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There are two types of consultants, Trusted Advisors and Trustworthy Partners.   Trusted advisors focus on a client's business goals.  They provide an objective perspective and structured thinking that helps clients to think through the right...

Seth Godin had an interesting post about how people cling to old ways of doing business, and approach fast-growing new ways with trepidation.  He uses the newspaper industry as an example.  People are clinging to the old business model, while online venues...

Here's the final step in translating your consumer insights into a viable product or service offering.  At this point, your people are aware of the role their discipline plays in delivering on the consumer insight.  They also have the capability to...

A quick recap:  This is the second of the three things necessary to translate consumer insight into a successful product or service.  I've been talking about the necessity of understanding consumer motivations in order to develop offerings they will...

Are the people in your company aware of how their job function can actually contribute to realizing the company strategy?  Can they even articulte the company strategy? You can find out if they can articulate the company strategy by asking them.  But how do...

I wrote a post a while ago about Consumer Translation.  In it I talked about how it doesn't matter if you have determined how best to guide your business based on consumer insights if your organization lacks the skills to translate what the insight and direction...

As I understand it, the term Lead User was coined by Eric von Hipple from MIT.  I highly respect the work he has done in identifying and codifying their value as the ideal group from which to learn from and guide innovation efforts.  One...

I've been having many conversations lately about how best to learn from lead users.  The conversation usually starts with differentiating a lead user from an early adopter.  Most people are familiar with early adopters.  They are the people who are...

The Wall Street Journal published their list of the top management gurus today.  Here's the part that was most interesting to me: ...changes show that time-strapped managers are hungry for easily digestible advice wherever they can find it. Today, the most...

According to a recent Business Week article, your company can find it's true innovative thinkers by encouraging fun and games, papering the walls, and having contests to solve challenges that are posted.  And everyone should be included.  That way you...