Those of us who spend most of our time in or thinking about the online world sometimes forget about the importance of learning from traditional, less digital forms of interaction.  No… I'm not talking about chat room addiction or that type of thing.  I'm talking about a walk through the aisles of a brick and mortar store… or a flip through the pages of the Sunday newspaper ads… or, in the Google Book Search Team's case, a walk through the largest book fair in the Spanish-speaking world.

The Book Search Team was on hand to talk about Google Book Search with partners and users at Feria Internacional del Libro.  But it was apparently much more than a demonstration of Google technology.  As Dan Abbe describes the experience, you can almost see and smell the books with him.  It sounds like the Feria Internacional was a great experience for Abbe and the rest of the Google Book Search Team.

In all of your digitized, computerized dealings and workings, don't forget to take a step back into the traditional.  Not only can it offer a welcome break from pixels, cursors, and lines of code, but it can also be a great learning experience.  You can bet your bottom dollar that the Book Search Team learned something about books (and the way people use them) that they can put to use in their product.  You can do the same thing.

Learning how people interact with, shop for, and use your products offline can offer excellent insights into how you market those products online.