A new level of negative advertising

I have always taken an interest in advertising methods.  Sometimes I intentionally do not make purchases just because I feel that I have been manipulated into desiring a product or service.  To this point I have summed most advertising up into a few factors: direction, degree, audience.

The direction factor is the act of advertising by praising or advertising by pointing out other products flaws.  On the positive side of the scale the degree can range from "Improved" to "Best product of the year" types of statements. The negative is more varied and sees degrees like "More coverage than competitor X" and "I would hate to be dying on the side of the road without a GM vehicle equipped with OnStar".  Neutral is usually used in cases of updated packaging  with statements like "New Look, Same Great Taste.  Neutral is typically only employed by very established brands where any change is bad.

The audience of advertising is best observed by the intentional placement of ads.  Razor commercials during football games, cleaning products on HGTV, toys on kids channels, watch ads in mens magazines, makeup ads in womens magazines, and so on.

The bottom line is that companies find you by your habits and address you by your weaknesses.  This bothers me from the perspective that if I fall for it then I must be weak!

The point of all this is to setup what I believe is a whole new level of marketing that I think is obscene but seems to be taking off.  I was driving down a road with a large span of strip malls when the sign at a nail place caught my eye.  "No drills" was their big selling point.  I thought to myself about how little I know of pedicure and manicure practices but surely I would have heard of procedures involving drills?  My mind immediately switched to "that is pretty crafty".  What if simply saying "No Drills" placed the idea in the mind of other novices that most places use drills but this one is special and will not hurt me?  Brilliant because now I want to get my nails done!

We see this in humorous applications like the Snickers candy "Don't let hunger happen to you" where people have humorous incidences due to having not eaten a Snickers bar.  The alcoholic beverage industry has built a humor campaign that subliminally practices this consistently.  Is this now going mainstream without the humor?  Will I soon see a soda add that advertises "No arsenic" or a contact lens add with "No sand"?

I can only wonder.

Steak at McDonalds???

This is probably my first post that begins to allude to what I actually do for a living.  While I am a biostatistician, it is for a corporation and management is an underlying theme to my everyday life.

I have noticed in recent times that research & development is one of the most stressed areas in healthcare corporations.  I see a burning desire to speed the time to market and cut months, days, and sometimes even hours from timelines.  I am not kidding. People actually look at MS Project gantt charts and question, "Do you need 4.5 hours to do task x?".  I like to call this the phenomena of wanting steak at McDonald's.

You're probably saying to yourself that Mike is exaggerating and this is just another one of his funny lines.  Let me assure you that I am not.  McDonald's is really good at taking a short menu with a few permutations (combo's) and setting up a system that can crank out anything you want within those confines in less than a few moments.  You cannot ask for grilled mahi mahi, or crusted halibut at McDonald's.  Before a new menu item can be added, it is judged for various qualities to determine if it will fit the McDonald's model.  Can raw materials be easily sourced?  Does the time from source to distributor to store to customer fit into the current supply chain?  Does prep require additional training?  Will existing equipment fit the preparation needs?  Can it be priced to return a reasonable profit given all of the above?

Healthcare R&D that develops new drugs, devices, and therapeutics operates under some rather strict guidelines.  A true clinical study cannot simply be started without going through a number of hoops that each require time that a company cannot completely control or even influence with money.  Among these are FDA approval to test on humans, IRB approval to conduct a study, site recruitment and training.  These remain largely untouched by the phenomena I am taking about.  The parts of the process that companies have decided to treat like the McDonald's model are protocol writing, data specifications, analysis plans, data management, case report form generation, data analysis, data reporting, and other things they feel they have control over.

Existing processes at good companies were geared to be fully accountable.  This happened after years of fear of failure in the public eye and the desire to seem perfect to regulating agencies.  In the current day, management wants the same inscrutable system but faster.  An admirable desire but not one the industry was prepared for.  It is like they want to keep their steak but order it at McDonald's.

The fact that the industry is as developed as it is and we still have no efficient way to deal with these items is amazing.  Any company wanting to work through these obstacles is basically left to develop a custom system or customize an existing set of tools and systems to make it work.  I could be a millionaire if I could solve this problem.

Bottom line is that if you want to tackle a problem that will revolutionize product development in healthcare, find a way to make these parts of the system seamless - I will be your friend.  Statisticians just want clean data shaped to their specifications.

