Customer lingo:

“’Cause you see. doesn’ nobody really know that it’s a God, y’know, ‘cause I mean I have seen black gods, pink gods, white gods. all color gods, and don’t nobody know it really a God. An’ when they be sayin’ if you good, you goin’ t’heaven, tha’s bullshit, ‘cause you ain’t goin’ to no heaven, ‘cause it ain’t no heaven for you to go to.

Industry-type language:

1. Everyone has a different idea of what God is like.

2. Therefore nobody really knows God exists.

3. If there is a heaven, it was made by God.

4. If God doesn’t exist he/she couldn’t have made heaven.

5. Therefore heaven doesn’t exist.

6. You can’t go to somewhere that doesn’t exist.

There’s a nice recent example of this in my post ‘Witty comment on customer expectations’ which expresses this from a product selection angle. I suggest one bridge between how customers and industry think and speak is the effective use of social media. Helps if you use a tool like Radian6 to understand what a customer sees in a product, not just the product engineers. For example does that new camera hit the sweet spot because of the technical superiority of the sensor on its own – or because it’s the sensor + coupled with the wifi functionality + coupled with sharing with mates?

I am reading Eric’s book while getting my head shaved and all you can do is laugh?