07 Nov

Line of Sight Group: Proud Sponsor of ProductCamp Twin Cities 2018

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The team at Line of Sight loves it when we have a chance to attend and sponsor great events…and ProductCamp Twin Cities 2018 really fit the bill! The event was held for the second year at The Nerdery, where attendees were able to share insights and network with developers, engineers, project managers, marketers, user experience, customer experience, product managers, and others who are passionate about product.

This user-organized “unconference” featured Sarita Parikh, Senior Director Consumer Experience and Strategy, Pearson, who gave the keynote speech, “Influencing Behavior in an Irrational World.” Attendees also had their choice of several other sessions, including  Product Management Excellence: Creating a Best-in-Class Product Management Organization (Jeff Lash), Linguistics for Voice Interaction Designers: A Crash Course (Ellen Lucast) and more. Engaging speakers and plenty of networking opportunities made for a successful day! We look forward to seeing you next year at ProductCamp 2019.

24 Oct

Line of Sight Group: Proud Sponsors of PDMA ProductCamp Twin Cities 2018

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The count-down begins for ProductCamp Twin Cities 2018 at The Nerdery in Bloomington, Minnesota! This is another great opportunity for Line of Sight Group to keep a pulse on the needs of product managers, by attending and sponsoring local events.

ProductCamp is a user-driven “unconference” that brings together people who are passionate about products and interested in collaborating to share insights. It is also a great opportunity to meet others in the Twin Cities product community.

The event brings together developers, engineers, project managers, marketers, user experience, customer experience, product managers, and more.

Sessions are throughout the day. Sarita Parikh, Senior Director Consumer Experience and Strategy, Pearson, will deliver the keynote session – Influencing Behavior in an Irrational World.

It all starts on November 3rd. Please click here to find out more and register. Come on out to see us! It’s FREE!

06 Oct

Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Tips and Techniques

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Last week, Line of Sight Group partnered with the Strategic & Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) Association to deliver a panel discussion to explore how various organizational roles define and use intelligence to formulate strategy and execute go-to-market initiatives. The panel consisted of practitioners from several industries and across several roles. There were panelists and attendees not only from SCIP but from other associations representing the roles we sought including Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA) and the Special Libraries Association (SLA).

The fast-paced discussion first explored what types of intelligence were needed. With so much data available from so many sources, there is a heightened importance for analyzing, synthesizing and making sense of it. Several ideas emerged from making it simple, visual, or put into the context of the consumer of the intelligence. One of the firms had operationalized this into Red, Yellow, and Green dashboards. Some added that storytellers could be employed to convey the messages and clues found in the intelligence. There was attention given to the ways that technology was impacting the field – several firms are using or are built on analytics. Others are starting to look at Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR).

There were some interesting examples, as well. One firm conducted Scenario Planning and accurately predicted the acquisition of Whole Foods by Amazon. Another example was that Red Roof Inns capitalized on the fact that 2% of all airline flights are cancelled and figured out a way to cater to temporarily stranded travelers yielding a very favorable business outcome.

Another aspect that emerged was the importance of building trust and collaborating amongst the various roles in research, product management, marketing, sales, customer experience and strategy formulation. With the advent of technology like cloud, mobile, big data and the aforementioned analytics, AI and VR, the notion of sustainable competitive advantage is challenged. This points towards an ongoing monitoring of the external environment to either avoid disruption or to get ahead of the curve and do some disruption.

The panel ended by sharing a list of helpful books:

  • The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World’s Most Disruptive Company by John Rossman
  • Do I Make Myself Clear? by Harold Evans
  • Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
  • Originals: How Non-conformists Change the World by Adam Grant
  • Starting a Competitive Intelligence Function by SCIP
  • The Strategist by Cynthia A. Montgomery
  • Good Leaders Ask Great Questions by John C. Maxwell
  • Assorted Competitive Intelligence Books by Michael Porter and Liam Fahey
13 Sep

SCIP Minnesota Presents: A Panel Discussion with Line of Sight Group, PDMA & CXPA Practitioners

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Line of Sight Group is proud to be part of SCIP Minnesota’s panel discussion later this month. President and Founder Steve Schulz will join other top experts in the competitive intelligence, product management, and customer experience arenas.

