Bunch of grapes or bunch of arse?
“We’ve got to have the ability to enable customers to share”
Random London Taxi driver spouting opinion on social media
“‘ere, you say you’re in IT, whatcha make of this Facebook and twitter malarky? That Stephen Fry, what a tw@t, I don’t care that he’s just woken up and brushed his teeth. Now that QI, its a fix. He’s not so bright, he doesn’t know all the answers etc etc etc…. I’ll tell ya, Facebook and all that sh!t is a bunch of arse”.
“We’ve got to have the ability to enable customers to rate and review products”
Random UK customers in a focus group
Facilitator “So if I gave you all these user reviews for the product, or a review by Martin Lewis, who are you going to go with?” Group: “Martin Lewis… yeah, I trust him, no idea who these people who write reviews are… what’s in it for them?… they are paid by the company aren’t they (cynical agreement etc)”
“Blackberrys are the business users phone”
Random teenagers in shopping centre talking about their mobile phones
“You’re nobody if you don’t have a Blackberry” (Ummmm, aren’t Blackberry’s the business person’s phone?) “You’ve got to have one coz of the Blackberry PIN for texting”
Sometimes you can get hung up in your view of the world, you make assumptions about the way the world works. Yet it can be refreshing to go out onto the street and canvas ideas and feedback. That may be as simple as striking up people on the street (people love to talk), or running focus groups for no particular research purpose other than taking the pulse of what people think. Or it may be spending time on the shop floor. Get out of the office for a day and have fun seeing your customers, consumers of your idea, in the wild. I’m not saying you take the word of a taxi driver, a comment from a single focus group or an anecdote from a shopping centre as gospel, but it might make you think and spark some new, unexpected and contrary ideas