Confidence in Congress Continues to Drop

Confidence in Congress has reached the lowest point ever, according to the latest Gallup Poll rating confidence in 16 institutions.Americans gave Congress a resounding thumbs down in the annual Gallup Poll® rating confidence in institutions released this week.

Among 16 institutions, Congress rated dead last. Just 10 percent said they had a great deal or quite of lot of confidence in it.

Congress has trailed all other institutions since 2006 when its ratings fell below big business. Current ratings for Congress are the lowest Gallop has found for any institution, ever.

Ratings were not driven by partisanship. Marks for Congress were statistically the same among Democrats, Republicans and Independents.

On the other hand, Americans have the most confidence in the military (76 percent great deal/quite a lot), followed by small business (65 percent) and the police (57 percent).

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Dads and Diaper Bags

You want to introduce a baby diaper bag made just for dad to carry. Before you explore the most desirable features and the optimal price point, you need to find out who would consider buying one. 

Too many times marketers and product designers jump to focus groups to determine whether the diaper bag should come in camo and be sold at sporting goods outlets. Figuring out who to invite to the focus groups reflects the greater challenge — finding your potentially elusive target audience. 

A diaper bag with manly design features presupposes this is the second diaper bag of the household. It is unlikely mom will want to cart around a diaper bag festooned with fly-fishing or race-car imagery. That suggests the diaper-bag-for-him is a luxury item, which may only be affordable to people with a fair amount of disposable income.

Daddy pride in junior may be a strong reason to contemplate a manly diaper bag, but what kind of dads would actually spend money to express their parental pride in the color and design of a diaper bag?

Gathering a roomful of dads, fueled by sandwiches, soda pop and a $75 stipend, can produce an interesting, perhaps even fascinating, set of data points about diaper bags. However, it is doubtful a focus group will give you the most fundamental piece of information you need — who is the most likely audience for a diaper bag made for dad?

A telephone survey isn't really any better at solving this riddle. It will take creativity and leg work to figure out where to look.

Here are some ideas:

  • Look online to see if your product idea is already on the market. It so happens a company called Diaper Dude (“The dude you can trust") is offering a range of bags aimed at dads. There is a collection of diaper bags with baseball team logos, bags with dragons and skulls, a backpack with room for diapers and a laptop and a front-mounted baby carrier with matching diaper bag. The competition may be a bummer, but read the reviews to see what people like and, more important, who and how the bags are bought. From reading the Diaper Dude reviews, you would conclude that the real purchasers of manly diaper bags are women, who want their husbands to feel comfortable carrying around a binky and baby wipes.

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The "Which Me" Generation

It is common to deplore the "Me Generation," but it is hard to discern which "Me Generation" you mean.

Elders have turned the byways of Millennials into cocktail jokes. Time magazine featured them as the "Me Me Me Generation." 

Yet, today's generation isn't all that different than the "Me Generation" responsible for the "Me Decade" in the 1970s. Yes, the gadgets are spiffier, but the self-absorption is old school. 

Some claim the emerging generation of Americans is hyper-narcissistic and unable to escape a life wedgie that traps them in their parents' house and a low-paying job, if they are employed at all.

Those who have persevered and obtained a college education, even a graduate degree, are floundering in a restructuring economy with specific needs and little patience for indulgent behavior.

But The Atlantic suggests many post-war generations have displayed eccentricities, bordering on neurosis. Woody Allen, after all, is a symbol of his generation's disquieting anxieties.

Instead of caricaturing or stereotyping a generation, it might make sense to talk with its members to see what worries young people. Those who have bothered have learned young people fear a future with less promise than their parents. Like many older adults, they are confused and disoriented about the rapid changes swirling around them, even as they enjoy the fruits of cool new technology.

Young people today have grown up in a world where digital media and mobile devices seem the norm, not the latest, coolest thing. The Great Depression, the advent of indoor plumbing and the dawning of the television age sound like fantasies, not history.

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Belief in Change Can Lead to Open Mind

When conflict resolution seems impossible because of deeply held negative views, the answer may lie in trying to convince both parties to a dispute that people can change.

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck says direct attempts to alter attitudes toward an adversary can backfire, intensifying a dispute and making people defensive. But persuading people that individuals can grow and change is a successful psychological intervention to reduce conflict.

Speaking at "The Science of Getting People to Do Good" briefing, sponsored by Stanford's Center for Social Innovation, Dweck cited her earlier research that showed people who believe their adversaries can grow and change are "less likely to seek retaliation than those who believe people's human traits are fixed."

"Mindsets about whether people are malleable or fixed," Dweck said, "play a major role in the perpetuation of hatred and the unwillingness to compromise."

To prove her theory as it applies to the unstinting Israeli-Palestinian conflict, investigators working with Dweck undertook four studies. The first involved a nationwide survey of Israelis, which showed a correlation between a belief in people's ability to change and a willingness to compromise, even on issues such as West Bank settlements, to reach resolution with the Palestinians. 

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A Jittery Middle Class

A battle over middle-class voters raged last fall in the presidential election, but that hasn't settled down the nerves of middle class adults who feel like they are on an economic banana peel.

As reported by NPR, many workers making a decent living worry about sliding out of the middle class by losing their job, facing a medical emergency or trying to pay for a child's college education.

In fact, 40 percent of respondents to a quarterly Heartland Monitor Poll this month said paying for a college education for a child is now an unrealistic financial expectation for them.

The survey of 1,000 middle-class adults nationwide indicates Americans have adopted a more dour mood about the economic direction of the country. Only 29 percent say the country is headed in the right direction, down sharply from 41 percent recorded in the same quarterly poll last November.

President Obama's approval rating has dropped, but not as low as that of Congress. Obama's approval rating has slipped to 46 percent from 54 percent in November 2012. Congressional approval ratings didn't fall that much, largely because it is hard to fall out of a basement window. Its April 2013 rating of 3 percent is down from 4 percent last November.

By far, the biggest concern is losing a job. More than 50 percent of respondents said that is their greatest risk to dropping out of middle-class status. Unexpected illness or injury to a family member is viewed as the next greatest risk at 28 percent. A death, property damage or divorce are seen as economic threats, but to a far lesser degree. 

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