Blame the Tool Not the Carpenter

(The New Paradigm in Technology)

I posted the following on Linkedin.com, but I feel that I needed to respond to the article named: “Focus Groups Are Worthless.” First, let me say that the article was well-written and showed great effort to present a point, an albeit biased point, but a well thought out point nonetheless. Here is the post I submitted to www.linkedin.com:

OK, having read the article I can now give my opinion on it. “Abraham Lincoln” That is my answer. Let me explain, Lincoln started a Civil War to preserve the Union, a by-product of this was the freeing of slaves who were in bonded servitude. This would appear to be a good thing for the slaves who were freed. However, that fact of the matter is Abraham Lincoln did not care about freed slaves he cared about the preservation of the Union. The point is he did all the right things, for all the wrong reasons. This is very much the problem with Focus Groups, and this article. The failure of this tool is blamed on the tool when all the examples given show a failure of human nature not the tool.

The article makes the same mistake. It assumes that by nature, the tool is flawed, and the article’s writer seeks to blame the tool by showing us the flaws in human nature as a defense of the argument. That is kind of like saying the hammer is off-center so it drives in the nail wrong. The claim actually makes sense, until you realize that the hammer can be adjusted so that more of the surface strikes the nail, the adjustment however is on the part of the carpenter, not the hammer. Therefore, this makes me question the skill of the carpenter, not the acuity of the hammer. This article while well written is part of the problem, where the blame is put on the tool.

The writer of the article then seeks to belittle any opposition by welcoming opposing points of view while at the same time indicating that they are not welcome to positively (with positive attitude) debate possible opposing points of view. This means that even if a good defense of focus groups comes to the light, there is already a perceived inability to debate it in an unbiased perspective. I guess the machine will always be a bad machine, and we all as machines, are bad machines.

I know that this may seem harsh, but to condemn a tool as being bad is not a wise thing to do. Tools can be broken, but then the goal is to instead of saying the tool is broken, you find a way to fix it or come up with a new tool to perform the needed task. I guess we have gotten to a point where it is easier to complain about a tool instead of doing the work needed to fix or find a replacement for the tool, if either is possible. Do tools need to be replaced? Yes, every now and then, it is a necessity to do so, but to blame a tool without offering such a replacement is as some would say “not in good form.”