product design

Monster image of brand mapping and positioning. It will take a bit to digest this, but if you are in a consumer or highly visible B2B market, this will help you grasp building a killer identity.

Design like Apple! Simple, elegant, functional, desireable!

Get a feel for what you should be examining in the current market. Revisit this document in the solution stage to measure where you are and where you can make progress.

Change thinking to deliver new ideas. 

 A little mental exercise on how to do things differently. Being
different is what generates success and this peice will help you to
work in creative ways to be different.

Fear of the unkown or failure will cause many to reject new idea. This list of arguments and objections you will run into when doing something new will keep you apprised of how to scale these walls.

You must understand how to address these issues and overcome objections to achieve just about anything.

Applies to: Building a team, Funding, Selling, product development, and any other area where you might try something out of the box.

Quick Excerpt:

1. Everyone has to serve someone else to ultimately serve themselves. this principle
manifests itself by what all buyers of ideas say to themselves, “So this idea of yours is going
to do what for me? What’s in it for me to embrace your concept?” Which, in other words, means
we all have to ‘give to get’ (which is just another way of expressing the universal principle of
‘cause and effect’).
2. The ideas that we ‘give’ (suggest) must be of interest to the receiver… before they
notice, accept, or buy into our concept. the form and function of every concept…must translate
into value and beneits for the receiver. Concepts must also feel right. they must be just, fair, and
good for the receiver. ultimately, the concept somehow has to make sense, by clearly demonstrating
‘the what’s in it for me’ beneit; so it is something the receiver can relate to. It’s all about addressing
the receivers ‘self-interest.’

According to Barry, choice is a good thing. Until there's too much of it, that is. By overloading us with options, in education, sex, religion, or clothing, more choices not only make us less satisfied, they debilitate us. Read an excerpt from his powerful new book.

This applies to product development and marketing, where decisions are made to impact the product and how the users discover, purchase, and use it.

More features and options is not always the best for the customer and your sales. Too many features, choices, decisions, steps, or options can confuse the customer and dilute your product. Apple does this well, they offer a small fraction of choice in computers, which alienates some customers. However, the rest are met with easy decisions in purchasing and a higher quality product. The product can be higher quality because R&D dollars and effort can be focused on a small set of products instead of spread over dozens and dozens of different products that Dell and HP offer.

Break out the duct tape and bring the concept into reality. Don't worry if you have an ugly baby.

Define (or redefine) your product/service with the aim of exploiting market opportunities discovered earlier.

Get a feel for the big bad world of business.