The Productologist

Two weeks ago, a friend and I went to a bar to watch the Packers-Cowboys game (thanks, NFL network). Normally, our sporadic football-watching happens as his house, as I don’t have TV (yes, I have a TV, just not an antenna, satellite dish or cable). We watch the game, make armchair quarterback calls, comment on the stupidity of most of the ads and discuss random technology issues (we both work at technology companies). But instead of our normal conversational environs, we were immersed in the revelry of the crowd.

On my way back from a trade show, I spied an article in the airline magazine about how companies are starting to use the “novel” technique of Ethnography to understand how customers really use their products or to test out prototypes in real-world situations (this seems to be a hot topic, because after seeing the article in the airline mag, I also found a recent post about it at Requirements Defined, a blog from the folks at Seilevel and Experientia).

Today, my own advice worked…for me. I went to visit a customer with some other team members to hear feedback from the customer about their experience with my product and hear some of their enhancement requests. I tend to over-prepare for these types of visits where I end up bringing a lot more than I need (everyone else on my team just brought a notebook and pen), but today it turned out that my over-preparedness paid off.

I wrote earlier that it’s a good idea to bring along a thumb drive in case you need to transfer files. I also carry around an extra (my company gives them as tchochkies) that I can give out if needed.