I came across the M&M's Principle and it is the funniest thing I've read thee whole week.

Van Halen, a rock band that encountered many issues when dealing with event deals and their venues due to all the equipment they had,

wanted to make sure that when they send the contract with their requests it would be read and taking into account if the place could host their huge shows.

They added a small detail between their requests (to get M&M's, but under no circumstance should there be brown ones) to rapidly asses if the contract was read and avoid further problems.

Once they arrived at the venue, if they saw brown M&M's it would signal that they looked up the most important information about their show and it would probably turn out not as good at that venue. They would trash the place and threaten to leave.

An example in your own life would be the type of person that you looking for romantically. If you are looking for somebody intellectual, the M&M's principle would be applied if they send you messages with typos.

This small detail would serve you as a filter since it could lead to bigger non-intelligent behaviours that would put you off later on.

It can help to use as a filter, but it should be trusted partially and as a part of a greater judgement, since relying completely on this principle could make you filter people that make no typos but waste your time with other downsides.

If you planning to hire people and you looking for someone with attention to detail and receive too many applications, hiding in the long application a keyword to be added at the title or somewhere visible could really help filter those that did not pay much attention, but still it could be down to luck.

What do you think about the M&M's Principle or Test?

I have personally used it back in school to fill my 5.000 word essays to see if the lecturer actually paid attention. He did not.

What do you think about the M&M's Principle or Test?

Karam Zarkitou