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The Knowledge ∞ Continuum is the Center for the Management of IT's marquee executive engagement and provides a cutting-edge learning experience focused on the latest IT approaches impacting the industry. Participants in the Knowledge Continuum (“Patrons”) are alumni and friends of the University of Virginia, as well as faculty and industry thought leaders.  

Join us at Valo Park in Tysons Corner, Virginia on Friday, Jan. 12, 2024, for an engaging afternoon program featuring two compelling topics and authors:

Escaping the Build Trap with Melissa Perri (Virtual Appearance)

Learn why organizations deliver features rather than cultivate the value those features represent. Discover how to set up a product organization that scales, how product strategy connects a company’s vision and economic outcomes back to the product activities, how to identify and pursue the right opportunities for producing value through an iterative product framework, and how to build a culture focused on successful outcomes over outputs.

Purchase the book during registration:  Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value (2018) by Melissa Perri

Data Monetization with Barb Wixom

Learn about Data Monetization – converting data into money – and how to make it happen in commercial and noncommercial organizations. Identify three viable ways to convert data into money—improving work with data, wrapping products with data, and selling information offerings—and explain when to pursue each and how to succeed.  

Purchase the book during registration:  Data Is Everybody’s Business: The Fundamentals of Data Monetization (2023), by Barbara H. Wixom, Cynthia M. Beath, and Leslie Owens

Agenda at a Glance

The program will take place in the Valo Park Auditorium.  See the Logistics section below for address, driving directions, and hotel information.

3:00 to 4:30 p.m.

Escaping the Build Trap with Melissa Perri

4:30 to 4:45 p.m.

Break

4:45 to 5:45 p.m.

Data Monetization with Barb Wixom

5:45 to 6:45 p.m.

Reception

6:45 p.m.

Event Concludes

Event Speakers

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Melissa Perri
CEO, Product Institute

Melissa Perri is a strategic advisor, author, and board member that works with leaders at Fortune 500 companies and SAAS scale ups to enable growth through building impactful product strategies and organizations. In 2018 she wrote the industry-acclaimed book Escaping the Build Trap. Currently, Melissa is the CEO and founder of Produx Labs, which offers e-learning for product people through Product Institute and CPO Accelerator. She is as a board advisor for Labster and Dragonboat, and a former board member of Forsta (acquired by Press Ganey in 2022). 

In 2019, Melissa was appointed to the faculty of Harvard Business School to teach Product Management in the MBA program. She has consulted with dozens of companies to transform their product organizations, including Insight Partners, Capital One, Vanguard, Walmart/Sam's Club. In her free time, you can find her trying to finish her house renovations before something else breaks. Melissa's book Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value (2018) is available for purchase during registration.

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Barb Wixom
Principal Research Scientist, MIT CISR

Since 1994, Dr. Barbara Wixom’s research has explored how organizations generate business value from data assets. Her methods include large-scale surveys, meta-analyses, lab experiments and in-depth case studies; five of her cases have placed in the Society for Information Management Paper Awards competition. Barb is a leading academic scholar, publishing in such journals as Information Systems Research; MIT Sloan Management Review; MIS Quarterly; and MIS Quarterly Executive. Barb joined MIT Sloan in June 2013 to serve as a Principal Research Scientist at the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). She leads the MIT CISR Data Research Advisory Board, comprised of one hundred data and analytics executives from CISR organizations. 

Prior to MIT CISR, Barb was a tenured faculty member at the University of Virginia (UVA) where she twice earned the UVA All-University Teaching Award (2002, 2010), which recognizes teaching excellence in professors. Barb authored her new book Data is Everybody’s Business (MIT Press, September 2023) to inspire workers across organizations to engage in data monetization. She actively works to encourage women, young people, and underrepresented populations to learn about data and pursue data-related careers.  

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Logistics and Getting Around

This event will take place at Valo Park, located at 7950 Jones Branch Dr, McLean, VA 22102.  Click here for driving directions.

If you require hotel accommodations, we have established a relationship with the following hotels that have discounted rates for the UVA community. The distance noted is from the hotel to the venue at Valo Park.