Anticipation Versus Destination

The idea that anticipation is more fun than what is actually being anticipated has always interested me.  This is best illustrated by the idea that children spend the month of December dreaming of the gifts they will receive on the 25th but often have forgotten them and returned to boredom by the 1st of January.  To me this is all about anticipation.

I see this same phenomena in other places.  My dogs love treats.  If I pull a treat out and point to their crate they will jump in and wait. And wait.  And wait.  I can do this and put the treat on top of their crate while I finish preparing to leave the house and they will patiently sit in the crate and just wait.  However, once they are given the treat and the door to the crate is closed, they will start whining after just a few minutes.  The problem is that the treat was worth the anticipation and overwhelmed any negative perception of being in the crate.  Once the treat and the anticipation are gone, everything returns to normal - boring.  I wonder just how long the dogs will have the thrill of anticipation if I just lay the treat on top of the crate and leave it there.  This would provide the maximum possible amount of enjoyment, although with the worst possible eventual outcome.

Why all this talk about anticipation?  Because I like to use this concept in my own life.  I don't plan last minute vacations because that defeats the purpose.  The build up to a vacation is as beneficial to me as the actual trip itself.  I like to do this with little things as well.  Getting through a rough day at work can be easier when I focus on what I will have for supper, spending time with my family or my favorite television show.

Try putting this into practice.  Anticipate something today and see what happens!!!

What to do with a squeaky shoe

I am a man and I love shoes.  I judge another man by the shoes he wears without hesitation.  I expect others to judge me by mine.  Ok, I will refrain from Forest Gump quotes and starting too many sentences with the letter "I".

I am frugal but when it comes to shoes I will not go too low.  My poison is the Allen Edmond product line.  I have found that an 11.5 D will fit me perfectly out of the box and have collect 5 pairs over about 6 years.  The first pair I bought look better today than the day I purchased them.  Yes, better, because that is what good shoes made of all leather do over time.  I sometime catch my self standing in my closet simply admiring my shoes - all 5 pairs.  Well, I have more than 5 pairs but only 5 that are deemed perfect.

This is where the theme of this post comes from.  I often have another pair or two of shoes for everyday use like working in the yard, garage work, or exercise.  Over the years, the discovery of Ecco shoes has proven a good one for most of these purchases.  Three years ago I purchased a nice boat loafer with all leather except a full rubber sole.  For the first year or so they where very useful to slide on and just use for the quick trip to the store or jeans Friday at work.

Then one day, a squeak started.  Only on the right shoe.  It was very pronounced and rather deep in pitch.  At times it could even be confused with body sounds if you know what I mean.  I slowly started to wear the shoes less and less for going out and more for just around the house.  On occasion, I still ended up wearing the shoes.  The most annoying of times would be at book stores and other quiet places where I would end up deer walking (toe, heal, toe, heal) to avoid the unsettling noise.

About three months ago I noted to my wife that I was going to take the shoe out to my bandsaw (part of my well appointed garage/workshop that will be surely covered in future post) and saw it in half.  I refrained numerous times from doing this because the shoes served a purpose.  It was decided then, when a replacement pair was introduced these would go to the saw.

Christmas morning brought the newest addition to my 5 pairs of Allen Edmond shoes: the Cascade boot.  Very lovely, and rugged.  Perfect for all things non-business.  Well, yesterday I happened to be at the bandsaw working on a project for a closet organizer and was wearing the shoes.  At this point I broke every rule Norm Abrams ever had about footwear and woodworking.  I simply reached down and pulled the shoe off and set it on the cold, cast iron table of my bandsaw.  Without hesitation I lined it up toe first and started slicing it down the middle lengthwise.  The rubber sole made a smell similar to that which is most likely experienced at NASCAR races.  Not that I have ever been to one, but the burning rubber just reminded me of driving in circles by small men that are too large to be jockeys yet too small to play other sports professionally.

I thought this would be educational and that I would discover why the shoe squeaked.  I did but that was not nearly as satisfying as just seeing the cutaway view of a well-worn shoe.  The culprit was a hollow cell within the rubber which was designed for cushioning but slightly misplaced so as to cause the foul noise.

I wonder how my wife will feel about me displaying it on my desk as a trophy to the years of frustration???