"If it's so easy to understand and it makes so much sense, why don't more companies get tuned it?"

"Tuned In" by Craif Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott is a book on how to create the "resonator", the product that sells itself. Or (quoted from the book);

"The perfect solution to a specific problem"

"A product or service that people want to buy without being coerced"

"An offering that establishes a real and direct connection to what your market values most"

"An idea that people immediately understand has value to them, even if they have never heard of your company or its products and services"

The book describes the six steps of creating the resonator

Contents

Chapter 1: Why Didn't We Think of That?

Chapter 2: Tuned Out... and Just Guessing

Chapter 3: Get Tuned In

Chapter 4: Step 1: Find Unresolved Problems

Chapter 5: Step 2: Understand Buyer Personas

Chapter 6: Step 3: Quantify the Impact

Chapter 7: Step 4: Create Breakthrough Experiences

Chapter 8: Step 5: Articulate Powerful Ideas

Chapter 9: Step 6: Establish Authentic Connections

Chapter 10: Cultivate a Tuned In Culture

Chapter 11: Unleash Your Resonator

...

Let's compare "Tuned In" to the ideal business book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, credible, insightful, and provides great reading experience.

Ease of Understanding: 9/10: This book is very structured and it's very hard to NOT understand. The concepts are not complicated. They are straight to the point with great examples all over the book.

Distinction: 5/10: The concept of this book is another "customer-centric innovation". There are hundreds of this kind of book on the shelf already. However, the way the authors present the concept with clear and concise examples is refreshing. This concept of the book is identical to others: just better.

Practicality: 8/10: The six steps (plus what should be done before and after the steps) are simple enough to follow no matter what industry you are in. The authors showed examples ranging from the ice-cream shop to the comedian to Apple to the presidential election! The various examples with simple yet solid steps will make you think that you can do it.

Credibility: 8/10: The vivid examples, again, "resonate" well with the concepts and steps. You can't really deny the proven concept, customer-centric innovation. It's so simple that make you think "There's no reason I shouldn't believe this."

Insight: 6/10: The real substance of the book is how it connects the concepts to examples. You will not find deep analysis or research in a particular subject. Moreover, this book tries hard not to bore you. Once the excitement in the topic fades, the authors move onto another topic.

Reading Experience: 7/10: Reading "Tuned In" is enjoyable. You'll read the contents of the books about how to create a "resonator" and you'll think "Now..... How are you trying to convince me?" Craig Stull, Phil Myers, and David Meerman Scott will then give you simple explanations and excellent examples.

Overall: 7.2/10: As I mentioned far too many times already that the examples of this book are excellent. The six steps to create the "resonator" are very easy to apply. If you are swimming in the ocean of books on innovation and could not find a good book that you can get your team or yourself rolling right away. This example-driven practical book on customer-centric innovation is tuned in for you.

I was lucky enough to be given a preview copy of a great new book by Craig Stull, Phil Myers, and David Meerman Scott called Tuned In. I got the preview, but it is being published today. It was a very interesting experience to read this book, because I feel as though I understand the authors' perspectives so well already. But even though I know where the authors are coming from, I was still riveted by this book. They tell so many great stories that illustrate their big point, which is that you need to be willing to listen to what's going on around you to really produce a business breakthrough. I found myself sorry when the book ended, because the stories are so helpful in driving the philosophy home, and each story is interesting on its own merits.

I am a big fan of David's, and if you read his last book, you would be too. So, I recognized David's voice in places throughout the book, especially when it explains how to detect the difference between tuned-in and tuned-out marketing.

But I also recognize the voices of Craig and Phil, because I am a certified product manager from their company, Pragmatic Marketing. So when the book differentiates between listening to your customers and listening to your overall market, I hear them. When they tell you that you need to get out and talk to people to identify the ideas that will resonate, I remember hearing in class: "Nothing good ever happens in the office."

So, nothing this book said really surprised me. And that's the real genius of the book. So often, a really great book says something that seems completely obvious--right after you hear it. This book is one of those.

