Stephen Shapiro has a fascinating article
on innovation lessons
from cultural anthropology.

He talks about the power of observation
vs listening to what customers say.
“Where possible, you can observe your customers.
By doing this you can find unarticulated needs and wants.”

It is really easy
to simply ask a customer a question
and use that answer.
Unfortunately, people lie,
often unintentionally.
As most people want to be liked,
they’ll tell you what you want to hear.

A clear example of that
was the low carb fad.
Customers said they wanted low carb
yet they continued eating their burgers
and their fries.

People will say they eat healthy
yet obesity (and chocolate sales)
is on the increase.

Go out and observe your customers.
Commute the way they do.
Eat at their restaurants.
Read what they’re reading.

Nothing beats observation!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under New Business Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.