I've noticed that when looking for something - a house, a car, a solution to a business problem, whatever - a lot of people arm themselves with a checklist of criteria to be satisfied.
Today, I came across an interesting variation on this theme. Someone from BT was explaining how they decide whether someone is seriously in the market for what they offer.
If you know about this, my apologies, I'll be blogging again on Friday. If not, then it's a set of 'sliders', each with an opposing statement at each end. All the user has to do is place the pointer somewhere between the two extremes. At a glance, the sales person (I'm sure they're called business consultants or something) can see whether they're in with a shout or wasting their time.
I could imagine automating this. Have a little box at the bottom of the sliders which tells you "give it a whirl" or "don't bother". It would save so much of everyone's time. The example we were looking at today concerned implementing IBM's Unified Communications and Collaboration wrapped up with BT services. Here are the extremes (or 'discussion points' as BT optimistically calls them):
When asking the people you serve what they really want, it seems to me that such an approach, using your own criteria, would a) force them to think and b) give you a realistic idea of whether you might succeed.
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