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Why do 80 percent of new products despite the best efforts of market researchers -- through techniques such as focus groups and market surveys -- to predict what customers want. According to Harvard Business School marketing professor Gerald Zaltman, the reason for the failure of traditional market research methods is that they depend on customers consciously knowing what they want and what they will buy. However, customer behavior toward products and brands is often driven by the unconscious, r

As the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency from 1993 until 2001, James Lee Witt witnessed some of the worst crises Mother Nature, chance and certain humans had to offer — earthquakes, floods, airline crashes, the Oklahoma City bombing, and more. Through it all, he not only drastically improved the reputation FEMA had among lawmakers and crisis victims and survivors alike (his leadership rescued the flagging agency), he also developed a strategy for managing crises — a customer-ce