• 0

Marketoonist | Tom Fishburne

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne. Marketing cartoons, content marketing with a sense of humor, keynote speaking.

  • Campaigns
  • Speaking
  • About
  • Cartoons
  • Contact
  • Book
  • 0

carve by committee

October 30, 2011

  • Paid licensing options include high resolution download.
  • Presentation $40 Add to Cart
  • Newsletter or Website $125 Add to Cart
  • Corporate Blog/Sponsored Post $60 Add to Cart
  • Looking for other licensing options? click here
  • View Cart
TweetLinkedInFacebookEmail

It can be tempting to push for consensus from a wide team in a creative project. Yet in design, consensus makes no one happy. TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington shared this perspective:

“There’s a saying I love: “a camel is a horse designed by committee.” A variation is “a Volvo is a Porsche designed by committee.” When there are too many cooks in the kitchen all you get is a mess. And when too many people have product input, you’ve got lots of features but no soul.”

Democracies don’t work in product development. Neither do unhappy compromises or peace treaties. We need to be leaders that make unpopular calls to keep an idea focused. Otherwise, we end up with a lack of a vision, internal inconsistencies, feature creep, and uninspired products.

“Product should be a dictatorship. Not consensus driven. There are casualties. Hurt feelings. Angry users. But all of those things are necessary if you’re going to create something unique. The iPhone is clearly a vision of a single core team, or maybe even one man. It happened to be a good dream, and that device now dominates mobile culture. But it’s extremely unlikely Apple would have ever built it if they conducted lots of focus groups and customer outreach first. No keyboard? Please.”

In 2006, the Microsoft design team put together the following teaching aid for Microsoft marketers. The parody video, “If Microsoft Designed the iPod Packaging”, leaked, went viral, and became a cautionary tale for all marketers.

One size never fits all. One size fits none.

Filed Under: design

  • Paid licensing options include high resolution download.
  • Presentation $40 Add to Cart
  • Newsletter or Website $125 Add to Cart
  • Corporate Blog/Sponsored Post $60 Add to Cart
  • Looking for other licensing options? click here
  • View Cart
Your Ad Ignored Here Book Image

15 years of Marketoonist compiled for your marketing pleasure.

Order Now

About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of Tom Fishburne a career marketer and cartoonist. Learn More...

Browse Blog Posts

Most Popular Cartoons Browse Categories

Marketoon Campaigns

contentmarketing

Content marketing with a sense of humor.

Learn More

Keynote Speaking

speakingworkshops

Insightful, funny, and visual keynote talks and workshops.

Book Tom to Speak

Search Blog Posts

Interested? Let’s Talk!

Footer Form - Let's Talk

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Marketoons

Browse Categories
Spacing Things Out

About Marketoonist

Tom Fishburne is the Founder and CEO of Marketoonist, a content marketing studio that helps businesses reach their audiences with cartoons.

© 2025 Marketoonist