Well of course you need to talk to your whole market and not just your existing customers. Well sure you'd rather have real information on which to base your decisions than "gut feel." Certainly innovation for innovation's sake is doomed to failure.

There are these kind of "Well, duh!" ideas on every page. But they are obvious only in retrospect. Most companies don't act as if these ideas are obvious--just the opposite.

In my last book, I tried to help people take these approaches in Internet marketing. This book has a bigger agenda, where the authors help you see how to succeed in all the parts of an offering, from product development to marketing. And they succeed, both because of these blowhard-skewering truths and because they have a rich set of stories that put these ideas in action.

I was fascinated by the case study for Zipcar, a business I was aware of but had never tried. The way they first identified the needs of city dwellers who occasionally need a car, but don't need the hassles of owning one, was an eye-opener for me. But I was even more surprised to hear about how they've targeted other groups to help them, ranging from politicians interested in telling a green story to landlords looking to add Zipcars as a differentiator against other rental properties.

Zipcar is just one of dozens of stories that bring the Tuned In principles to life. If you've ever wondered why your company is stultified in its strategy, and why it strangles every successful product idea before it ever sees the light of day, read this book. It will challenge you to transform your company or leave it.

[...]

Great Book!! Your own personal opinion is irrelevant no matter what situation you are in. You can accomplish more than you've ever imagined in your personal and professional life by observing and listening to others and what they want. And whether it's right or wrong, let it go. Just give them what they want and the paybacks will come. This book is another great spin on the principles of Dale Carnegie.

This book is a must read for all entrepreneurs and their marketing department. If you're lucky enough to read this book before developing your business plan, you're going to benefit greatly. This book really helped our team dig at how we were developing and marketing our application and our business.

The examples of the book are unique and interesting, supporting the entire premise. Perhaps the best feature of the book is that it can easily be used as a checklist for your company, your product or your service. This book must be purchased by you and must be read by your staff.

This straight-talking book is a great addition to any entrepreneur's bookshelf. When positioning a company or a product - or a candidate for public office, there are several rules to follow, among them: Who is your customer? What is important to your customer? And how does your service or product meet the "perceived" needs of your customer? The key words are "perceived needs." You must know what your customer is buying and why, and what they want to buy. You also need to know what they are not buying - and why. It's all about establishing authentic connections, or as Myers, Stull and Scott say, how we tell our buyer that we've solved their problems - so that they listen to what we have to say, buy our products or services, or vote for us. (The reviewer is author of two books:Personal Publicity Planner: A Guide to Marketing YOU and Top Cops: Profiles of Women in Command.)

I've been through the seminars on Practical Product Management delivered through the authors' firm (Pragmatic Marketing). As a CTO it was an eye-opener to see an approach to Product Management that meshed with the concepts of Agile Development in the software field. The two disciplines work well together to create software products that resonate with customers.

This book is not so much breaking new ground, but distilling years of learning into a simple introductory form for folks who might be interested in moving from an inside-out/command-and-control view of the market. It makes a strong empirical business case for doing things differently.

Highly recommended if you're starting a business, launching a new business unit or product line, or simple want to spark growth in existing efforts. You might even learn which existing efforts are not tuned-in and pull back on their funding so you can invest in products and services that the market wants.

Remove the examples from the book, and you have for the most part a collection of already known high level concepts without much depth. Granted, marketing does not have to be complicated and it should not be, but creating innovative products requires more than concepts. For example, the first step in the authors' Tuned-in "process" is "Find unresolved problems". OK, good point, but I knew that and you probably did know that too! How do I do it? The authors's advice: "ask the customers"! But I knew that too. Tell me more. "Ask your non-customers". Wow,I would never have thought of that. Tell me more. "Go to trade shows" say the authors. I knew that too. Tell me more. "Ask open questions", "Keep an open mind", etc. say the authors. At the end of this chapter and of most chapters, I fell frustrated of not learning approaches or tips I have not heard about before and of not learning more how to do it.

