It’s Hard to Build Great Products with Secondhand Insight
PDMA Carolinas | February 17, 2026
Description
Most product teams believe they are customer-centric. They read reports. They scan dashboards. They debate feedback summaries. And yet, many of the most important product decisions are being made without ever talking directly to the people they are building for.
In this talk, Jake McKee introduces the Customer Conversation Compass, a practical model for helping product teams regain control of their customer relationships and use real conversations as a decision-making tool, not a research artifact. The Compass helps teams understand what kind of conversation they should be having, when they should be having it, and what decisions that conversation is meant to inform.
This is not about doing more interviews or collecting more feedback. It is about replacing vague signals and secondhand interpretation with clarity, shared understanding, and confidence. Attendees will learn why most customer conversations fail to influence product direction, how teams unintentionally outsource customer relationships inside their own organizations, and how a small shift in conversation design can unlock better prioritization, stronger alignment, and better products.
If your team feels busy, informed, and still unsure what to build next, this talk is for you.
Learning Objectives:
- Access to and explanation of Customer Conversation Compass, a practical model for helping product teams regain control of their customer relationships and use real conversations as a decision-making tool
- Learn why most customer conversations fail to influence product direction
- Learn how teams unintentionally outsource customer relationships
About the Speaker
Jake McKee
Jake McKee is one of the founders of the modern customer community movement. He led Apple’s famed Global Support Communities. He pioneered efforts at LEGO to engage its adult users in a community - which spawned breakthrough innovations such as the Mindstorms Community Driven Product Development (which landed on the cover of Wired Magazine).
For more than 10 years, Jake has been a leading industry community consultant working with clients like Cancer Treatment Centers of America, Calix, Southwest Airlines, and Outdoorsy. His consulting practice, Jake McKee Consulting focuses on helping organizations of all sizes design, execute, and grow Community Driven Product Development programs that bring the Community Voice into the product development lifecycle.
Jake also manages the CX 5essions project, an invitation-only monthly dinner series that brings senior online community, CX, and product management leaders together for conversation, connection, and camaraderie. And just for laughs, he created a web comic for community managers called Confessions of a Community Manager.