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98 THE PRACTICE OF INNOVATION

ers of package tours, talked to them and listened to them, before they
built their first vacation resort. And the two young men who turned
Melville Shoe from a dowdy, undistinguished shoe chain (one among
many) into the fastest-growing popular fashion retailer in America simi-
larly spent weeks and months in shopping centers, looking at customers,
listening to them, exploring their values. They studied the way young
people shopped, what kind of environment they liked (do teenage boys
and girls, for instance, shop in the same place for shoes or do they want
to have separate stores?), and what they considered “value” in the mer-
chandise they bought.
Thus, for those genuinely willing to go out into the field, to look
and to listen, changing demographics is both a highly productive and
a highly dependable innovative opportunity.