Potential Market Places was Off Topic Question on Size of Market for 'Accessible Web Services'

Hi Graham,

So as not to bore list members to death I will do this in bits. I will go
off list with anyone else who wants to try this and give me feed back to the
next steps as they vary.

In the early days of the internet a web site was considered an expensive
fashion accessory of larger corporate bodies. As such the job was tasked to
IT departments as the computer experts. This tendency continues today in
many areas. Hence the need to pose this marketing question in the first
place.

So the first piece of advice find an experienced (thus expensive) marketing
guru. These are few and far between but worth their weight in gold, they
work all hours and at a pace you could never keep up with. Hand the power
over to him/her and get them to head up your team. If they are any good they
will rapidly task all of you with certain areas geared to your skills and
interests and leave you well alone to get on with it. Then get on with doing
their own thing. Which is out there pressing flesh and gathering info. In
other words strategic.  How often have you heard of start ups who said "we
made some terrible mistakes in the early days and was just getting it right
when the cash ran out"

In the meantime..............back to basics. I notice that in off list email
to me you were not sure how to decide exactly what questions you wanted
answered, so try this method below.

Determining the size of the potential accessible market place is easy,
basically it's the entire on line community within the given area.

But that is not what you are looking for. I suspect the question should have
been put as "How do I determine the size of a target market place within and
for a particular group of targeted individuals" That is different.

There are those on this list that may now blanch as it is core philosophy to
the WAI's existence that all sites should be accessible anyway.

What I do not know is how much Australian events effect New Zealand and it's
law making. Critical information and will influence the eventual
outcome/figures.

You need to come up with a few lists. The best method to achieve this is to
get a few low tack 'post it'  pads of various colours and sit round a table
each person with their own coloured pad. Invite anyone you like to the
session, the wider the pool of experience the better the end result. Allow
at least 2 hours for this first brain storm session. A few drinks will also
help to get things going (no one says it can't be fun).....drunk is not
good. The advantage of each person having their own colour shows who is not
pulling their weight.

At this stage it does not matter how crazy, simple or just plain stupid the
headings or ideas are. All are important. In one section you could have
suppliers to disabled people, in another section the different groups of
disabled people, in another section national corporations who should know
better, the type of charitable organisations who should know better, people
you want or feel the need to talk to. You need about 10 headings as a
minimum, the number of ideas is infinite. As each person thinks of a
'target' or category it gets written down and stuck on the wall. Once the
time is up divide into 2 groups and place the idea's under the headings, the
2nd group can then move things about or add or remove totally to the discard
part of the wall. (not thrown away) the first group then goes again if they
want to.

The rules.
1) No idea is too crazy or (pardon the expression) off the wall. Many good
ideas come out of crazy ones.
2) No Mickey taking about each other's ideas.
3) No piece of paper is thrown away.
4) Time is money so set a limit for each section and stick to it.


You should now have something tangible to aim at. Now you need another wall.
(in theory there are 4!!) This wall is potential information sources. It
takes less time but set a time anyway. Forget totally the first wall that by
this time should be looking like an interior designers nightmare. Once again
it does not matter how crazy the idea is, if it is thought of, it goes up on
the wall. Even down to Uncle Fred because he was in hospital once for 6
weeks......on the wall please.

Another wall, time to start reducing the headings and targets. Divide into
two groups but not the same teams as the first 2 groups, the first group
moves the papers on wall one to wall three, under the same headings. leaving
the crazier notions where they are on wall one. The second group can then
move some back to wall one or move items from wall one to wall three. Do
this a couple of times, it is not allowed to question any movement or
decision by anyone. What is left on wall one can also be brain stormed to
get any bounced ideas from the whole group.

Wall 4, do the same on wall 4 with wall 2.

Now on wall 4 you should have a reduced list of potential information
sources, it's time to take wall three's contents and place them under the
best heading on wall 4 giving each group a chance to change things.

You now have targets and potential information sources. Stick all the
targets together with the information source on top. Also save the rejected
bits, they may come in handy later. You now have research objectives, and
strategic decisions to make.

I need feed back on your results before going any further, better send them
to me off list!

By doing this you have narrowed the field and decided exactly what you wish
to achieve. All music to a potential funders ears. You are focused and know
exactly what you want and where to get it. If I was running the show I would
then task each member of staff with one section, and cover the left over
sections myself.


smiles
Paul Davis
www.ten-20.com The portal website for disabled people and associated
professionals.

Interested in conservation? Go to www.africanconservation.com

Received on Tuesday, 30 January 2001 09:01:23 UTC