A.G. Lafley vs. Steve Jobs

I thought this article was very relevant to some of the discussions that we have been having in class, as well as, reinforcing some of the reading material. It discusses how the CEO of Proctor and Gamble, A.G. Lafley, spent a great deal of time trying to understand the target market while, on the other hand, Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, was infamous for saying that "it isn't the customer's job to know what they want." 

In the end both men came to the conclusion that in order to be sucessful you need to understand your customer better than they understand themselves. This also allows you to stay ahead of the curve and introduce new and innovative products ahead of when a customer might initially need them.

Like A.G. Lafley Cleveland based Nottingham Spirk Strategic Innovation uses the power of observation to seek out new and innovative ideas.  Nottingham Spirk is housed in a "state-of-the-art facility known as the Nottingham Spirk Innovation Center, where researchers, product designers, engineers and prototype technicians work side by side through every step of the company’s unique, vertically integrated open innovation process, developing products that change the game in their respective markets."  Employees of Nottingham Spirk often wonder the aisles of major chains to see the products that currently exist and then come up with innovative ways of improving those products.