Diamond Author
There are two lines of thinking in innovation as to where to get innovative products from. The traditional belief was that you should survey all your customers and ask them what they want, and they would tell you and that you would produce it, and they would buy it. Unfortunately, this methodology doesn't always work. Why you ask?
It's simple, because if you asked folks in the 1950s what innovations they would like for the telephone, they might tell you they wanted a different way to dial, so that would hurt their fingers. They would have not told you that they want a smart phone with a GPS, connected to an Internet that didn't exist, and was able to dial by voice or speech recognition. Do you see that point?
In other words, maybe the consumer doesn't really know what they want, and it takes a creative genius thinking outside the box, or a team of superstar innovators to come up with something that is so new, so revolutionary, that everyone will buy one even though they didn't know they wanted it before you introduced into the marketplace.
Now then, there is another inherent problem with collaborating with your customers in the Digital age of Twitter. And that is; is it safe to start asking your customers what they want, and open up frank discussions with them, as the first thing they do is go and announce whatever it is you said on their blogs, or they Twitter it all their friends.
Even if you have a group of beta testers, trying out a new product, they will go ahead and leak it to the world, telling all their twitter followers in 0.0623 seconds. So, you can see the risks of collaborating with customers. The first risk is they don't know what they want, the second risk is they going to tell the whole world. I hope you will please consider this.
About this Author
Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes if you want innovation type articles or online content on innovative topics then you should go to http://www.bloggingcontent.com
Note: All of Lance Winslow's articles are written by him, not by Automated Software, any Computer Program, or Artificially Intelligent Software. None of his articles are outsourced, PLR Content or written by ghost writers. Lance Winslow believes those who use these strategies lack integrity and mislead the reader. Indeed, those who use such cheating tools, crutches, and tricks of the trade may even be breaking the law by misleading the consumer and misrepresenting themselves in online marketing, which he finds completely unacceptable.
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