Yesterday I was referred to a blog post written by Danah Boyd, an academic researcher at Microsoft and Harvard.  Her work focuses on the impacts of the internet and social networks on society.  She wrote about a horrible experience she had while presenting at the Web2.0 Expo.  The post is long but worth reading.  While Danah did take responsibililty for content or delivery problems with the talk, there were several lessons to be learned by those of us whose job it is to create thoughtful, intentional experiences.

First, Danah mentioned minor issues such as the fact that she was not allowed to have a laptop from with to present.  She then went on to describe that the podium she had to use was flat, which enabled the audience to see that she might be reading from notes.  This was exacerbated by the fact that the lights were so bright, she could not see anyone in the audience, making it hard to connect and establish a rapport with them.  And the final kicker, there was a running twitter stream that was displayed behind her, so that she could not see it, but the audience could.

What this created was an open invitation for the audience to carry on a conversation about the talk as it was happening. Not only was it distracting from the talk, it was happening literally behind the speaker's back.  This behavior is rude enough to begin with, and sadly, this audience devolved to the point of making rude comments and juvenile wisecracks.  It was like a bratty kid looking for attention in public.

New technology allows us to do many things we couldn't do before.  But the freedom to do these things comes with the responsibility to use the tools wisely.  I'm sure someone thought it was 'cool' to display a live twitter feed about the talk.  If handled responsibly and with a little more forethought, it could have served to engage the audience and allow Danah to better connect with them by seeing where their interests and energy were going.  Critical thought, active listening, and discussions that challenge existing ideas respectfully all help us to move further faster.  New technology can facilitate that type of interaction better than ever before.  However, when something like this happens people tend to shy away from the technology itself, which could actually set us all back.  It would be much better to stop and think about the experiences we want to create, and question whether what we are doing will actually help us to deliver them.

As you develop products and services at your company, how much thought is given to the actual experience a consumer will have when trying to learn about, purchase, and use your offering?  When developing a new technology, or launching a new product, are there unintended consequences that could result in the actual experience of use?  Obvoiusly there are no right answers to these questions, but it is important that someone is asking them.  Are they being asked at your company?

I talk a lot about learning from your market and applying that insight to grow your business. However, yesterday I realized that it's just as important to be aware of what you are teaching your market.

In a recent post on Jeff Jarvis' blog, he referenced a reader who talked about the ways the news industry needs to evolve its thinking to survive in the new economy. The new thinking is comprised of "Google'esque" ideas that focus on the value of journalism as a service rather than the paper as a product.  I left a comment that I think is worth exploring more thoroughly.

While I think the ideas presented are good, they do not address what I feel is a more fundamental issue in the news industry.  They have taught the market that the newspaper has value, and the content should be free.  While I'm sure they didn't do it on purpose, they lost sight of why people bought newspapers in the first place.  When they made the move to the web, they missed the opportunity to capture this value in a new way.  Instead they gave it away, and going forward it will be difficult to capture value for what consumers now expect to be free.

I do believe there is great value in good journalism.  Before the industry can pursue radically different business models to capture this value, they must first do whatever is necessary to decouple the journalism industry from the newspaper industry in the hearts and minds of consumers.  The market will never value journalism if the industry cannot demonstrate this value clearly, consistently, and separately from newspapers.

Are you aware of what your company's behavior is teaching your market?

I enjoy the weekend edition of the Financial Times, part of which is Tyler Brule's weekly column.  A few months ago, something started to catch my attention.  It appeared that Brule's publication, Monocle, is doing quite well.  It is a lifestyle magazine, and has an associated website with audio reports in addition to the printed publication, and even a recently launched retail concept.  There is no user generated content, and it is obvious that everything, from the website, to the audio reports, to the physical publication itself, are very well produced. That's not cheap. So what is Brule doing that allows him to be successful by going against the current wisdom in the industry?

To satisfy my curiosity, I did a quick search and found an interview with Brule in the Austrailian WSJ that sought out my very question.  What I learned was quite revealing.  While there are several factors responsible for his success, what stood out for me was his statement that they don't do any research at all, and that he doesn't believe in it. He then described what research was to him, and it consists of using focus groups to decide what the cover should be, or other specific executional details.  Later, however, he talked about how he spends time with consumers in the shop, just having a chat with them.  He also mentioned that he watches what magazines business people are buying in the airport, and then how he observes what people are reading on the plane. From reading his weekly column, you can also see that he is spending the bulk of his time immersing in his market. He maintains a grueling travel schedule, and makes sure his reporters and correspondents are in the places they are covering. He then mentioned that they did use a readership survey to confirm some of their assumptions about their readers' habits. It was not to learn what features they might like.

