Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A global-innovation expert offers a new perspective on how consumers think and how to develop products and services that affect their everyday lives.

Who are your next customers--not just the ones you are serving today but the ones you'll need three, five, or ten years from now How do you figure out what goods and services will attract them in the future before your competitors do

According to Jan Chipchase--whom Fast Company has called the "James Bond of design research" and Fortune has called the "Indiana Jones of technology for the developing world"--most of the clues are right in front of us. The key is learning to see the ordinary in a revolutionary new way. As the executive creative director of Global Insights at frog, an award-winning global design and innovation company, Chipchase draws on everyday objects and patterns to show us how to see the world differently, from making a phone call to filling up a gas tank to ascertaining whether it's actually half-and-half you're pouring into your coffee. Chipchase is always looking for opportunities--gaps, anomalies, and contradictions--that will give his clients, some of the world's largest and most successful companies, a distinct competitive advantage, whether they're delivering the most low-tech bar of soap or the most high-tech wireless network.

In Hidden in Plain Sight, Chipchase takes readers on his journeys around the globe and shares his methods for identifying the unmet needs of customers. No matter where he stops--whether Cleveland or Kabul--his goals are the same: to spot and decode the routines of daily life and to help readers use the very same tools that he and his team use to see, and capitalize upon, what is hidden in plain sight today to create businesses tomorrow.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 1)
• 1 Crossing State (of Mind) Lines (p. 27)
• 2 The Social Lives of Everyday Objects (p. 51)
• 3 Riding the Waves of the Past, Present, and Future (p. 71)
• 4 You Are What You Carry (p. 99)
• 5 Calibrating Your Cultural Compass (p. 125)
• 6 A Matter of Trust (p. 151)
• 7 Finding the Essence (p. 177)
• 8 The Great Tradeoff (p. 195)
• Conclusion (p. 217)
• Appendix: The Eight Principles of Design Research (p. 221)
• Notes (p. 225)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Chipchase, executive creative director of global insights at Frog Design (now known as frog), has been described as a global design anthropologist. In his first book, written with journalist Steinhardt, he uses this anthropologist's curiosity and research experience to examine both the mundane and extraordinary: "scratching beneath the surface to find reality in bits and pieces. to see the world in a richer, more textured way." And Chipchase does indeed scratch the surface on a wide variety of captivating yet random topics, examining such disparate subjects as mobile phones, fast food, pornography, hybrid corn adoption, and the Amish. While he recounts many fascinating anecdotes about consumer adoption of products and services, status, buying behaviors, and technologies, the disjointed organization is distracting and may leave the reader wondering what point the author is trying to make. In the conclusion, Chipchase admits he did not focus on making a point, but rather aimed "to offer new perspectives that can help you bring the world into focus," and to motivate us to ask smarter questions. For nonlinear thinkers or those who embrace the ambiguity inherent in design research, Chipchase's work will provide a lively, thought-provoking, and often humorous read. Agent: James Levine, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.