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The other day I was having a chat with some colleagues about authenticity. Current wisdom suggests that brands and companies that are perceived to be less than authentic are doomed to fail. However, we know that brands, companies, and even people will behave...

My last post was about the success of Monocle, and how founder Tyler Brule's incessant, immersive research plays a large role in this success.  But it's not the only reason Monocle is successful.  JD asked the question, "Is Brule able to do this because...

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...

Last week I attended the first Mass Innovation Nights event.  This will be a monthly event to highlight Massachusetts innovators by giving them a forum in which to showcase their latest products and inventions.  It was good to meet so many in the local...

Walk into almost any company and ask a random employee what they do.  You'll likely get very specific answers.  "I'm in marketing", or "I'm a manufacturing supervisor", or "I'm a software developer." ...

People often ask me how they can improve their consumer interviewing skills.  The thought being that if they can perfect the art of the one-on-one interview that they will have the key to understanding their markets. I applaud the intention, and people who try to...

It's hard to find a company that does not embrace multidisciplinary project teams these days. The idea is that since we all have our functional blindspots, a team that brings disparate disciplines together will have all the potential blindspots and pitfalls...

There's a multimedia presentation in the online Harvard Business Review about how to get a better understanding of what customers may truly want.  I think this research method is a small step in the right direction.  It shows how most quantitative...

There's an article in Fast Company about Google's design lead, Doug Bowman, leaving the company to take a job at Twitter.  He says that Google's culture of over-reliance on testing and data paralyzes the design function. This is yet...

I've been reviewing product development processes for different companies and have noticed something pretty interesting.  It seems that linear development processes that track tasks rather than results lead to lopsided thinking. What do I mean by that? Well,...