Well, Wednesday was a huge highlight of the year for me. I helped present the BMA Tulsa / OSU annual seminar. The speakers were great and included John Moore (johnmoore) of Brand Autopsy as well as some very impressive local speakers. I was blown over by these guys.

There were SEVERAL “Aha” moments for me. So many, that I decided to break them up by speaker and post them intermittently.

First up is the final speaker of the day, Dr. Todd Arnold from Oklahoma State University (my alma mater). Todd spoke on market evaluation for new products and services. This is an area that I do not handle personally and anticipated I would not find terribly interesting. Instead, Dr. Arnold gave me some very helpful knowledge in practical ways that markets can be gauged.

He explained Disruptive Market Research he used when working with New Edge. Instead of me explaining it, you can view New Edge’s presentation on Disruptive Market Research. After the intro, click on “Disruptive Market Research”.

Dr. Arnold also gave me my new favorite term: ‘What This Town Needs Is’ syndrome. This is when a few buddies are kicking back a few brewskies and one says to the other, “What this town needs is…” Then he goes on to list something the town doesn’t have. He’s right, they don’t have it, but usually there’s a good reason why. Todd went on to give an example of a store in Columbia, MO that sold 6 foot ceramic tigers. Columbia is home to the University of Missouri, whose mascot is a tiger. But why would college students buy them? The store was started and abandoned during Dr. Arnold’s studies at MU.