In my role as an Information Architect / Usability Designer I attempt to make an attraction of the things people want, make sure they find it easily and acquire it easily. Providing the right information to the right people starts by understanding what they want. More accurately , it starts by defining that persons goal.
A crowd is not an audience

Customer goals - Customer motivations - Customer behavior

By mapping the business model, the product requirements, and the digital application to the customer goals, motivations, and behavior is, I believe a fundamental necessity for a successful online enterprise of any sort. To state the obvious; If we try to sell a product nobody wants we won't make any money. If we develop technology that is difficult to use we will fail. If online options are too numerous our message becomes hidden and lost.

The product of my efforts at this stage is to form frameworks

These are; the Customer Framework, the Business Framework and linking these together with the Content Framework (the reason for being). Within each framework there are numerous requirements, goals, and information - the soup of existence. This work is analytical and functional, the next stage 'Thinking' takes this analysis and turns it into a concept for a living business entity.
Key Tools - Skills - Proccesses
Business Models & Goals
Content Gathering
The User Population
Persona Creation
Usability Testing
Strategy Reporting