[Sigia-l] making the case for field research for innovation

[Listera]

"Bonander, Jason" wrote:

> I would argue that field research is a bit more complex, involving a set of
> tools and methods, than simply stepping outside the office. And while
> following and leading are part of the ethnographic game, critically
> observing, comparing and patterning are even more important and help you get
> beyond what people say and do.

If you reduce the function of a salesforce to "simply stepping outside the
office" then there isn't much to talk about. But a competent salesforce (not
a specific salesperson, mind you) lead by an incisive team leader is an
absolutely irreplaceable resource to uncover trends/patterns and to "get
beyond what people say and do" as they can observe, interact, listen,
question, experiment and look at aggregate data as well.

As marketing counsel to a very large Japanese corp in the U.S. years ago, I
observed that first hand. It was a well trained, national salesforce with
great discipline to gather data/info/observations and to analyze them.

Best,

Ziya