Insight into the dynamics of the community comes from generalization – seeing the forest from the trees. Community Members inform our understanding of those who think and choose similarly. Inovo’s term for these groups are ‘Personas’. A Persona represents a state-of-mind for a consumer and is characterized by the cause of the behavior as opposed to the behavior itself. Persona analysis is the causal analog of ‘Psychographic’ analysis used in Market Research.

Opportunity Mapping takes the individual community member profiles and discovers the patterns, clusters and distinctions that define the different personas.

Needs and Desires

The process of uncovering Needs and Desires consists of a combination of elicitation methods described in the following sections. Over the course of many engagements, it is possible to build a picture of the many diverse preferences regarding the innovation space. These are organized into broad categories focusing on the two most important drivers of needs and desires: Outcomes and Experiences.

Outcomes are the end points – how the world is different through the use of the new thing. Outcomes appeal to the rational thought process. Experiences are feelings that derive from the use of the new thing. Experiences are driven by emotional aspects of an individual's interaction with the new thing.

The opportunity mapping process identifies the needs and desires most representative of the full array of desired outcomes and experiences. The selected items are included in the persona reaction model to evaluate candidate solutions.