At the end of Chapter 4, I was going to drop the book, but the examples kept me going. There are at least 50 examples of Tuned-in companies from Disneyland to the Maganavox remote control that locates itself to the ubiquitous iPod. These examples are interesting by themselves. They are spread through the book to illustrate each step and to validate the entire tuned-in "process".

I keep putting process in between quotes because what the authors present is not really a process. It is more a framework. In addition, it seems that not one of the examples was actually the result of applying the authors' framework under their guidance. So the whole edifice is an after-the-fact analysis of successful innovations that serves to justify the author's framework. I would have liked to see at least one example of a product that the authors actually helped develop.

The book itself is an example of the framework the authors propose, and in particular of "Step 5: Articulate Powerful Ideas". This chapter develops the idea of establishing "memorable concepts that speak to the problems the customers have". The authors here eat their own dog food, and it is clear that they spent time thinking about how they should name that book and what memorable concepts they should articulate it in. "Tuned-in" is a sgood and simple concept that is repeated over and over throughout the book so that it sticks in your mind. There is an other one that is used over and over; it is "resonators" to designate successful products that resonate with customers.

In summary, the value of this book is probably in this Chapter 5. At least it is for me. We typically underestimate that the least number of words a concept can be described in, the more powerful it is. "Tuned in" is a useful concept to keep in mind to designate that idea that we need to be "tuned in" to the market and the customer. But you will need many other books and workshops to know how to do it. But, that's what the authors' core business is: delivering seminars! No doubt that they will have demand.

I read this book at just the right time - I was in the crucial "needing to test my product on real people" (but not really wanting to) phase, and this book made me buckle down and focus on how important it was to talk with, poll, and listen to your potential customers. i.e. being "tuned in."

The process outlined in the book is somewhat simple, and is likely stuff we've all heard before, but it's presented in a way that makes you realize exactly how important it is to really tune into your customer base - whether you have a company, are a musician, pastor, leader, or just want to market yourself better!

Tuned In. Uncover the extraordinary opportunities that lead to business breakthroughs. Craig Stull, Phil Myers & David Meerman Scott. 2008. ISBN9780470260364. I am a David Meerman Scott fan and this book does not disappoint. The book does a very good job pointing out ways to discover your key value proposition, how to clearly articulate it as well as how to get to the present non consumers of your product. A good book for todays marketing challenges with exceptional application to differentiation and finding high value segmentation.
Read about resonators such as :
* clubhub
* RIM
* BillMeLAter
* Nalgene
* TheatreChurch.com
* Boeing's Dreamliner
* ZipCar
* GoPro
* IPod
* Cold Stone Creamery
* Cincom
* Hubspot

Interruption marketing (most mass media advertising) is becoming more expensive and reaching fewer people that care. And if you compound the problem by creating a product that you are trying to sell rather than creating one that is "Tuned In" to your market, you have compounded the problem.

When creating a product or service, most businesses make these common mistakes: They assume that the company insiders know more than the buyers about what the buyers want/need. They based their market research on their current customer base - thus eliminating a much larger potnetial market share of potential customers. And they try to create a need - the tell their customers what to buy rather than providing what the customers want.

To be successful in today's highly competitve marketplace, you need a breakthrough product that resonates with your customers so that they immediately understand the benefit to them and are eager to buy the product. This only happens if you are totally Tuned In to the customer's wants/needs.

"The Tuned In company constantly listens to, observes and understands the problems the buyers are willing to pay money to solve." for the most part, Tuned In companies ignore the competition - listening instead to the customers.

Too many companies get caught up in their own egos. They think they know what the customer wants. Most innovation-driven companies listen only to themselves - they obsess about who will get credit for the next innovation or the most unique invention. And all too often the newest innovation does not solve a problem for the customer, so they simply do not care.

If you are going to be successful, your product or service must resonate with your target market. And resonators are in the market - not in your head. A product or service that resonates with the market will sell itself. You do not need to push the product. Customers will seek out your product or service.

One of the most powerful (but probably difficult concepts to come to grips with) statements is "Your opinion, although interesting, is irrelevant." The only thing that matters is the buyer's opinion.

