There has been a lot of press on ethnography as the new core competency for new product development of late. Business week has a slew of recent articles and online slide shows. Ethnography firms looking for a way to state their value proposition to 'the suits' need look no further! (need to finish this posting quickly so we can start re-crafting our own 'elevator speech.')
For a concise slide show of some recent contributions of ethnography to product breakthroughs by identifying actual consumer needs (by Spencer E. Ante), click on the link at the end of this posting. See ethnography-driven new product introductions from:
Motorola (Product: new cell phone)
Sirius Satellite Radio (Product: Portable satellite radio)
Intel (Product: PCs for emerging markets)
Citigroup (Product: New payment service and a device called PayPass)
OXO (Product: Professional grade hardware tools--from pizza slicers and bottle openers to hammers!) Note: I saw these new OXO tools just yesterday while buying Dremel bits at Lowe's for a new WARP3 Insights product model.
