Interactive Windows for Product Definition

I was reading my bloglist this morning and came across a post by Jack Vinson about Johari Windows.  So I checked out his and Nancy White's (whom he referenced) as I'd never heard of them before.

In case you haven't,

The source website describes the Johari Window thusly:

The Johari Window was invented by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingram in the 1950s as a model for mapping personality awareness. By describing yourself from a fixed list of adjectives, then asking your friends and colleagues to describe you from the same list, a grid of overlap and difference can be built up.

So I checked out both of their windows and the whole set-up got me to thinking about the views customers or even employees and our sales team have of our products.  I remember sitting in brainstorming meetings where everyone is asked to throw out adjectives about the product under discussion so we can try to determine the keywords and messaging to focus on for marketing, customer experience, Web content and white papers.  We'd hang big sheets of paper on the wall and give people Sharpees and have them go at it.

Well, you can get a lot of different results when you ask people to start cold and come up with their own terms.  What I found is that a lot of the jargon words for that period get written down and some silly stuff and maybe a few really good ideas.  But, here's the thing, as I looked at the Johari windows for Jack and Nancy, I could picture them being set up to define products and service offerings.

Then asking your customers, employees, and partners to participate in helping you define them by choosing from a big list of terms that might be applied due to their experiences with your company and those products. 

It's just a thought, and you'd probably want to mask identities from the world, but imagine what you could learn.  You might find a whole new niche that you never knew your product could serve, you might find a benefit you didn't know about and you might find a way to improve.  You might find some defining features or values your products deliver that you've been unaware of.

Which takes me to link this to a post at Live Path about the Three Word Rule.  Which might give you ideas on what to do with your words when you get them.  "What's your core focus?  Can your employees articulate it?  Do your customers get it?"

What words would your constituents use to define your product?