There are six steps to becoming a Tuned In company.

Step one - Find unresolved problems.

Step two - Understand the buyer persona. Who is the buyer, what are their problems, what moves them to take action.

Step three - Quantify the impact. You must determine that the problem you are solving is urgent, pervasive and the buyer is willing to spend money to solve the problem.

Step four - Create a breakthrough experience - the most successful companies understand that the customer buys a total experience - one that resonates.

Step five - Articulate a powerful idea. Your message must focus on the problem it is solving and must be immediately understood by the buyer.

Step six - Establish authentic Connections - you must understand and focus on the buyer. The buyer must feel like you really understand and care about them and their problems.

It is no longer possible to push product by using mass advertising. Buyers are more concerned about their problems and getting them solved. They no longer wait for a solution to come to them. They are actively looking for solutions to their problems. If you are going to be successful, you must understand their problems and be Tuned In to the buyer.

The book is well written and give plenty of examples of Tuned In companies such as: Zipcar, iPod, National Community Church and the new Dutch Boy paint containers.

It is very important to understand that to be successful today that you must take a different approach than has worked in the past. Buyers have many more choices. Markets are fragmented. And interruption marketing no longer has the impact it once did. You cannot focus on your product. You must focus on the problems your product solves for the buyer.

It is easy to believe that being Tuned In does not apply to your business. It is also very easy to fail. This is a very important concept and a very easy to understand gateway to what it takes to market successfully in a world that changed the way buyers respond.

You don't have to get Tuned In, but if you don't the chances are very high you will be tuned out by your cusomters.

Tuned In is a road map to the ultimate in "pull" marketing--creating a great product people instantly know they want. Yes, it takes a little more time upfront, but it pays off by having to spend less time and money on educating the customer as to why they need it or using "push" sales and marketing tactics to sell it.

"Unresolved needs" and "silent needs" are something I talk about frequently when it comes to copywriting--and dialing into those could be even more powerful when it comes to product creation. But most people are not good interviewers,and that can definitely impact the results they get. So it would have been great to have a little more on recognizing those silent needs and other pointers for the one-on-one interviews the authors recommend.

As others have said, the examples are largely excellent. The only two I disliked were HubSpot, whose elevator speech still sounds like gobbledygook to me and I'm a marketer, and the realtor. They cover the realtor's "no hassle listing" (which is brilliant) but leave you wondering about how he manages to solve clients' top two wants: selling fast and for full price. (Other than to say they generally accomplish that). So to me, it felt like the example was incomplete.

Overall, this approach could be particularly valuable for small businesses--who could move a product or service into the black much faster using the Tuned In approach.

This book, first and foremost, reads like a novel and not an exercise in academia alone. It accomplishes this by the use of stories from many successful & diverse companies, that either knowingly or not, used the founding principles from the father of business academia, Peter Drucker. Specifically, that the purpose of a business is create a customer.

"Tuned In" shows you how to address customer problems, and size the market opportunity, then resonate that insight both inside and outside your company. I feel the lessons from from Tuned In bridges the gap between the questions Peter Drucker asks; "What business are you in, what customers do you serve, and what do they value?" and the recent book written by one of Tuned In authors (David Meerman Scott) on "The New Rules of Marketing and PR."

The Six-Step Process is very easy to understand, but more importantly easy to execute in any size business. It allows you to create a culture that learns from customers rather than makes decisions from internal stakeholders. This process marries the customer's needs to the transparent approach to marketing found in "The New Rules" book by allowing the customer voice to be the guiding principle from product inception to all advertising and PR. They have a line in the book that I feel embodies this process and should become part of any companies' DNA...

"Your opinion, although interesting, is irrelevant!"

If you come to any decision, whether tactical or strategic, armed with what the customer says, you are Tuned In. Unfortunately many companies suffer from the following three "Tuned Out" mentalities...

1. Building products that company insiders think are "cool"
2. Following features, benefits or advertising of competitors for your insight to the market or customer
3. Using Executives or Owners opinions for what's most important

Buy a copy of Tuned In, it makes going to work fun as you can unleash the power of your customer's problems or desires into actions that builds better businesses and long lasting customer relations.