The discussion will touch on and provide insight on common challenges, including the type of intelligence leadership is looking for, and illustrate how top practitioners gather intelligence for internal use and on their competitors. Panelists will also illustrate some useful tips and tools that are used by top practitioners.

Other panelists include:

  • Lori Laflin, Global Customer Engagement Research Program Manager, Cargill/ Member CXPA , CCXP
  • Paul Santilli, WW OEM Business Intelligence & Customer Insights at Hewlett Packard Enterprise/ Secretary & Treasurer, Board of Directors, SCIP
  • Mark Jensen, Director of Product Management-Distribution, Epicor Software/ Board of Directors, PDMA
  • Tom Mcgoldrick, Strategic Insights Director of UnitedHealth Group

The Panel will be moderated by Brett Norgaard, Principal, Line of Sight Group.

The SCIP MN Panel Discussion will take place September 27 from 5 pm-7 pm Central Time at the Grant Park Conference Room, 500 East Grant Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota.

For more information or to attend the event, please go to the SCIP MN website or reach out to MN Chapter Chair, Julie Johnson.

Line of Sight’s Market-i Competitive Intelligence Program is a SCIP “Endorsed” product. Strategic and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) is the nonprofit Association representing the Integrated Intelligence industry internationally for over 32 years.

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25 Jul

All Roads Lead to Services When Competing in Technology

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Disruption has always been the norm in the technology industry.  As all industries embrace waves upon waves of new technology…initially in the Cloud and with Mobility, then Analytics and Big Data, and now Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality to name a few. Along with all of these advances also comes disruption.

Looking at the current state of the technology industry may reveal what is likely to happen in other increasingly technology-driven industries going forward. The Technology Services Industry Association (TSIA) has been tracking the largest 50 technology firms (IBM, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, Amazon, Google, etc) for the last 10 years. In the 2013/2014 timeframe, the aggregate services revenue line of the 50 technology firms crossed and surpassed product revenue and has not looked back ever since. Services now comprise nearly 60 percent of the total revenue mix of this group. But, the air coming out of the product side of the balloon is more than the service side has put back in, so overall revenue is flat or declining for most technology firms.

Where is it all going?

As products have given way to services, services have led to a focus on experiences, and experiences have led to the goal of achieving favorable business outcomes. It is likely that shifts like this will cause organizations to fundamentally examine the actual business that they are really in.

In many cases, this calls for a change in the very business models upon which they have been operating under. Accelerating this change is the arrival of well funded “Tech” firms – start-ups with deep pockets, seasoned management and highly scalable business models. There are lots of FinTech, InsureTech, HealthTech, LegalTech, etc.  firms coming onto the scene. You might think of it more broadly as “YourIndustry”Tech with a well-funded group of start-ups going after the most vulnerable and profitable chunks of your industry.

What to do?

The move toward services requires a new set of disciplines, processes, and methodologies as well as new ways of thinking vs. product management. The field of service design is garnering a lot of attention lately within organizations of all sizes. Concepts like Jobs-to-be-Done, Service Blueprinting, Journey Mapping, Human Centered Design, Biomimicry, Virtual Reality, Ethnography, and more are shaping the next wave of new service design. Some of these concepts are well established while others are quite new. How they are combined is the exciting part.

One of the most important things to do is to take a hard look at your external environment (competitors and trends) and thoroughly research the opportunities and threats that you are facing. Once identified, these can inform your strategy formulation – the arenas, vehicles, differentiation, sequencing and economic logic of how you plan to operate. Once the strategy is in place, the specifics of go-to-market initiatives can determine how to move forward. And it is likely that new forms of services will play an increasingly important role on your roadmap as you go forward.