It’s clear that our culture has shifted in the last decade. Facebook and other social media have allowed us to form and nurture relationships that were never before possible. People that used to seem one-dimensional to us (I know him as my dentist, she’s the waitress at our favorite restaurant, he works for our company as a shipping clerk) have become “whole people” once we befriend them and come to know them as family members and community volunteers. While we might not agree with all of their views, we gain respect for their passion.

Its only natural to assume that people will come to expect these same types of relationships with the companies they choose to buy from. What would your company look like if you shifted your emphasis away from direct selling to giving away free value? It’s a horrifying thought on the surface, but how would that change your business model? We’ve all experienced pushing a product or service upon a prospect and watching the negotiation begin. How different would that look if that same prospect came to us to see if we could help them?

My goal for this year is to give away a lot more free stuff; advice, counsel, service, etc. In return, I hope to gain credibility as a trusted expert on consumer empathy and innovation strategy. As a result, my hope is that the phone will ring more often, and I will have to make less uncomfortable sales calls. What does that look like for you? What can you “give away” in order to gain trust and credibility? How can you become the obvious choice when it is time for your customer to make a purchase? The day of shopping for the lowest price is waning. People want to buy from companies they identify with, like and trust. And that takes a whole new mindset.

Here’s an example.  When you get survey feedback or review a focus group report you see prioritized data on what consumers think and feel.  Sympathetic design would have you start at the top of the list and develop solutions for the top pains that have been identified.  If something is “hard to hold”, then make it easier to hold.  If it’s “too heavy”, then make it lighter weight.  It seems very straight forward.  Let’s contrast this with empathetic design.  Instead of reading reports, you spend time face to face with your customer watching them interact with your product.  You may still hear them say it’s “hard to hold”, but upon closer observation you come to realize that they’re not holding it as it was designed to be held.  While the proper usage seems obvious to you (as the maker of the product), it is clearly not intuitive to the end user.  The manner in which they hold it also makes the product feel much heavier than it ever should have.  Instead of redesigning the product to make it “easier” and “lighter”, you focus on the overall design of the product to make it more obvious in terms of it’s intended usage.  Suddenly the weight becomes a non-issue and the improved design can greatly increase consumer satisfaction.

Here’s another real-life example.  We once worked with a client to develop a new line of outdoor, patio heaters.  Over the course of the project, we learned (empathetically) that consumers often purchased these products for entertaining purposes, more than for personal comfort.  In fact, during the validation phase, we observed that people considered our prototypes as serving the role of “outdoor decor” or “furniture” as much as the role of heater.  There was a high degree of excitement toward the product and early versions won several design awards.  The problem came when the company took the product to retail.  Instead of using an empathetic argument when negotiating pricing, they fell back into their traditional sympathetic mindset (features and cost).  The retail buyer said that the cost for these products was too high for a patio heater (and all existing market data would agree with this).  In order to secure placement, the company cost reduced the product to hit the retail demands.  The resulting product had a much “cheaper” feel to it which immediately took it out of the decor and furniture mode from the consumers’ perspective.  A year later and this award-winning product was off the market.  What had been envisioned was never actually realized.

Could an empathetic approach have saved this product?  Even if you have an empathetic view of the consumer, how could you help others in the distribution chain share this vision?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one.

My guess is this:

• Four of the companies would table the idea, labeling it as a long-term objective that they could pursue once their near term (hopelessly incremental) ideas have been implemented.  The idea would never surface again
• Three of the companies would indefinitely bat the idea around because they can’t decide which department should champion the idea
• Two would reject the idea outright because they would not have the current distribution network to get the product to market
• The final company would pursue the idea, but abandon it once they hit the first internal obstacle during the development process

One area that we became aware of in this discussion is that we have been very focused on showing our clients all the work that we’ve done.  It’s not uncommon for us to agree (contractually) to study fifteen people, but actually interview more.   Since we’ve gone above and beyond what was expected, we’ve always been determined to make that known… After all, giving the client more than what they expected is a great thing, right?  As we discussed this, we came to the realization that highlighting the amount of work that we did can actually dilute the message we’re trying to promote.  It’s not that doing extra work is wrong, but the focus has to remain on highlighting the benefit of our learning to our client.  Looking at websites of other professional service firms shows me that we’re not alone.  Everyone wants to share their process and convince you how hard they will work on your behalf.

Isn’t that really the struggle for all companies?  Putting the consumer benefits on a product package does not give ample credit to the marketing and engineering folks that spent countless hours developing specific features.  Our pride gets in the way.  ”If we don’t tell them what we’ve done, how will they ever know?”  Of course the consumer sees this at retail, gets quickly overwhelmed and wonders, “Why do I need this”?  To be really successful, we need to put our pride aside, and focus our products on the benefits that are valued and provided.  If we do this well, the features (and effort) we provide will not go unnoticed.

If you stop and think about it, it makes perfect sense.  A person that is wired to be content with the status quo will probably never be an innovator.  It takes a person willing to swim upstream, to take some political risks, to venture into unexplored territory.  As each team’s story was unveiled it became clear that they were led by rebels.  Many of the teams told us that their project was nearly killed at some point, due to management pressure, lack of funding, or seemingly unsurpassable roadblocks.  Yet their perseverance saw them through to eventual success.

