Sunday, June 04, 2006
beware the focus group

A complimentary piece to WHY (see below)

Malcolm Gladwell's audio lecture, Human Nature, explores why we can't trust people's opinions -- because we don't have the language to express our feelings. His examples include the story of New Coke and how Coke's market research misled them, and the development of Herman-Miller's Aeron chair, the best-selling chair in the history of office chairs, which succeeded in spite of research that suggested it would fail.

Focus group researchers take note...