Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for May 19, 2020

Tell the “focus group” to get in front of it

If it had edges it wouldn’t roll.

Apparently, the members of the focus group are all blockheads!

I always loved the scene in “Hitchhiker’s Guide” where they’re inventing the wheel, but it’s triangular. Someone says it won’t work, and Marketing says, “Oh, yeah, Smarty, why don’t you tell us what color it should be?”

3,500 BC and there’s a man bun ..

Bluetooth. That’s what it needs, Bluetooth.

The focus group also said attach that thing to an axle, put a box on top of it, and add some handles or poles to pull it with and you might then have something.

Well used, a focus group can help tune your offering. But used the wrong way it’s not just a waste of effort, it actually impedes progress because focus groups, on average, don’t like good new stuff, they want exactly what they’re used to… but better.

Actually, going to grow oats and this was the idea for Cheerios!

……the flotation device was born

And eventually they came up with the ice skate.

I participated in what may have been one of the first of such groups. Ford, for 25 Bucks. For the second generation Mustang (1973). Now “roundly” dismissed as the worst iteration of the popular pony car ever. (Round headlights in square surround, anyone?)

They should do it the Microsoft way: just field it and let the customers find out what’s wrong with it. Biggest group of beta testers in the world.

“So we should’ve gone with the octagon all along then.”

I know it’s only rock ’n roll but I like it, like it, yes, I do

(Guittar riff goes here)

So. . .might this have been the impetus for logos and colors?

I don’t know what their problem is. It’s got edges.

That’s nuts!

Simplicity is its own reward and these guys got simple down pat.

No problem. Paint on a couple of triangles and a swoosh and it’s urban as you like.

It’s the hammer that needs to be edgier; then he could use it as an ax.

Thus treads were invented.

Focus groups were how Ford got the Edsel.

Stuff the focus group leader in the hole of the wheel, roll it and him down a steep hill, and shout to him, “Edgy enough for you?!”

O~oh? Whatever you say, Mr. Ford.

Maybe I could reinvent it.

Focus group must be from The Sharper Image.

Ever hear of “global warming”? It sounded more sinister to a Republican-sponsored (and oil-industry paid-for) focus group than “climate change”, so the word went out from on high that the citizenry would be mollified not so much that the pig didn’t stink as that it had a lovely shade of lipstick.

An octagon would be edgier than a circle, but less functional if used in transportation.

It needs white stripes painted on the sides.