Michael Lachapelle

• How is your presentation relevant to the theme of this year’s BBC conference: Innovation in the Fast Lane?

In the 21st century ‘attention’ economy businesses need to understand what motivates their customers, and potential customers, to design value propositions that will capture the marketplace. Many CEOs identify structured customer insight as a major deficit in their businesses. Big data can provide astonishing detail of correlations and trends in the marketplace, but no amount of data will ever tell you why your customers behave as they do. One cannot understand motivations through numbers. Understanding customers requires an approach rooted in assessing their jobs, outcomes and pains, and looking at it with empathy and qualitative analysis.

• What are your top tips for companies or employees wishing to innovate?

1. Understand your customers with empathy and interaction.
2. Prototype and validate to make decisions based on validated learning, not assumptions
3. Pay attention to the the core characteristics of a design thinking mindset about products and services – desirability, feasibility and viability.