Jeremiah Owyang has a good new post entitled Web Strategy (Advanced): Applying a Social Computing Strategy to the entire Product Lifecycle.

He walks through how to use tools such as social networks and blogs to connect with product customers as you are designing a product, launching a product and through the rest of its life.

I am going through this process twice over at the moments. First, as we move towards releasing a product at Teqlo.com and second with the introduction of the IT Flower white paper.

During the product design phase, Jeremiah talks about Listening as the most important step. Here are some specific tactics I have followed.

• Ask a question of your network on LinkedIn or Facebook. I tried this with LinkedIn and got some great feedback. The people who answered the question were also, generally willing to take a follow-up call.
• Ask the top bloggers in your target market. This only works if you are going after a tightly defined market.
• During any direct conversations with people from your network or with bloggers, give them something to react against. "Does this solve a real problem for you?" "What have we forgotten?" "How could we make it easier or more useful?" "Are there similar problems you are trying to solve?"

Here's Jeremiah's diagram: