The Crisco Effect [Market-Based Analyses]

We know some basic truths about the engineers who create consumer electronics. We know that these engineers have to respond to the market and that they are often working within an existing system, like the telephone system or the greater system that creates and distributes popular music. However, we also know that they ultimately put a box around their project and work as if everything outside of that box has no impact upon them. They make an assumption of orthogonality or posit an axiom of irrelevancy. While it is sometimes useful to an engineer as if you have identified everything that may affect your work, such an approach is always upended by the Crisco effect. © 2012 IEEE.