Ross Mayfield writes about the Bottom-Up Phenomenon in business relationships.

He pulls out the following excellent quote from David Kirkpatrick in Fortune magazine:

"We're entering what might be called the Bottom-Up Economy ... Customers today have more options and less loyalty. They will migrate to businesses that see them as participants in a process rather than as just consumers .... In the bottom-up economy, presuming you know what the customer wants is the ultimate error. Prahalad and Ramaswamy instead call for "co-creation of value": The successful products and services from now on will be those developed jointly—company and customer working hand in hand..."

Not only do we agree with this - it is the basis of our customer relationship strategy.