“He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

There’s so much content regarding success, excellence, as so forth. You’ve experience language and messages designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on how to rise above. However, too often the rhetoric is regarded as lacking insincerity.  Almost every talk show, best-seller list, blog… even freakin’ GEICO (mockingly) tapped into the rhetoric.

Some say that rooting your choices on reality is a sure path to mediocrity.  As an individual that’s not necessarily a good thing.  However, believe it or not, many businesses thrive on mediocre ideas. As part of a business culture or business model, the value of mediocrity has been overlooked.

You see, dedicating yourself to understanding what people really want – how they’ll experience a product in the real world – forces collectives to make real and tangible changes.

Dare I ask how many of you own a Snuggie blanket? (Don’t lie… raise your hands.)

Well, as if there is something wrong with the blanket that has armholes and a hoodie, there’s a massive campaign started that I bet will somehow manage to captivate a $hit-load of chilly-limbed devotees into believing (as if the product needed improving) that they offer a solution to protect your face.

A mediocre idea – a complement to the Snuggie blanket – results in The Face Blanket

The Face Blanket is a blanket for your face that has a hole for breathing. Wanna know what costs a lot less? Cutting a damn nose hole in a regular blanket.

But think about this, “The Face Blanket” people seem reasonably self-aware about creating a novelty product for the sake of social media attention.

Instead of just talking about a grand paradise of what might be, in this particular case what worked was putting in the effort to understand people’s day-to-day lives, and then actually producing something that works… that my friends are what may come from collective mediocrity.