Technology brokering can teach firms how to effectively shift the focus of traditional R&D teams from trying to invent completely new products to combining previous innovations. New ideas for observation based research pull R&D scientists out of the lab and place them into direct consumer observation to allow them to diagnose problems with products and identify the needs of the customer more accurately.[1]:7 The technology brokering process intertwines with the idea of empathic design, which is basically understanding products from a customers’ point of view and then designing them to fit needs and issues.