On his blog last week, Tim Brown (IDEO bacon-double-big-cheese) tells a story about an insulated coffee mug he received as a gift. Then he asks a ridiculously simple question: “is this a product or an experience?” 

It’s a simple question, but it has a profound and fundamental effect on product development and management. Too often, we focus on the initial purchase part of consumer behavior. What would happen if we spent more time on the rest– the experience part? What if, when developing a speech & language assessment, rather than spending a disproportionate amount of time and money on marginal technical improvements, we made it more fun for the kid to take? Easier for the assessor to track the kid’s improvement over time? Found simpler, more emotionally-intelligent ways to tell the parents what’s going on?
Those are big what-ifs, but could they be sustainable competitive advantages? By asking Tim Brown’s simple, fundamental question, could you swim out of your red-ocean strategy and into the calm, azure waters of a blue ocean?