• Miami Herald, Tuesday, December 5, 2006 11:46 AM

A new book by business consultant Patricia Seybold reveals how customers are taking active--and even proactive--roles in enhancing and developing existing products for companies. "Outside Innovation: How Your Customers Will Co-Design Your Company's Future" (HarperCollins), also looks at several companies that have profited from adopting business models that cater to more autonomous and interactive clients.

Some of these new, more open customer-company interactions are Web-based or enabled. Exercise company Koko Fitness, for example, thoroughly researched and deeply engaged their potential market before devising activities and designing equipment that closely mirrors their clients' aspirations and expectations.

And by eliminating some products and streamlining a few broken practices--notably the dreaded product rebates--Staples is reasserting its brand based on customers' needs and perceptions, rather than imposing standards based strictly on management's ideas.

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