Incredible page turner, I could not put the book down this past weekend. I am using it as scripture not only for work but also for my career. I wonder to myself, if too many people read this book, then the secret is out, I won't look like I have all the answers.

I'm not a marketing expert; I work with marketing, HR and IT departments, all of whom face the challenges of trying to persuade others in the company to a) trust them, b) adopt their recommendations, or c) consider a new approach, technology or big idea... in other words, internal marketing. Often, they describe this as an uphill battle or hitting a brick wall. Either way, this book lays out both a philosophy and a road map that could help. Lots of good examples - of large and small, well known and unknown companies.
How would I describe Tuned In? Clear. Uncluttered. Colloquial. Compelling.

I would call this book "elegantly simple". There's nothing particularly astonishing about the message, but when you think about it, it's powerful. I immediately started considering about how to revise my web site to deliver a more useful customer message.

There are many good examples. The Zip Car case study is especially strong, showcasing how innovative executives identified an opportunity that the auto rental giants missed because they were too stuck on incremental improvements. Other good examples include Millionaires' Magician, Bill Me Later and Cincom.

This book will force you to think about the value you're providing to your market and to question your assumptions. Those are good things.

I have been working in and around startups most of my professional life.

This book provides some great practical advice on how to create the *right* product that will resonate in the market.

The style is easy to read without being overly simplified so as to be useless (which seems to be the case in many popular business books).

I've read parts of the book several times now as these issues continue to crop-up.

What a thoughtful and helpful book! It explores the concept of creating a product or service that resonates with buyers; that, in essence, sells itself. By getting closer to your customers you'll be able to know what they want, and then offer it to them. By paying attention, you'll be successful.

The authors use real-life examples throughout the book to explain the six-step Tuning In process. This helps turn vague-sounding theory into something you can actually use. For example, Step 2 in the Tuning In process is "Understand Buyer Personas." This involves breaking buyers into distinct groups, and finding out, in detail, the things that are important for each group. The authors used the 2004 presidential election as an example. Operatives for the two candidates divided voters into groups such as NASCAR Dads and Security Moms, and targeted their individual campaign messages directly to each group. This was much more effective than using a scatter-shop approach to broadcast a generic message to anyone and everyone.

One idea that makes sense to me is the idea of creating an "elevator speech" for your product or service. It's the short answer you'd give if someone asked what your product is in an elevator, and you had to answer before the ride is over. Since you only have time to say about 25 words, they should be the distillation of your product from the buyer's point of view. There is no time for, as the book puts it, "egocentric corporate gobbledygook."

I found quite a few ideas of this caliber I'll put into use. For any businessperson, the book is well worth buying.

Here's the chapter list:

1. Why Didn't We Think of That?
2. Tuned Out... and Just Guessing
3. Get Tuned In
4. Step 1: Find Unresolved Problems
5. Step 2: Understand Buyer Personas
6. Step 3: Quantify the Impact
7. Step 4: Create Breakthrough Experiences
8. Step 5: Articulate Powerful Ideas
9. Step 6: Establish Authentic Connections
10. Cultivate a Tuned In Culture
11. Unleash Your Resonator

Whether starting a business, attempting to grow an existing corporation, or leading a product management division, the most vital question that must be answered is whether your product or service is solving a problem or providing something so unique that is important enough that people will pay for it.

The authors of Tuned In give us encouragement that we can not only return our culture to one that is truly "Tuned In" to our customers, but they also give us a blueprint to sustain that focus. Most companies start with a great idea that comes from an entrepreneur that is listening intently to the marketplace, and creates a company around a solution or product. If they are lucky, those companies grow and prosper around that ability to solve the market's problem or fill a need. More often, though, the market changes, and if we dont change with our customers needs, we will be left to guessing what those customers need, and we will spend enormous amounts of money in advertising trying to convince our market that they need our product.
This book brings us face to face with that reality, provides a process to begin to move back in line with our market, and gives we as business leaders a renewed focus on that aspect of our culture. Solving a problem or providing a product that our customers want is our sole reason for being, is it not? Tuned In will take it's place as one of the great books that brings us back to the basics in business, and it will be a must read for any entrepreneur, business leader or marketing exec for years to come.

