Auckland: July 2009

Richard understands the challenges of bringing products to market from New Zealand. He brings his experience as a CEO with an extensive product design and development background to offer this assistance.

Richard Mander grew up in New Zealand and now lives and works in the USA. He obtained a Ph.D. in educational psychology from Stanford University.

At Stanford he studied how people learn in their daily lives - this had application to how people learn to use new technologies. He then worked for seven years at Apple in California developing future technologies and products. The next six years were with Zanzara, helping companies make new technology products easy-to-use.

Richard has a personal interest in helping New Zealand companies succeed in overseas markets. In 2004 Richard was awarded the World Class New Zealander Award for helping New Zealand companies design more customer centric products. In 2004 he returned to New Zealand as Chief Technology Officer for Navman, a designer and manufacturer of car and boat GPS products.

In 2006 he became CEO at HumanWare, a company which designs and manufactures information access devices for blind, low vision, and learning disabled people. He was awarded the Company Leader of the Year award in 2007 for his work at HumanWare.

In 2008 he returned to the USA as CEO of BigScreenLive, a Seattle based company developing a software-as-a-service platform to make the internet more accessible for seniors and others. Richard is an advocate of customer-centered product design and is passionate about making technology work 'for the rest of us'. He continues to consult with companies seeking help with design research, advanced UX architecture, or help injecting design into their R&D process through his consulting company Zanzara.

For an insight into Richard's approach to product design, read the interviews C is for Customer, Defining the Fuzzy Front End, and his article User-Centered Design - What exactly is it? Richard's blog DesignedForTheRestOfUs promotes sustainability and universal design as future values in the design of new products.

"I've known Richard Mander for over 15 years, and watched with pleasure his evolution from Stanford Ph.D., to leading an advanced technology team at Apple, to independent consultant at Zanzara, to CTO for Navman to CEO of HumanWare, and then to CEO of BigScreenLive. The unique thing Richard brings to the party is an in depth understanding of what it means for a technology firm to adopt the customer's perspective, combined with a realistic grasp of the challenges that senior managers of technology firms face as they try to move the entire organization toward a focus on market requirements and customer needs."

Edward McQuarrie, Author Customer Visits: Building a Better Market Focus and The Market Research Toolbox:

Yet unspoken needs not only drive buying behavior, they are a powerful source of new product innovation. Product developers who know how to tap into these needs are steps ahead of the competition.

Everything from knowing what to ask, whom to ask, and how to ask is critical. Just talking with customers, while admirable, can actually lead you astray if done incorrectly.

A range of design research techniques such as Voice of the Customer - where you can personally enter the world of your customers and learn about their unspoken needs through direct interaction - provide valuable insights.

Programmatic customer visits for product development have been a business practice for over twenty years and if executed successfully, can generate unique customer perspectives that would be difficult to gain from other VOC activities.

Focused on best practices and key criteria for success, these inhouse coaching sessions will provide companies with hands on practical advice on how to implement a customer visit programme. DR Mander will be provide assistance with practical, step-by-step guidelines to successfully design, conduct and analyze a program of customer visits - specifically, it will prepare you for how to select the right customers, ask the right kinds of questions and uncover needs that customers don't know how to vocalize.

In an economic climate plagued by fickle customers, fierce competition and product proliferation, mastering the art of conducting successful customer visits is more important than ever.

Dr Mander can provide assistance with implementing Voice of the Customer in your company:


* Where Customer Visits Fit in the Market Research Toolbox - When to do customer visits, when to do focus groups, and when it's better to engage in some other kind of market research entirely.

* Planning a Program of Customer Visits

* Selecting Which Customers to Visit - How to calculate how many customers, across which segments, you need to visit in order to collect actionable data.

* How to Assemble the Team - The importance of assembling a cross-functional team

* How to design a discussion guide to maximize the effectiveness of a series of customer visits - know what topics to include and how to sequence them.

* How to Contract and Ask the Right Questions

* How to understand what customers can (and cannot) tell you

* How to identify questions that will yield real insight

* How to assess the economic value of a proposed solution in the eyes of the customer.

* Honing Your Interview Skills - Interview techniques that will help you identify needs that customers cannot vocalize - and know when and how to probe further.

* That customer visits can serve dual purposes, both to gather customer input and build relationships.

* Analyzing Customer Visit Data

* How to Report Key Findings

* Analytical tools to link the Voice of the Customer to product design and key business decisions

* How to gain the organizational buy-in required for a successful customer visit program

Registration & Information

This half-day review session, includes preparation by Dr Mander, as well as follow up - with an option to have mentorship for your team for three months.

Register your interest in an in-house session with Dr Richard Mander.

For more information contact Sandra Lukey, mail sandra@smartnet.co.nz; phone (03) 374 6753 ddi or (03) 3667 874.

"Most product development is driven from a technology perspective. About 15 years ago Ed McQuarrie taught us how to run a customer visit program at Apple. Since then I've used Ed's techniques successfully on projects at Apple, HumanWare, Navman and in helped many other companies use the techniques."

Dr Richard Mander