[Robotgroup] [Fwd: Looking for people in the scientific community]

[Nick Pietraniec]

When I was in grad school in los angeles a couple years ago, I took  
part in a focus group study put on by these guys.  It was really cool  
and I made 100 bucks for an hour or two of "work."  They were looking  
for engineering students opinions of a certain high-tech company.

The pre-session started off with a series of questions about our  
perceptions of different companies "If VW was an airplane company,  
what would it be like" maybe to screen out people who were just going  
to waste their time...

We spent an hour talking about how we felt about the major players in  
the search and technology business.  "You have a box in your lap,  
it's google, what does it look like?  Now It's yahoo, what does it  
feel like"

Maybe the odd questions stick out to me because they're so odd.  I  
remember they asked us who we'd want to own our brain if we had to  
sell it to someone.

At the end of the night, we found out who they were working for.  I  
won't post it here since I don't want to ruin anything for anyone -  
if one of you does participate and wants it to be a surprise or  
something.  If you want to know, drop me an email.

The whole experience was a lot of fun

-Nick


On Jul 31, 2007, at 4:22 PM, Eric Lundquist wrote:

> Well, it is a real company.  There is a rather lengthy writeup  
> about them in
> Inc magazine here:
> http://www.inc.com/magazine/19980501/921.html
> The author seems to be impressed with them.
>
> - Eric
>
>
>
> On 7/31/07, Vern Graner <vern at txis.com> wrote:
>>
>> Interesting email I received today....  I've quoted it below in its
>> entirety here. I don't know this person but, if I read this right,  
>> he's
>> willing to pay for an hour of time to talk with us. Heck we  
>> usually do
>> that for free anyway... ;)
>>
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject:        Looking for people in the scientific community
>> Date:   Tue, 31 Jul 2007 12:16:55 -0700
>> From:   Simon Palczynski <simonp at tattools.com>
>> To:     vern at txis.comMessage-ID:C2D4D8B7.4AE%simonp at tattools.com
>>
>> Dear Mr. Graner,
>>
>> I work for a San Francisco based brand consulting firm and found  
>> you on
>> meetup.com. We're doing some work on behalf of a client, who is a  
>> major
>> player in the science/media space. I am looking to interview  
>> people who
>> are actively engaged in the scientific community, interested in
>> scientific media, and who we believe could have some valuable  
>> insights
>> into the state of science as well as personal viewpoints towards the
>> subject.
>>
>> If you're interested I would love to speak with you to tell you a  
>> little
>> more about the project, which is actually really
>> exciting. I also hoped that you could pass this message
>> together with my email address to the members of your group to see if
>> someone would be interested.
>>
>> The interviews will be about an hour time commitment and will take  
>> place
>> in Austin in the next couple weeks.  It should be a fun project and
>> everybody will be well compensated for his/her time and help. I look
>> forward to speaking with you soon.
>>
>> Best,
>> Simon Palczynski
>>
>> TATTOO Brand Consulting
>> work. 415.954.4858
>> fax. 415.954.4866
>> -------- /Original Message --------
>>
>>
>> --
>> Vern Graner CNE/CNA/SSE    | "If the network is down, then you're
>> Senior Systems Engineer    | obviously incompetent so why are we
>> Texas Information Services | paying you? Of course, if the network
>> http://www.txis.com        | is up, then we obviously don't need
>> Austin Office 512 328-8947 | you, so why are we paying you?" (c)VLG
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