15 October 2020

Data Value Mapping

It is right for the customer to be important and we must definitely focus on the customer experience and a better understanding of his needs and requirements. But...

I like to view things from the product and process itself and look at the world from that point of view. And if you look at the tools of service design and design thinking with those glasses, you will see how you can use them in a different way with surprisingly new results.

And thus, I found the Empathy Mapping tool a suitable tool to use to enter into a discussion with companies about what it means to design a “smart product”.

After all, when I ask companies: "what does it mean 'a smart product / process' in your context", very quickly I get answers as being smart for the customer, but that a product / process also can be smart for other players in the ecosystem and therefore can even generate extra business, that is often forgotten. However, with the right look or view of things, this can be very enlightening.

And thus, I reversed the Empathy mapping tool and from now on I put the product in the center instead of the user, but actually the principle remains just the same ... What does your product see, what does it feel, what does it ... nowadays we have so many sensors and measuring instruments already available, so we can digitally record and therefore measure this.

I myself call this way of using the tool “Data Value Mapping”, because this is what you do. In this way you bring out the value of data that lies in your product or process and I can assure you, you would be amazed at what data and insights your product / process can deliver.

Take the google streetcar as an example. He drives around to measure and map the road network, but what if we filled that car with extra measuring instruments and sensors, what information could it provide ... Maybe the legislation does not allow everything and with every innovation you have to pay attention to the ethical impact, but let your imagination run free and the extra business models roll out like this ...

This exercise also seems to be an ideal basis for spotting opportunities for algorithms and artificial intelligence, because the wider the basis of data collection, the more possibilities this creates for later.