Isn’t it odd that in our culture we try to “correct” this trait out of people?  Starting in elementary school the child that views life differently is “encouraged” to conform.  I will never forget my early days of my corporate career.  I hired in out of college ready to set the world on fire.  For the first six months, I was basically told to sit down and shut up and learn to do my job the way my predecessor (and his before him) had always done it.  One of my earliest reviews actually stated that I did not work well with others and that I struggled to comply with established company procedures.  In my conversations with others, it seems this is not an unusual orientation to a new organization.  Sometimes I’m amazed that enough people stick it out to provide us with any innovation at all.

So with this blog, I give a virtual toast.  ”Here’s to the oddballs, the mis-fits, and the rebels that can’t be satisfied with the way things are.  May you always see life as an opportunity and your job responsibility as that of a change-agent.  It is people like you that make this country great and that ultimately drive our economy.  Cheers!”

The small firms we talked with spoke of “doing what it took” to be successful.  Be it all night white board sessions, or beer and pizza infused brainstorming efforts, they came up with ideas that were worthy of winning as well.  They spoke longingly of big companies and the resources available to them.  ”If only we had…” was not an uncommon mantra.  In reality, it was once again a leader with a vision that led to their success.

Just an amusing observation.  The big guys carve out groups to act like start ups.  The start ups, long to be big guys.  It seems to me that aptitude, determination and leadership were far more important to successful innovation than the size of the organization from which it came.

Just yesterday we were interviewing a couple about their past purchases of a new product and it’s ongoing usage.  The outspoken husband was telling us in great detail about how he uses a given product.  I noticed his wife making some subtle reactions, but remaining quiet.  Before long, she couldn’t contain herself any longer, and jumped right into the conversation.  ”That’s not at all what you do”, she said.  Then she went on to give her perspective on his product usage.  Naturally, this led to quite a debate between the two of them.  When the discussion finally wound down, they both agreed that the actual behavior was somewhere between what either of them recalled on their own.

This illustrates two points.  First, the best path to consumer understanding is real time, in-context observation.  However, this is not always possible or practical. The second point is, people don’t always see themselves in a true light.  Having another on hand to interact with can bring you closer to reality.

Any given day is like a turn in the game.  You have a fixed number of hours to invest, and you must choose wisely how you do so.  I can envision a series of gauges, that measure where I stand at any given point.  These gauges could represent items like “Manage current business”, “Invest in Future Business”, “Network with Others”, “Increase Knowledge”, “Focus on Employee Morale” etc.  Each gauge could have a bright red line that indicates a dangerously low level, meaning that if your score in that area drops below a certain number, there will be dire consequences.  On any given day, it’s impossible to invest an ample amount of time in each category, but over the course of multiple days (turns), it is critical that no area be ignored.

Like any good game, life throws unexpected twists at us.  “Your project manager has appendicitis and will be out of the office for two weeks”, or “Your newest client just had their budget slashed, and is forced to cancel their current contract with you”.  The impact these events have on you are directly affected by your scores e.g. “Because your networking score is high, the cancelled contract has minimal effect on your long term cash flow”, or “Your Future Business Investment score is too low, the cancelled contract will force you to lay off two employees”.  Ignore other areas of your life, and you’ll also suffer consequences.  “Due to your excessive number of hours spent at the office, your wife has expressed high frustration with your marriage.  Take an unplanned four-day weekend to patch things up.”  Inevitably, there will be those that play this game as if everyone is an opponent, and there will be those that take a team-based approach.  Going it alone?  That’s a high-risk/high rewards path.  You might win, but watch your back.  Playing as a team?  Your progress might be a bit slower, but your odds of making it to the end are much greater.

We play this game every day.  How many of us are watching  to ensure we have some semblance of balance?  How often do we strive to win in one area only to find that we’ve sacrificed in others?  I think I’m going to build some gauges and put on my wall.

the list before we could provide the finalists to the judging panel.  This led to some fascinating conversations, most of which centered around the concept of what exactly is innovative?

Here’s an example.  Company X launches a widget that contains breakthrough new technology.  The user interface is horrific and as a result, the product fails in the marketplace.  Company Y launches a similar product one year later, but updates the interface (not necessarily with a breakthrough approach, but highly intuitive).  Their product is a commercial success and changes the way people think about and use widgets.  Which company is more innovative?  Is commercialization a key part of innovation?  Is that part of what separates it from mere inventiveness?    What do you think?

The good news is that we were able to pass on many high caliber nominations to our judges.  It’s now their job to do the very tough job of deciding which entries are worthy of the top awards.   We’re very excited about the upcoming awards presentation on September 26!  If you are available, please plan to join us in Indianapolis!

We are now in the process of reviewing the nominations and summarizing them for our panel of expert judges.  Fortunately, it will be their job, not mine, to determine the ultimate winners.  It is very exciting to see some of the breakthrough new products and services that have been launched in Indiana over the recent past, and it will be incredible to be able to recognize these groups for their efforts.

Equally entertaining are some of the other nominations that have been received.  We had several companies take the time to write up a new product or service that they are quite proud of.  They extolled of all the benefits that they could conceive of, and documented each of the ways that their offering is changing the world.  There’s only one problem.  They’re not innovative.  While it may be a new product to their company, a quick web-search will show that there are numerous competitors already on the market.  Our goal is not to demean or discourage companies that are striving for new revenues in any way, shape or form.  But I do wonder if they’re spending anytime doing competitive analysis or if they are just launching products in a vacuum?  While a new idea may be innovative to your company, it’s ultimately the market that decides its unique value proposition.