Where do ideas come from? Steven Johnson

What's with the cake?

A few years ago, a friend forwarded this image to me in an email.   The story was that someone called into the bakery and when the baker took the order, she wrote down exactly what the customer said he wanted inscribed on the cake:

"Best Wishes Suzanne", [and] underneath that [write] "We will miss you" 

For me, this cake illustrates one of the most fundamental challenges of a marketer---to understand what the customer really needs---which is not always exactly what they say they want.