as you can see. And this guy really had a good time bowling. It was fantastic. And it was just lots of fun. There's Dana again. And here are some other great shots from their, their page. Jennifer Pinter, I I haven't mentioned so far. She is a glue, glue person. She holds everything together. She spoke. I don't know how this, this small but mighty unit at CAPTA gets all this stuff done and delivers so much value, but I had a really nice experience meeting Jennifer in person finally. And Jermaine Edwards did a fantastic talk. Anybody who I haven't mentioned, by the way, I apologize. There's Gail Montgomery, the one with the low bowling score of 45. And some other folks who I have to say I found to be just super engaged throughout the whole time. So they're saying— the Kaptah team saying thank you. I'm saying thank you to them. It was a great time. Go next year. That's all I can tell you. Follow these people, Kaptah, on LinkedIn. Honestly, the content was far beyond just sort of— had nothing to do with their software. It had to do with understanding— like, there was a whole talk on compensation, um, and it was phenomenal. I learned so much from that, the strategy behind compensation. Mary Grothe, I think it's pronounced Grothe, G-R-O-T-H-E. Phenomenal. Anyway, it was a great— it was a great time. Oh, more pictures. There's, there's Mary right there on the left. She gave a great talk, um, Just phenomenal. Just phenomenal. This was the yoga guy. Uh, the yoga guy came and told us how to stretch, and we all had a good time with that. So what can I tell you? It was just a great event. Thank you so much, Alex, Jennifer, and team, for allowing me to be part of it. And, uh, looking forward to being in touch and seeing how we can work together in the future.
