I attended Boston Product's breakfast on the topic of user research.  Here are my core takeaways from the event:

Opportunities to do research exist everywhere!

Opportunities for user research exist everywhere. Ideas came up included

• Listening to support calls
• Putting up surveys in the product and validating hypothesis quantitatively
• Using LinkedIn and Facebook to recruit friends or friends of friends for user studies
• Actually viewing user sessions with plugins such as Full Story and Appsee
• Sales calls. Several Product Managers mentioned that they went to sales calls in exchange for being able to interview customers
• Attending industry conferences
• Malls, Liquor stores etc. Basically anywhere where your potential customers might hang out

Justifying user research can be tricky

Fighting for resources for User Research still seemed like an uphill battle for several product managers. One of the participants had to re-organize their role and make sure that they...