A Long Detailed Look at UX Strategy

 In UX Matters, a long look at UX Strategy means. Not sure I would follow this plan in detail, but it is useful to see all the components.

" .... An important question that people ask me frequently at the UX STRAT events that I organize is: “Who needs a UX strategy?” Developing a UX strategy takes time and effort, so what circumstances indicate that developing a UX strategy would be a profitable exercise? The short answer to this question is: If your company has multiple digital products and services, has access to substantial customer data, and has competitors that could take away market share, you need an overarching experience strategy to guide product and service design. Conversely, if your company is a startup with one or two products and an extremely limited runway before it runs out of cash, you should focus on developing a product strategy that is more fluid. This strategy may change as you show your product to potential users before or even after launch.   ... "

Knowing what You Want before You do

In the WSJ:   And the implications for virtual assistants.  Is this also a way to do product development?    Almost by definition.

Apple and Google Know What You Want Before You Do
New technology for smartphones will monitor activity and send information before it is requested; locking in loyal users  ... " 

An Innovation Canvas

Talk today given at the Cognitive Systems Institute:  Michael Wollowski “The Innovation Canvas: A tool to design products and business models” Rose-Hulman School  ....  Talk Slides.   

Big Data and New Product Development

Here is an update on this talk, given on 1/29.

" ... What does it mean to embed the intelligence from Big Data into new product development?

How will Big Data power consumer products and services in the era of Analytics 3.0?

In this 50-minute webinar, guest panelists Tom Davenport and Kobi Gershoni partner to answer these questions and describe the changing landscape of Big Data in NPD. They explain the practical challenges facing organizations today, and share the key success factors for embedding Big Data in the new product development cycle. Download the webinar presentation here. .... 

Recording and slides. Registration may be required.

Unified Decision Processes Driven with Data

At the Webinar today from Innovation Excellence by Julie Anixter on Big Data and New Product development,  Kobi Gershoni and Tom Davenport highlighted the work done over the years by Procter & Gamble in driving analytics towards operational big data, and by using their Business Sphere and Data Cockpit models.   These are ecosystems that provide a means towards a unified decision model.   Linking analytics ever more closely to the decision process.   Some excellent examples provided.   Slides and recording here.  Glad to have been a part of that analytics emphasis there over a number of years.  The alumni of that effort continue to drive this ahead.

(Updated:  See this startup, which is doing fundamental work about getting NPD data entered into the system and thus an excellent first step for a unified system )

How Big Data is Changing New Product Development

Below is an  collaborative webinar featuring two groups I have done work with.  And includes Tom Davenport, who included our analytics efforts at Procter & Gamble in his books.   I am looking forward to attending.

WHAT: How Big Data is Changing New Product Development + FREE white paper "Product Development in the Age of Big Data: What You Need to Know"
WHO: A Live Webinar with Tom Davenport and Kobi Gershoni
WHEN: January 29, at 11:00 am Pacific Time/2:00 pm Eastern Time
HOW: Click this link to register

Signals is proud to announce a webinar in partnership with Innovation Excellence, the world’s largest crowdsourced innovation website, with over 150,000 unique visitors from 170 countries.
In this 50-minute webinar, Tom Davenport and Kobi Gershoni will answer questions around what it means to embed the intelligence from Big Data in the development of new products and services and how it will change the work and landscape of new product development. They will explain the practical challenges organizations are facing today and share the key success factors for embedding Big Data in the NPD.

WHAT will you learn:
The main decision points in every NPD process, from ideation to launch that can be supported with Big Data
The types of new product data with which companies are increasingly being faced with
The current and future role of product developers
How other companies are harnessing “product intelligence” - from better, faster decision-making to embedding better data and smarter analytics in the NPD process

New Product Development and Big Data

Below is an  collaborative webinar featuring two groups I have done work with.  And includes Tom Davenport, who included our analytics efforts at Procter & Gamble in his books.   I am looking forward to attend.

" .....

WHAT: How Big Data is Changing New Product Development + FREE white paper "Product Development in the Age of Big Data: What You Need to Know"
WHO: A Live Webinar with Tom Davenport and Kobi Gershoni
WHEN: January 29, at 11:00 am Pacific Time/2:00 pm Eastern Time
HOW: Click this link to register

Signals is proud to announce a webinar in partnership with Innovation Excellence, the world’s largest crowdsourced innovation website, with over 150,000 unique visitors from 170 countries.
In this 50-minute webinar, Tom Davenport and Kobi Gershoni will answer questions around what it means to embed the intelligence from Big Data in the development of new products and services and how it will change the work and landscape of new product development. They will explain the practical challenges organizations are facing today and share the key success factors for embedding Big Data in the NPD.

