People Sensitive II - The Perils of Brain Storming

Since I am not smart enough to come up with a new blog, I am going to shamelessly build on R2's. This, in the corporate world, is called "aligning ourselves with project XYZ", essentially hijacking someone else's work by presenting it as your own, taking all the credit.

More on that later. For now, here's something to ponder: Ever sat in a meeting where, to describe it in Captain Willard's words, the bullshit was piling up so fast you needed wings to stay above it? That is exactly what happens in a brainstorming session. It is a corporate license for normally sane people to come up with as many insane ideas as they wish, without any fear of repercussions.

We had one in the not-too-distant past, to think about ways to better understand what makes a customer open up a piece of mail, when they are certain its another unwanted credit card offer. Here are some gems which continue to haunt my dreams:

Smart Ass 1: Lets mail products to each of our neighbors, install secret video cameras in their front yards and then tape their reactions when they open their mailbox.

Smart Ass 2: That's great! We can go one better - How about we target high rise apartments? All the residents in those buildings have mailboxes in the same room. That way, we can maximize the number of customer reactions we can capture for every secret camera that we set-up. Those things are expensive!

Smart Ass 3: Wait, how are we going to know if they opened our mail piece or not? We definitely need to install something like a sensor in every envelope, which sends back a signal whenever the envelope is opened.

Smart Ass 1: How about a push based strategy? We should poison the water supply in every major city and offer an antidote only if people tell us exactly what makes them respond to a credit card offer. Everyone would be dying to give us that information!!

Me: Eh, was that pun intentional?

Okay, so not all of this is real. In fact, only one of those smart-ass comments was actually made (wanna guess which one? :-) But the point is, every time you head into one of these sessions, you are putting yourself into a life threatening situation. The Lesson? Next time you get a harmless looking invite for a "brainstorming session", think twice before accepting it. Even if it promises free lunch.