NeoMedia Technologies, Inc (NEOM)

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FWIW, I am attending a New Product Development Workshop this week. One of the subjects covered was the Kano Model. The Kano model classifies product attributes based on how they are perceived by customers as well as the effect of the attributes on customer satisfaction. Since the impact on customer satisfaction is different for each customer requirement, it is important to determine which attributes of a product or service bring more satisfaction than others. The Kano classifications used to capture this information identify which attributes drive customer satisfaction, and indicate where a company should focus to retain market competitiveness. Meeting the customers' basic quality needs provides the foundation for the elimination of dissatisfaction and complaints. Exceeding expectation creates a competitive advantage and leads to innovation.

See this website for more information on the Kano Model - http://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c060123a.asp

After discussing the subject, we broke out into 4 teams. The facilitator asked us to do a Kano Model for a cell phone. It was quite interesting how some teams were significantly impacted by the origin of their team members. For example, one team had an attendee from India and another from the U.K. Their list of features that would delight the customer was much more advanced than another team that was made up of primarily attendees from the United States with age well over 40. For example, the team with the attendees from Asia and U.K. included mobile ticketing and mobile coupons on their list of "exciters and delighters". Text messaging for them was a "threshold / basic must have", while the over 40 U.S. team didn't even list text messaging or other more advanced features as a delighter.

My point is this little exercise was just further evidence to me that the U.S. market probably is not ready for Neom's technology yet, while Asia and Europe are.

I am not stating anything that we haven't all said before. Look at DiamondTech's post today and you will see that even in Japan mobile advertising is still not big dollars today - a mere $328 million vs. over $1 billion projected by 2011. It's just further evidence that we are "still early to the dinner table".

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