A lesson in focus groups:

Okay, let me start off with a disclaimer: I have heard stories of people in the ad industry losing their jobs for talking about client/campaign info on their personal blogs that only their friends and family read. Seriously. Granted, the only cases I've heard of have been related to major clients in major markets, but still, it's not worth the risk to divulge too much information. With that said, all I will say about the focus groups last night is that we were trying to find out more about people's feelings regarding the health care and medical industry.

Now for the good stuff. Here are the reasons I loved the focus group so much, and why I drew the porn analogy (I will allow you to figure out any parallels for yourself in order to keep this post PG):

one) The voyeuristic aspect. It sounds sick, but it is really fun. Here you are, sitting behind a one-way mirror, watching everything these people do and hearing everything they say, and they will never have any clue who you are. Not only that, but you're holding a packet that contains their names, where they live, how much money they make, how old they are, how many kids they have, what they do for a living, etc, etc. It's a rather perverse feeling of power, but that does't make it any less cool.

two) The sociological synthesizing. Before the groups would come in, I would study their demographic info and try to guess who was who. Then, following Brad's lead, I started to notice patterns about people: the people who sit in the back left are kind of the trouble makers, the people who take the everything pizza are self-centered, etc. It was so much fun.

three) The crap you never expect to hear come out of people's mouths. It is a writer's goldmine, because it is the kind of stuff you would never think to make up. Here is an inside tip: if a writer overhears you say something particularly insane, inane, or otherwise off the wall, odds are they are going to write it down in hopes of being able to whip it out and take credit for it in the future. An example: during discussion, one woman said, "Well, that just opens up bottled worms..."

Part of the study includes reading people statements and asking for their reactions to those statements. Here are a couple of my favorites:

Statement: There is nothing more important than saving the life of a child.
Man: Mmm...whatever.

Statement: Because Hawaii's population is growing at a faster rate than ever before, we need [these health care and medical services] now more than ever.
Woman: All that tells me is that more women need to be on birth control. And men, too, I guess.

Yes, that happened. Those people do exist. And, interestingly enough, they seem to have the most money. Draw your own conclusions.

Now, to address the rich points. One of the painful communications courses I took to fulfill my degree requirements dealt with what my professor referred to as "rich points." Without all of the PC-ness, that basically translates to this: whenever you come across something in a culture or another person that would never even occur to you as being a perspective/point of view, that is a rich point.

Example: There is only one place on the island that sells corn dogs, and they're not even called corn dogs, they're "hot dogs on a stick." Coming from a land of deep fried, battered foods and things on sticks, it would never occur to me that a mall would be known statewide for having a corn dog stand. That is a rich point.

Other rich points I gathered from last night's focus group:

-- People here have no understanding of specialty hospitals. It is a completely foreign concept. When the subject of children's hospitals, cancer hospitals, heart hospitals, women's hospitals, etc. would come up, people were totally confused. And since you're not there to educate them, there was no expaining it; they just spun thier wheels and fed off each other's misinformation.

"So if a man goes into a women's hospital, they won't treat him? Don't they have to? Like if it's an emergency?"

"Why would you go to a hospital if you don't live there? Like if you got sick on vacation or something?"

"Can't you just use all of the same equiptment on kids you do on grown ups? I mean maybe you need a couple of different things, but it's all the same stuff. It shouldn't make a difference."

It was baffling. Because they lack specialty hospitals here, people just expect to be able to take their entire family to the same hospital no matter what their medical needs are. It does not even occur to them that, hey, if you turn out to have some abnormal cancer/disease/trauma, you might need to go to a special place for that, and that place probably isn't right down the street.

-- It is not at all uncommon for multiple generations to live under one roof here. One man lived with his parents, his wife, his two daughters, and his grandma. Another lived with his wife, his daughter and her husband and kids, and his other daughter. I asked Brad, my CD, about this, and he said it's not uncommon at all, in fact, it's pretty much the norm for people who were born on the island. They would think it would be weird for family members to live apart.

-- This one didn't come from the focus group, but it's something an AE brought to my attention: we're on an island. It's always been an island. And there's only so much room for dead bodies....

Last thing, because I have to go clean the breakroom for a client walk-through:

Jason the Plumber. He was in the focus group last night, and he is now my write-in choice for Election Day. If he ran the country, the world would be a better place.

Gotta run.
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