Now that the holidays are over and I am settling into my new organization, I vow to devote more time to updating this blog.  Maybe vow is too strong a word, perhaps I will just promise to update it more often.  It seems that breaking a promise (with a decent enough reason) sounds more acceptable than breaking a vow (just ask Tiger Woods).
I recently ran a series of focus groups on hot dog packaging and wouldn’t you know it, in every group someone raised the question, “why aren’t hot dogs and buns packaged in the same quantities?”
It’s a question for the ages. I am actually surprised that no one criticized them for being different sizes.  What is the line on that anyway? In my mind, it is okay for the hot dog to be bigger than the bun but not okay for the bun to be bigger than the hot dog.  No one mentioned that though – perhaps size doesn’t matter after all. Perhaps I should ask one of Tiger Woods’ mistresses.
It is easy to dismiss these relatively minor issues people have with products (after all, having a few more hot dogs or a few extra buns isn’t the end of the world) but when you start to see a pattern emerging, I think it is time to pay attention and make a change.  A few more issues I hear repeated often:
  • Why can the cereal companies use a Ziploc closure on internal cereal bags to keep dry cereal fresher?
  • If your car can tell you that one more of your tires has low pressure, why can’t it tell you which tires actually have low pressure?
  •  Can’t they make the entire plane out of the stuff the back box is made of?
Perhaps the last one actually has the laws of physics working against it, but you get the point. What would you add to this list?