Generative Research:

What I can’t live without?

1.       Sense of belonging:  When I started writing this blog, it was really difficult for me to come up with something. All I could think of the obvious ones (thanks to my engineering background) - Oxygen, food and shelter. And I know if I write this, I would be technically right. But it would add no value to a marketer. So for the purpose of this learning exercise let me focus and try again. I think of my husband. A person. I don’t want to write about him. He is an obvious part of me. But I want to dive deeper into mind and find the emotional needs (not wants). What do I need? I need a sense of belonging! Man is a social animal. We constantly need interaction. Recently on my trip to Bay Area, I learnt about this notorious prison in the Alcatraz Island. The prisoners were thrown here and were tortured not physically but emotionally. The prisoners would have access to food, water and oxygen but literally no human contact. They will be sentenced to a lifetime in prison. Here is where some prisoners have died of boredom from lack of human contact (rather literally). They would cut their wrists and bleed to death to escape the boredom. And this is true for everyone as it is true of me. I guess it’s just the dosage that makes us different. I need to belong as a wife, as a daughter, as a friend .

 

2.       Coffee on the couch – This is one of the things I need to do to keep going. A little time to myself to sip some coffee on the couch. I am not a very happy person if I don’t have a cup of coffee. This is much more than just coffee. This is when I reflect on the day. This is when I don’t feel that I am being selfish for keeping those 15 minutes to myself because I know I deserve it after a long hard day at school. This is when I am just me. I don’t care about the world. I am my world…just this once. Just this few minutes in a day.

 

What I care about

 

1.       Career: I need a career to feel a sense of accomplishment. I am not very proud of this. Like most of the MBA graduates, I think I may have let my job define me and my happiness. I know I need a job/career to be happy about whom I am. I need my pay check not to buy fancy things but to reassure me of my worthiness.

2.       My pet dog: I love my pet dog Cookie. In fact she is lying by my side as I am writing this. I care about her. I am her pet mom. She is the first dog I am having and it is from her I learnt what it feels like to be a mother.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Journey Map of my cousin Vinny!!

Journey Map

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it” – John Steinbeck

The protagonist – My cousin Vinny!!!

I have always been the participant of vacations all through my life. But on the other hand, Vinny my cousin enjoys planning the vacation. I am really excited about this project! In a way it’s a chance for me to get into Vinny’s head and see why and how he plans things. Vinny and Liz have been married for close to two years now and they have been on a total of five vacations all planned by Vinny. I am going to write about their most favourite vacation. This is the vacation where they flew to Miami and took a cruise from there to the Bahamas. The whole trip was planned by Vinny.

So who is Vinny? Let me give you a brief description of our protagonist. Often times, Liz describes Vinny (jokingly) as a “A child trapped in a man’s body”. He is sweet, funny and good-hearted. He spends time on weekends volunteering at the nearby animal shelter. He works as a manager in a large firm. He is hard working and treats his team members with respect and with affection. He is a guy with whom both people and animals like to be around. And in my opinion, that’s pretty rare.

December 24^th 2011 :

Vinny and Liz are on the Norwegian cruise somewhere few miles off the island of Bahamas. They are sipping Pina coladas on the balcony deck. Whoa! How did this happen?

 Let’s trace back to look at the myriad of emotions, the people and businesses involved in creating this destiny for them.  

 

September 2011, 3 months before booking the Cruise.

Three months from now is the first Christmas holidays Vinny and Liz were to spend together. Why did Vinny choose to cruise to the Bahamas? He heard from his very close couple friends Jey and Radha talk about the cruise to the Bahamas and that they had the time of their life. Now here I have to talk about Radha. Radha can sell ice to the eskimos! She has an uncanny ability to narrate like a storywriter and you would want to live her experience. For example, she was the first who talked to about the store Marshalls. She would explain all the great things and the experience she had shopping there. She talked about the cheap designer shoes, the home décor etc. All the things that I spend a ton of time on. I enjoyed listening to her experience so much  that I dragged my husband the next day to the store. So this came as no surprise to know that Radha was the influencer. Now what did she exactly sell? What did Vinny think he would experience in a cruise to the Bahamas. Here is what he remembers. The Blue waters, romantic fine dining, Casino in a Titanic size cruise. Vinny’s brain registers something like this…

 

 

Immediate Influencer – In his mind he thinks a trip to Bahamas on the cruise is amazing. But what are the immediate influencers? What made him decide to go on a cruise in the month of December? He stumbles into this while he is doing some research to learn more about the cruise deals.