The expression 'tuned in' has been around for a long time, but with the release of the new book Tuned In, its meaning will change forever. The book details the Tuned-In Process, a six-step method for creating a resonator, a breakthrough product or service that buyers immediately understand has value to them, and so perfectly solves their problems that it sells itself.

Tuned In is rich with examples of how companies and individuals have followed specific, repeatable steps to understand their markets and create products and services that people want to buy. The authors illustrate how companies such as Starbucks, Zipcar and Apple got tuned in to their markets and have enjoyed huge success. They discuss how organizations such as NASCAR and Picture Perfect Weddings understand their customers. They show why products such as the Blackberry and GoPro camera meet specific needs of buyers.

The most intriguing part of the book to me is the application of the Tuned-In Process to individuals. The book profiles a magician, a preacher, a real estate agent and a doctor, who were all tuned in to the specific needs of their customers. All four have enjoyed tremendous success in their chosen niche. The book really inspires anyone (willing to follow the Six Steps) to get tuned in to and create their own resonator; or even become the resonator themselves.

We will no-doubt be hearing great things about Tuned In for years to come. I highly recommend it to your reading!

** If you want to learn how to build a great product your customers will love, this is a book you should read. **

More and more, marketing and product management professionals are realizing that you cannot use advertising to sell mediocre products. This used to be the case - you could build something relatively average, and just buy lots of TV ads to convince people to buy your product. Well, today outbound, interruption-based marketing like TV ads and cold calls don't work. People just ignore them. To effectively grow your business today, you need to leverage inbound marketing, which means building a truly remarkable product, and then helping your customers to spread the ideas related to your product by word of mouth and online in blogs and social media. So... How do you build a really great product that customers want to talk about? Well, if you follow the process in this book you have a really good chance of doing just that.

Tuned In does a really good job of covering product management and product development best practices - especially the critical parts about really understanding your target market and uncovering those unmet needs that lie under the surface of what people are telling you. This is really critical to developing breakthrough or remarkable products, which is essential to being a successful business today.

One of the things I like best about this book is that the presentation of the concepts in done heavily through examples. Some business / marketing books are very theoretical and don't include any practical examples to illustrate the concepts, but this book uses lots of interesting examples throughout which makes it a lot easier to really understand the message.

[...]

David Meerman Scott, author of the extremely popular book The New Rules of Marketing and PR, has just released yet another book Tuned In: Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs which describes how business opportunities come about by listening to the spoken/unspoken audience and market needs. This book was written with two of his colleagues over at Pragmatic Marketing, Phil Myers and Craig Stull.

The book reinforces an extremely good rule of thumb for all businesses, and that's listening. But listening takes many forms and your audience won't always talk directly to you by filling out a questionnaire or attending a focus group. You have to dig deeper and "Tuned In" walks you through the process of discovering new opportunities, understanding the persona of the buyer, creating a unique experience and quantifying the ROI to fill the need. The book delivers a series of real world examples to show you how the "Tuned In" theory has been filled in the past.

I finished "Tuned In" a while ago, (David was nice enough to give me an advanced copy. We met for dinner a couple months ago. Check out my video interview with him.) but decided to write about it tonight because of an interesting conversation I had last night with someone pitching me their new business idea.

A really bad business pitch

It's always a bad sign when someone begins pitching their new business idea, proudly announces they've done no research, and then in the same breath says, "I don't know of any other company that's doing what I'm doing."

Ouch. If I was a potential investor I'd show him the door.

As he described the idea, I began to question it and also list more than seven alternatives of what he's trying to do. Some directly competitive and others indirectly competitive.

We were at a party, talking casually, but I was offering up some free industry advice. One of my many hats is as an industry consultant, sometimes for the Gerson Lehrman Group, where I offer consultations for investors and entrepreneurs looking to get into a new market.

