Friday, April 6, 2007

Group Think

The enemy of good is better.

It is worse when a “creative committee” is involved. More to the point, trying to make an already good thing better often ruins the original. See New Coke, Rocky II and Cher as examples.

It gets worse when a committee works on a project. Everyone on the "team" has an opinion and feels they must contribute something. I don’t think I have been in more than two screenings when the client has said, “Good, great, we’re done.” Usually it is "That’s good, BUT…. " It is as if they aren’t getting their money’s worth if they don’t tell us to make some sort of change.

We keep threatening to include an obvious error just so the client can have something to say. Of course the bigger the committee, the more opinions and the dumber the changes. We like to work with the one decision maker, it’s easier and more efficient.

As Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”


PeterH

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is the reason so many movies adapted from other forms of entertainment (comic books, tv shows) suck so bad. They have so many people trying to figure out the best way to please so many different demographics, they forget to just make a good movie.

PeterH said...

That's assuming they knew how to make a good movie in the first place.

PeterH

Anonymous said...

Maybe two heads aren't better than one? Sometimes less is more too aye? ;)

Iris said...

interesting point. However, sometimes, if we don't want to do it better, we will never even do it "good". It's very hard to tell is it done enough.

Iris
http://iristwo.blogspot.com/

PeterH said...

Iris,

Good point. We always want to be better, no mistake there. It's just being subjected to those arbitrary decisions we don't like.

PeterH

strunny said...

yeah i think this could apply in general with a lot of committees out there...although there is fun in brainstorming/creativity and a committee in that sense, i see your point.