Like most business people, Brule has a very narrow definition of what research is.  Unlike most business people, he knows that research as he defines it is not going to help him to connect with his market and deliver the experience they are seeking but cannot define.  From my perspective, Brule executes brilliant research.  He does whatever is necessary to connect with his market, and fully understand what is driving their decisions.  He knows that it is his responsibility to deliver an experience that will connect with this consumer, and he does not expect them to ask for it.  He also knows that there is greater value in delivering an experience that the consumer wouldn't think to ask for, but suits them perfectly.

What can be learned from his success? There is little to be learned from the execution, as what he is doing is right for his market, and would probably not work for say, the New York Times.  What can be learned is that he is ignoring current consumer, industry, and economic trends, he's learning what is driving his market, and he's delivering a series of products to satisfy their needs in a way that his industry competition has not.

Is your company using research this effectively?

I'm just back from two weeks away in Argentina.  Fabulous place, and we had a great time.  The only issue was that one of our bags was stolen.  Augghhhh...  Now off to deal with insurance companies to replace the stuff that was taken.  Argentina is great, but certainly has a PR problem with these types of issues.

Soon to be back with more on consumer insight!

Mike Arauz posted an interesting metaphor connecting brands to desire paths.  Here's how he describes it:

This is a desire path (lots more here). Desire paths are the walking paths that get traced across the ground when groups of people, over time, leave the sidewalk and find their own more convenient routes from one place to another... We have many places to go and experiences to choose from; and our decisions are guided by our personal interests and the groups of people we want to join.

What I love about this metaphor is that it brings home the point that consumers will always find the most direct route to satisfy their motivations. Yet, if you ask them for directions, they will probably not describe the desire path.  Why? Because desire paths are personal. People don't assume that you would desire the same path, so they will most likely talk about the "accepted" path.

You can only learn about the desire path by connecting with the consumer. Successful products, brands, and services convey that they follow the same desire path. How do they do that? This is the fundamental skill that separates good consumer insight from superficial consumer insight.  It also separates good design and development execution from rote design and development execution.

How well do you understand your consumer's desire path? How well is this knowledge translated into other areas of your business? If you're not doing both of these things well you will be wondering why, after you've done everything "right", your consumers are no longer walking by your side. They have left you to follow a path you couldn't see.

It's important to evaluate new offerings with consumers before launching them into the market.  I don't know of many companies who would disagree.  Yet I am consistently amazed by how many companies will be satisfied with the statement "100% of consumers preferred Option A", when they have no answer to the question "Does Option A resonate best compared with other market alternatives, or is it just the least bad of the options presented?"

Before new options are developed, it's important to have defined the consumer and market opportunities first. Every option that is developed should satisfy the consumer and market opportunities in some way.  The logic behind how it satisfies these opportunities should be clear, even if it looks "out there" at first glance.  If this work is not done, you will have no way of knowing whether your consumer evaluations are confirming a market winner or just the best loser.

Think about the levels of confidence for market success you are building into your product development process. Is 100% preference of one over four bad options better than 75% preference of one over four likely winners really better?  While most would say the latter is better, I tend to see the former far more often.  Why?  Because most don't know when all the options are missing the mark in the first place.  I'd say that this is the single biggest reason for market failures that I see, and the single most important change that can be made in a product development process.

The companies that get this right will win.  Every company I have worked with who takes this seriously has realized great success for the effort. 

There's something I need to get off my chest. It's about newspapers. I know the newspaper industry is in the tank. I know that they need to find new ways to deliver and monetize the content they provide. I also know that the current state of their crisis is due in part to the fact that they are trying to protect tangible assets rather than capturing the intellectual value they provide.  Something has to change. I get it.

But - I love my morning newspaper.  I love starting the day by finding out what's going on while I eat my breakfast - in the kitchen, not at the computer.  It's how I prepare myself to face the day, and I love the experience. 

I read that the New York Times is toying with the idea of abandoning the printed newspaper and distributing the Kindle to all subscribers. Yes, it can go with you to all the places the printed paper can go, but it severely limits the ability to scan the whole paper to get an overall sense of what's important that day. This made me realize that the value of the newspaper to me is not to deliver all the details of the news.  I can get that online much more easily.  The true value to me is to give me a sense of the zeitgeist. I can quickly check the vital signs of what's going on in the world, and then decide where I want to focus interest.

This all made me think of a better purpose for the printed paper.  Wouldn't it be great if I could get a very thin version of the paper, with all the headlines and summaries of the major papers that I like to read?  For me, it would be a collection of the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, and the Boston Globe - with the headlined summaries compressed into a small, one-section version of the paper.  This would reduce clutter, which is why there is no way I could ever subscribe to all the current print versions of these papers.  And most importantly, would allow for even more comprehensive scanning - a major benefit to me.  Allow the ability to customize what goes in your bundle, and voila!