 

He learns that they give huge discounts during the Christmas time. This is the business reason that he comes up with for this (Yes. Vinny is an MBA who loves a bit of logic behind every action. He is one person who likes to see order in the chaotic world). The reason is that people prefer to spend time with their family on/or during Christmas and would not want to be out on a cruise. And this works perfectly for him for the following reasons (in the same order)

1.       The cheap discounted price (Influencer: Price)

2.       Office workload is usually less during Christmas (Influencer: Work schedule)

3.       After listening to his friend Ms.Radha, he is itching to go on a cruise to the Bahamas. (Influencer: Social Network)

4.       It’s been 6 months since he got married and would love to take his wife on a nice vacation because he knows that the first vacation bombed. (Influencer: Family)

5.       They live in Austin. Neither he nor his wife Liz likes cold weather in Austin during winter. So this was a perfect chance to escape into a balmy weather of the Bahamas.(Influencer: Weather)

 

Scrutiny begins!!

Now it’s time to get the best possible prices not only for the cruise but also for the whole vacation. He used sites like Kayak and Priceline to choose the best price for flight. He also checked out other things that Vinny and his wife could do. They figured it will be fun to go snorkelling. So they book  a snorkelling expedition  as well. They also decide to do some shopping to buy clothes and beachwear. Here are some stores/businesses that gained from their trip.

1.       Online websites like Kayak

2.       Kohl’s where his wife shopped for $300

3.       Southwest Airlines won ($1000)

4.       Norwegian cruise ($1000)

5.       Local snorkelling business

6.       Casino in Cruise ($400)

7.       Some local shopping at Bahamas island

They had the vacation of their lifetime. I have a reason why I asked them the amount of dollars they spent on the trip. It took them a while to recollect the money they spent. Infact they had associated memories with events rather than a price tag. For eg, they forgot to mention about the amount they spent at the casino. They talked about spending hours on the slot machine.

Lessons Learnt from Vinny’s Journey Map

1.       Sell experiences rather than a product

2.       It is not only the sales people who sell your business but customers too

3.       Have a  competitive and a great website

4.       Price matters only after a point

5.       Last but not least, memories do not carry a price tag!!!



My Tyrst with design thinking - Empathy map

Ron Parker.  He is one of the first few Americans I got to know once I got here to the United States after my wedding. He is a colleague of my husband. He is about 45 years old, average height and build.  He is single and has never been married.  He lives a couple of blocks away from our house with two pet cats Rick and Janet. Ron works as an Analyst in a big tech firm in Austin.

I met him for the first time in his town home. He had invited my husband and I for Tea. It came to me as a big surprise when I entered his house. This was no bachelor’s house. I expected a not so tidy place. But the place was very well organised, clean and everything in its place almost as if it were a museum. I have heard from my husband that Ron is very well organised, a planner and very systematic. But it’s after chatting with him for a while that I realized that he takes “planning and being organised” to a whole new level.

To give you an example, he has been working on improving his bathroom for over several months now. Here is what he is doing. There is a particular color of tile he loved, he thought it would be perfect for his shower room but he couldn't find it at the right size. Someone like me would compromise and go for a different color. Not him! He got the tiles in his favorite color and have been trimming and cutting them to make it to perfect size. He said it took him close to two hours to complete work on one single tile. That’s him! A perfectionist. He will not choose anything that is less than perfect. He is someone who knows what he exactly wants. Nothing less and nothing more.

He talked passionately about DIY home projects. He loved working on these projects. He loved showing us around all the home projects he had worked on. He also showed us some sophisticated tools which helps him to be precise.

He is simple; he is not the one to go after big names and big brands. He lives a rather simple life. He loves his number crunching job. He looks forward to his weekend to spend some quality time with his friends ( a barbeque at backyard, no fancy restaurants) and work on his home projects. It almost seemed to me that he planned his life around this schedule. It seemed to me that his home projects were much more than a hobby. It felt to me that he involved in these projects for comfort and solace. He rides an SUV Nissan Xterra – the reason he has a big car is that it would help him bring big items from Lowe’s or Home Depot. When the gas price is high, he takes the Metro bus to commute to office. I don’t think he is not big on travelling or expensive vacations. He occasionally travels to Oklahoma to visit his mom. He likes routine, he likes predictability. He is very comfortable letting his life revolve around his job, his selective list of friends, his two cats for his company, his DIY home improvement projects to relax his mind.

In my opinion, his biggest fear seems to be when things do not happen as per schedule. He is a planner. He would hate to see things to happen the way he didn't see it.

In one of the recent events, I learnt to appreciate and like him even more. A couple of weeks ago, my husband had an accident and ended up injuring his backbone. Ron was very helpful at the time. He was genuinely concerned; he stopped by the hospital a couple of times. He even bought a “get well soon” card signed by my husband’s colleagues, boss and friends from work.  He called almost every day to check on my husband. It was a very kind gesture. I knew it cheered up my husband who was under a lot of pain and medication. This is when I started respecting him at a new level and appreciating him more. He is now a close family friend.