General Electric values these two marketing competencies over all others, according to CMO Dan Henson, who spoke this week at the CMO 2007 conference:
1. Segmentation, particularly down to very granular level.
2. Ethnography. Helps in finding innovative ideas, fueling GE’s “Imagination at work” focus.
If you attended this conference, can you please share more about what he meant about ethnography?
Mukund
Mukund,
I think Henson was referring to the social research practice of thenography where researchers go into to the field to study how people live and work to get deeper insights into how those people are using products — and how the products could be improved. This video of Jane Fulton Suri of IDEO, speaking at the BIF2 Collaboraitve Innovation Summit last October is a wonderful view of what ethnography is and why businesses — like GE — value it so much.
Lois
Thanks Lois. Great blog BTW.