He admitted to not having heard of any of the competitors I mentioned. I was really shocked given that they were all major players in the industry he hoped to join. Instead of asking me more about these companies, his competitors, he cut me off further trying to explain his business. I reasserted that there were alternative solutions. He never implored further and I never had the opportunity to explain how his competitors worked.

Usually when I talk to entrepreneurs and investors and I tell them about competing products, they immediately pull out a pen and start writing. This guy didn't. It's like he didn't care to know. I don't know if he even heard what I said. Heck, if I was in this guy's shoes and someone told me about a direct competitor to my business, Spark Media Solutions, I'd write it down, look it up, and call them. You never know, they could become partners. :)

I haven't seen this man's product, and he admittedly was not giving me a full explanation. It's very possible that it could offer something new, unusual, and solve a given need in a unique way. But given the way he was interacting with me, I think it's highly unlikely. The main reason:

He didn't listen.

You learn so much more when you listen to your market.

I was retelling this story last night to Mary Hodder of Dabble hours after the conversation and we agreed there's nothing more depressing than watching an entrepreneur proud of their ignorance of their own market. Here's a warning to any entrepreneur that is pitching their business:

NEVER say you don't have any competition.

There's nothing that sets off my BS detector faster than hearing that. I am not alone. I've discussed this with other journalists and industry analysts and we're sick of smug business people that think they've created something in an alternative space and there's no way they could possibly have competition. I immediately pounce when I hear it. In fact, I will start listing competitors for them to which they concede by saying, "Well, if you put it that way, yes, I guess we have competitors." You mean when I put it the way in which they approach the same audience and deliver exactly the same services you do?

You can be unique, and you should. But unless you're creating time travel you're probably not creating something that's completely new. Listen to your market and create something unique. Read "Tuned In" to learn how to do it.

Why did the Apple Newton flop and the iPod rock? How did a struggling magician transform himself into a success with a three-word tagline? How did a car rental startup grab an entire market segment that was just sitting there for the big guys to gobble up? Answer: it was all a matter of tuning in.

It stands to reason if an organization wants to develop products and services that resonate with people, the first step is to ask people what they want. Simple as it sounds, authors Stull, Myers, and Scott, each of whom has extensive experience working with large firms and non-profits, observe that many of them simply don't do it. Those that do often lack the right processes to gather and act upon the information they receive. As a result, they roll out products and services that fall absolutely flat, squandering their resources and completely missing golden opportunities.

The authors contend the solution is to tune in. Instead of selecting new product initiatives in ivory tower executive suites and developing them in the lab, get to the grass roots. Talk to actual people, uncover their most urgent needs, and craft solutions. This strikes me as an incredibly sensible approach; perhaps that is why big companies are apt to overlook it.

The book focuses on the why and how of tuning in, with emphasis on the how. The authors lay out a 6-step process for tuning in, very detailed yet written in plain English every reader will understand -

1. Find unresolved problems
2. Understand buyer personas
3. Quantify the impact
4. Create breakthrough experiences
5. Articulate powerful ideas
6. Establish authentic connections

Even though it is simple and straightforward, the tuning in process, like any other, has its share of pitfalls, problems, and subtleties. Here's where the authors' impressive consulting and training experience really distinguishes this book from others I've read on similar topics. These men are able to identify the hazards organizations will encounter in the trenches, and explain - largely through the use of real life case studies and their own war stories - how to handle (and not handle) them.

I like the emphasis on real life stories. They give the whole book the flavor of authenticity books like this need. The procession of examples is what makes tuning in seem implementable, rather than being just another cool-sounding new marketing theory.

Any organizational leader, marketing specialist, or sales executive will profit from, and probably be challenged by, "Tuned In", since tuning in involves jettisoning conventional wisdom (for instance, making new product decisions based strictly on what current customers say), and engaging in new forms of communication such as blogs and social networking communities. Still, this is one of those books you're better off reading sooner rather than later. As more and more companies start tuning in, those that don't are going to start looking worse and worse in the marketplace.