WHAT will you learn:
The main decision points in every NPD process, from ideation to launch that can be supported with Big Data
The types of new product data with which companies are increasingly being faced with
The current and future role of product developers
How other companies are harnessing “product intelligence” - from better, faster decision-making to embedding better data and smarter analytics in the NPD process   ... " 

How to Find Needed Market Research Data

The data you need to make your company work efficiently is often hard to find.  A former colleague has a startup that addresses this.   It is being used by P&G.  Note how this is also related to all kinds of data assets.

Can’t find your market research data? This startup can help
That Diet Coke in your hand didn’t invent itself. It’s the result of years of focus groups, surveys and data crunching—more commonly known as market research. Companies that produce consumer packaged goods (CPGs) spend millions each year on market research and it’s both a blessing and a curse. It’s a boon to planning new products and tweaking existing ones but when it comes to finding individual pieces of information, that’s where the cursing comes in. A startup out of Chicago called KnowledgeHound thinks it has the answer. .... 

As KnowledgeHound CEO Kristi Zuhlke put it, companies spend all that cash on studies, then “stash the results on a hard drive, and promptly experience ‘corporate amnesia’.” .... 
Zuhlke experienced this firsthand in her time at Procter & Gamble working in consumer insights. “As soon as we’d get the info in, a month later we’d forget we had it. There wasn’t a central, easily navigated place to access.” Building on her experiences in the consumer packaged goods industry, Zuhlke founded KnowledgeHound in 2012 and went from paper to product in four months. Her first customer? Procter & Gamble.   ..... " 

See also a video visualization.

Mining a Global New Products Database

For food and beverage, mined to produce an infographic on sweetener indifference.

" ... Research firm Mintel recently analyzed its Global New Products Database (GNPD) to further understand the landscape of consumer perceptions, consumer purchase behavior and how manufacturers react to each. ... " 

Always seeking databases about new products that contain some of the dimensions mentioned.

Product Development Using Structured Analogies

Just received this from SAS.  Note that it is an ad and you have to provide information to get the background paper, have not done that yet.  Click here for more.  I am intrigued because we experimented with a similar approach a decade ago, and analogies are powerful ways to generate new product ideas.  May be something useful here.

" ... New Product Forecasting Using Structured Analogies

Learn about a new patent-pending approach that may be helpful in certain new product forecasting situations. Make manual overrides to the statistical forecasts, and get a better sense of the risks and uncertainties in new product forecasts through visualization of past new product introductions. ...  They describe it further:

SAS has a new patent-pending approach to NPF that combines the use of analogies with structured judgment. This "structured analogy" process for new product forecasting has six main steps:

Query step: Find a set of candidate products that have similar attributes to the new product.

Filter step: Manually remove inappropriate or outlier products from the set of candidate products.

Cluster step: Cluster the candidate products according to their sales pattern, and manually select the most appropriate cluster to serve as the surrogate products.

Model step: Select the most appropriate statistical model for the cluster of surrogate products, and extract the statistical model features.

Forecast step: Use the extracted statistical model features to forecast the new product. ... " 

On the Millennial Consumer

In Time:  More intent on Browsing than on Splurging?

" ... The millennial generation is easily the most studied demographic since their parents, the Baby Boomers. This is not only because Americans are always fascinated by youth culture, and that millennials are growing up during a period when technology and economic forces are changing rapidly, but also because—to put it bluntly—Gen Y represents big bucks. Roughly 80 million American millennials spend $600 billion annually, and by 2020, it’s expected this generation’s spending will hit $1.4 trillion per year, or about 30% of all retail sales....

America's 80 million millennial consumers are on track to account for about 30% of all retail sales by 2020, but the group can be a tricky demographic when it comes to figuring out what they'll choose to spend on, according to recent studies. Gen Y consumers love to shop but make fewer purchases than their older counterparts, according to NPD Group, in part because they love a bargain and in part because many of them have less money.... " 

Drinkable Cosmetics

In Cosmeticsdesign: 
Popular in Asia, "nutricosmetics" could start to make a splash in the West, trend watchers say. The beauty drinks, some of which contain antioxidants, collagen and other good-for-the-skin ingredients, haven't yet taken hold in the U.S., but market research from NPD Group suggests the potential is there.

Faster Product Development

A new look at faster and more successful product development.  Generate and test.  Ready, fire, aim.  In part this depends on how expensive the 'fire' segment is.  " ...  The primary benefit  of this approach is a shortened and less expensive timeline from “Not Knowing” to “Smarter” about your product and your market. It prompts you to get moving and start work immediately, without being paralyzed in the analytic stage. You are also forced to produce a feedback mechanism (the “Aim” part) that will provide guidance for your project. In my experience, this feedback mechanism is usually a test regime that will put the offering in front of people online and measure their response. ... ".   From Kevin Ready.