AMS Executive VP to Chair IIR VOC Event; Several AMS Clients to Speak

Waltham, MA (PRWEB) October 10, 2007

For the fourth consecutive year, AMS Executive Vice President Gerry Katz has been invited to chair the annual PDMA/IIR Voice of the Customer conference, which will be held from December 3-5, 2007, at the FireSky Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona. The program will focus on the provocative question "Does VOC hinder or promote innovation?" and the role that Six Sigma plays in mining breakthrough vs. incremental innovation.

The conference will feature presentations by executives of several AMS clients, including:

• Suchit Jain, Vice President of Strategy at SolidWorks, who will present "Finding What Customers What - A Practical Approach to VOC Process at Solidworks"
• Paul Peterson, Global Marketing Director, Adhesives, at National Starch & Chemical, who will speak about "Successful VOC in a High-Level B2B Environment"
• Dan Shinnick, Vice President, Fraternal Development, at Thrivent Financial, who will discuss "The Application of VOC to Intangible Products
• Jason Busta, Senior Product Research Analyst at Intel Corporation, who will discuss "Using VOC Needs to Drive Major Platform Changes"; and
• Catherine Yankelevich, Group Marketing Science Manager at Boston Scientific, who will present "Using VOC With the Indirect Customer."

Keynote speakers at the event include Gerald Zaltman, Harvard Professor Emeritus and best-selling author of "How Customers Think" and the forthcoming book "Think Deep: Navigating the Unconscious Mind"; Darrin Caddes, Vice President of Corporate Design at Plantronics; Abbie Griffin, Royal L. Garff Presidential Chair in Marketing at the University of Utah; Heather Kluter, Manager of Consumer Insights at Hyundai Motor America, and several other thought leaders from both industry and academia.

For more information about the conference or to register, please visit the IIR website at http://www.iirusa.com/voc.

About Applied Marketing Science:
Applied Marketing Science is an established consulting firm with two distinct businesses: helping product development teams understand their customers' wants and needs for input into new product and service development; and assisting attorneys with consumer behavior and marketing issues in litigation using surveys and other techniques.

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