Social Media isn’t just for following Ashton Kutcher any more. A panel of innovation experts gathered at the Sacramento Marriott in Rancho Cordova on May 27 for a TechCoire panel on Driving Product Innovation Through Open Platforms & Social Media.
The phenomenon known as New Product Development 2.0 or NPD 2.0 to those in the biz, has become popular with companies large and small as the fastest way to generate ideas, gather feedback from real users and learn about competitors.
Patrina Mack, managing Partner at Vision and Execution consulting, moderated the panel. She started by explaining that “It’s all about access.” NPD 2.0 allows B2B and B2C companies to get closer to customers and partners, have a dialogue and find out what is important to them so they can deliver the right product at the right time. This can be done through public forums such as Facebook and Twitter, focus groups of experts and users, or searches of relevant conversations held anywhere on the internet.
Naveed Moosa, general manager of Innovaro, explained that reaching out to customers through social media does more than help refine products, it molds the entire experience, including delivery and customer interaction by taking real people’s preference into account when building the business model. Need proof? Moosa pointed to Crayola, a company known for producing colored wax sticks. Researchers reached out to users and determined that mothers were torn. They wanted their children to be creative, but they also didn’t want a mess. Crayola executives took the challenge to their color chemists and soon brought out a new product – markers that only appear on special paper, that Crayola just so happens to sell.
Brain Reaction CEO Anand Chhatpar, shared his insight as a brainstorming facilitator. He has turned idea generation into a science by limiting the number of industry experts around the table and bringing in screened, trained inspiration machines. “Fresh ideas come from people with fresh eyes,” he said.
“Today, innovation often comes from outside the company, from consumers,” agreed panelist Margaret Francis, vice president of Products at Scout Labs (which recently joined Lithium Technologies). She shared the power of search engines to aggregate and draw conclusions in real time so companies can respond to customer demands better and faster.
Halldin Public Relations sponsored the event and tweeted gems, such as “Listen to new voices to discover innovation and change culture.”
The packed room seemed to be listening. Lorraine Rinker, principal Strategist at El Dorado Hills-based Rinker & Associates tweeted that she was “Learning to listen better, innovate faster.”
Learn more at TechCoire http://www.techcoire.org/programs_events.html
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