OK, more thoughts on Alexander Osterwalder‘s new book Business Model Generation – see my previous related blog posts here and here.

The topic of this post is an innovative technique for developing a “deep” understanding of your customers – their environment, behavior, concerns, and aspirations – called the Empathy Map. The Empathy Map is presented by Osterwalder in his book, but was originally developed by Dave Gray at XPLANE .

Introducing the Empathy Map

Here’s a snapshot of what the Empathy Map looks like:

The Empathy Map is both a framework and a technique, and it’s typically developed collaboratively by a diverse team by placing sticky notes on a wall. If you’d like to download a template of this poster, you can do so here.

Developing a deeper understanding of your customers by understanding:

• Who they are in their world
• Where they spend their time
• Who…