Focus Group

Over the years I have participated in a few of those focus groups for marketing research. You get paid to sit in a room and share your opinions....what could be more perfect for me?! Among others I've done one for diapers and one for teachers on math curriculum. Just last week I got called to one that helps radio stations decide what music to play. I sat in a room with 50 other women age 35 and up and listened to clips of 800 songs! It was pretty interesting. We each had a little wireless handheld device that we turned like a volume dial. Up if we liked the song and down if we didn't like. The guy in charge played the hook for about 50 songs at a time and we moved the dial accordingly. He had a computer screen up front that received the information and graphed it. He told us that he would take the information he collected to several radio stations the next day and present them with the information. That's how the stations determine which songs to play on the radio and which ones not to play.

We got paid $65 and there was a drawing for an extra $100, which I thought I would win, but did not win. Bummer! The night was pretty fun but there was this woman behind me who could not shut up! She talked the entire time and sang along to every song! It was really annoying! She thought she was funny and would make these sarcastic comments. I thought the guy in charge was going to kick her out at one point. There is always one in every class that has to be the class clown and for some reason they always sit by me....UGH! She was also eating beef jerky which smelled horrible! (You should not eat stinky food in a roomful of people!) I kept thinking to myself what would Kayla do now. She probably would have turned around and told her to be quiet! Gotta love that Kayla!