Of course, my point is a bit broader than to suggest a specific idea here. When trying to think of ways to reinvent your business, it's not always an either/or situation.  Don't forget to think about the aspects of the experience that your end-users currently value and think of ways to blend the old and new.  In my example, printing costs could be drastically reduced, cross marketing and co-branding between brands and delivery platforms could be beneficial rather than competitive, and the main value of the printed paper experience would not be lost, but enhanced.  Most importantly, when the aspects of the experience I value are increased, I'd be happy to pay more.  I bet consumers in other industries would too.

A friend was recently discussing her experiences in having to exercise her Power of Attorney authority over her mother's affairs. In the US, Power of Attorney "is an authorization to act on someone else's behalf in a legal or business matter." Many parents grant this authority to their adult children, to be exercised in the event that they are unable to mentally or physically act on their own behalf.

When she first took on this role, my friend imagined she would be merely assisting her mother to execute the plans that had originally been set forth. She soon realized that financial and legal guidelines and associated paperwork changed much too quickly for her mother to keep up with. For example, a simple request for assistance with an investment account would result in a discussion with the accountant to understand new tax implications of what her mother was trying to do, adjusting the initial request as necessary.

My friend described how the experience was changing the way she interpreted her mother's requests. In order to give her mother what she needed, she had to learn to look beyond what her mother asked for. And in order to preserve her mother's dignity, my friend needed to learn to discuss issues with her mother, listen to her direct requests, understand what she was trying to achieve with each request, and then translate those requests into the current procedures required today.

Sound familiar? All companies act on behalf of their consumers as they strive to produce products and services that are of value to them. In essence, they exercize Power of Attorney authority in every product development decision they make. How many people involved in the development process take their roles as seriously as my friend does when they are making those decisions? Hopefully, the answer is that they all do.

Today I was reading a blog post by Chris Brogan in which he was making a distinction between blogger relations and sponsorships as ways companies can connect to their consumers.  Chris was given some product by Panasonic, and they sponsored his trip to the Consumer Electronics Show.  He was writing about marketing and sponsorships and whether/how they differ in new media venues from traditional venues. (There is a great discussion about this topic in the comments by the way.)

His perspective was interesting as it made me think about the other side of being a lead user.  I seek out lead users to understand their motivations to help my clients to innovate.  Lead users are often aspirational role models.  However, this post made me think more about the expectations of the people who follow the lead users. 

From a company perspective, lead users are a wealth of information about the values, motivations and decision processes of people in the target market.  Understanding what makes them tick often yields great insight for the purpose of innovation.  Likewise, understanding why the laggard is the laggard can yield equally valuable insight.  But how do these groups view each other?  Does it have an impact on your business? 

From an individual perspective, think about your activities and hobbies.  Who would you say are the lead users in these activities?  What are your expectations of them?  Would you seek them out for advice, or do you look to them as experts?  If they were talking about products would you be more likely to try them?  Likewise, how do you perceive the laggards?  Where would you place yourself?

I have no answers here, but am intrigued by the idea of learning how consumer groups perceive each other.  My hypothesis is that it depends on the category.  In some, people are very aware of who's who and why, and in others it may not matter.  I'm going to start probing these ideas in the next sets of consumer interviews I do, and will test my hypothesis.  If you have any insights into the topic, I'd love to discuss them.

We've all been inundated with media reports about the current (sad) state of the economy.  One that stood out in particular for me was the report that said people were out in malls, but not really buying much in the stores.  It then went on to say that people were spending more online.  The conclusion drawn was that consumers were not spending by choice.  I however, had a very different experience.

Due to a lack of planning on my part, I joined the crowds just before Christmas.  I had to buy two fairly common items - a pair of boots and a pair of slippers, which I decided to buy at the retail store so I wouldn't have to wait for shipping.  Silly me.  Neither item was in stock.  The sales person told me that he would help me to order them online.  He then went on to tell me that he felt badly because they were actually out of stock on most of the commonly purchased items.  When I looked around, most of the sales people were actually just helping people to place online orders.  At the end of the day, I found some great boots at an independent retailer, who actually had products in stock and could sell them to me.  I decided to order the slippers online and wait for the shipping.

I also noticed that Amazon had sold out of the Kindle.  Hmmm...  More people wanting to buy things that are not available, and yet we are told that the consumer is not spending by choice.  My observations are pointing to a very different conclusion.  The consumer is not spending because there are fewer things available for them to buy.

I know that companies are trying their best to avoid a glut of inventory.  I know that everyone is carefully considering their purchases, and companies are carefully considering how they run their businesses.  But I worry that too many business decisions are being made out of the fear of what might happen, rather than the reality of what is happening.  Economics is certainly a field where self-fulfilling prophecies are the rule more then the exception.  We modify our behavior based on what we think will happen.  No matter how prudent it seems to reduce inventory levels, companies cannot post sales on products that are not offered for sale. 

The current weak economy will pass.  The timing will depend on when we can shake our fears and create the economy everyone is waiting for.