What Would We Do Without Focus Groups?

5 Replies to “What Would We Do Without Focus Groups?”

1. If there’s one book that should be on every thinking human’s bookshelf, it’s the venerable How To Lie With Statistics. This is covered in there, although the example given was “What magazines does your household read?” vs. “We’re collecting magazines for charity, can we have your old ones?”[1] Turns out people don’t like to admit they read trashy magazines.
   [1] It was 1954[2]. People still read magazines.
   [2] So you’d think people like Seth Godin would remember that this was figured out that long ago. Then again, I’ve noticed that rather a lot of “management consulting” consists of repackaging plain, obvious truths in shiny new ribbon.

2. They are about as useful as those well meaning minions of social media who figure that changing their profile picture to one with a flag or rainbow on it will somehow make it better. And don’t forget the hashtag… Michelle Bambam saved 200+ girls kidnapped by terrorists that way.

3. Oops, me bad. I meant to say “Islamic terrorists.” Unless of course Boko Haram are nothing more than misguided youth who missed out on the Peace Corps hugs.

4. “This seaweed tastes rotten.”
   Oh, wait. That was a fucus gripe.

5. How long have you been holding on to that one?