Solving an Impossible Problem

This is one of my favourite stories.   It is about solving an impossible problem.

There was a Dutch guy whose father was a General in the Dutch army.  One day he found out that when his dad was younger, he had a minor hit in a pop band.  So he decided that he wanted to make it in the pop world too.  The only problem was, he wasn’t remotely musical. 

However, he did have a friend who had spent years trying to be successful in a rock band.  Unfortunately, he had tired of touring the country performing to indifferent audiences in half empty halls.  So he quit, never again.

There was no way the ex-musician was going to do it all over again, no way he was going put himself through all that misery for nothing, but his friend wanted them to try.  How is it possible to overcome this problem? - two completely irreconcilable positions.  How can they be combined? 

The solution was brilliant!! Absolute genius. 

They started a band that didn’t perform music - a virtual band. 

They did all the stuff that bands do, gave interviews, put up posters, photo shoots, guest appearances, etc. – the whole thing, except they never played a note!  And did it work, you bet.  Within three months they had an article in Holland’s biggest rock magazine.  They even started a franchise.

Perhaps you made the same assumption that I did,

                      - "bands play music".

They needed to force two incompatible ideas together and the way to make it work was to  question a fundamental assumption.

Perhaps we might question our assumptions for other 'impossible' problems.

The full story can be found at http://www.mediamatic.net/page/5816/en