How should a company participate in social media? It's one of the most perplexing issues facing companies today. The trends are clear: people increasingly interact with one another online, amplified by social technologies. But once a company steps in, bad things typically happen. The problem? Firms always place their own needs ahead of their own and they can only think about their product as the subject matter. It's this egoistic approach that turns people off....

Having past experience with ethnographic research, I certainly can attest to the unbelievable value you get from observing people. I'm shocked more companies don't do more of this, but I guess everyone is still bogged down in quantitative data. The problem is, quantitative data tells you 'what' is happening (assuming that you ask the right questions or know what to look for), but what it doesn't do is tell you 'why' people are behaving that...

We've seen the music industry suffer at the business end of disruptive services like P2P file sharing and the shattering of a business model at the hands of Apple's superior media experience and ecosystem. And, Apple recently took the mobile phone experience and turned it on it's head, leaving the device manufacturers left scratching their heads and the carriers' panties in a wod. The travel industry suffers from transparency thanks to a little site called...

I'm in the process of interviewing people for my upcoming Forrester report on corporate social responsibility. One of my interview participants pointed me to this great video by Annie Leonard called The Story Of Stuff. This 20 minute video illustrates the life cycle of the things we use every day. Annie, with a great illustrated animation hovering behind her, explains the stages of this process as extraction (obtaining the natural resources), production (using energy to...

Many companies are delusional about their customer centricity. Many claim to be just that, but only a handful actually are. It takes a big shift in philosophy to be human-centric, and most firms have a hard time overcoming that. Here are just a few of the key characteristics it takes for a firm to be human-centric: Human-centricity starts at the top. If these initiatives are buried deep within the organization, they have little chance of...

On Thursday I attended the MIT Enterprise Forum's Power, Drugs & Money Innovation Summit over at the Seaport World Trade Center. The event targeted New England entrepreneurs and focused on energy, medicine, and finance. The mid-morning panel session on the future of New England was pretty good. It consisted of a good mix of panelists including Doug Banks (Editor, Mass High Tech), Robert Buderi (Founder, CEO, Editor in Chief, Xconomy), Scott Kirsner (Innovation Economy columnist,...

Bring on a designer at a senior level to change your perspective. Design thinking is where the real differentiation is going to be in a few years. If you don’t start taking steps now, you’re going to have a tough time catching up. You may even get scooped by your competitor, or even worse, a company from a completely different industry could come in and redefine your business—on it’s terms, not yours. Think I’m crazy?...

Get to know your customer’s better. As an analyst at Forrester, I’m always talking to companies about opportunities with social media, marketing, new product development, and design. I’m constantly appalled by how little companies know about their customers. So few have any actionable knowledge beyond the standard demographics. I hope firms will put a little more time, effort and money into the research process – and yes, that means qualitative research.Having past experience with...

Yes, that’s a ‘V’ not an ‘S’ in the title. We’ve got a fresh new year ahead of us here are a few things I hope to see happen in 2008. I know they won’t all happen, but I hope to see a few progressive companies set the tone and make some headway.Get to know your customer’s better.Measure engagement—the real engagement.Be a little more fearless with social media.Reconsider your business model.Bring on a designer at...

Bruce Nussbaum of Business Week had some interesting things to say about design and the role of the CEO several weeks ago. It really starts to touch on a point I've been struggling with in my head for some time now. Bruce makes some great points about the design discipline and the role it is playing (or should be playing) in the commercial world. As a Forrester Analyst, I'm exposed to many business ideas that...