I love it when technologists and marketers come up with new ideas that help us do things better -- but once in a while we see that clunker of an idea, and say to ourselves "What were they thinking?"

Gillette (now part of Procter & Gamble), long a generator of great marketing and product ideas, came up with one such clunker lately. They call it the Fusion; and it's supposed to have a technologically advanced shaving system that will revolutionize the way men shave.

In recent years, Gillette and competitor Schick have been fighting a war of numbers -- how many blades does it take to give a good shave? Electric shavers (including those from Gillette's Braun unit) for years have had lots of blades to give men close shaves. In the so-called wet-shave segment, most razors have only had a few. But in a war of one-upmanship, Gillette and Schick have gone from single blade to twin blade to triple blade and more. So I guess when Schick introduced the Quattro 4 blade system, somebody at Gillette must have said, "How in the name of Abe Lincoln's beard do we top that?"

The innovative company came up with the next logical solution: a five-blade system. They created the Fusion with what the company calls its "breakthrough 5-blade shaving surface" using blades that are 30 percent closer than those on its own Mach 3 razors. They also added a bunch of small changes, including enhanced lubrication and new shape.

Most of those changes are nice -- but one seriously detracts from the usability of the product. The designers included a sixth blade on the back of the cartridge. According to the product literature, it allows men to trim sideburns easily, shave under the nose and shape facial hair. In my experience, it also helps create accidental cuts because it's exposed while you use the other blades.

From what I can tell, it's there because the larger lubricating strips on the front of the razor make it more difficult for the user to cleanly trim the edge of the hairline or properly shave parts of the face that have less clearance -- like between the upper lip and nose. But that extra blade is in harm's way -- making it likely, for instance, to nick your nose while you shave your upper lip.

Why would somebody put an extra exposed sharp edge in a place that could inadvertently cut the user when he's using a different part of the razor? Although I wasn't in the room, I could envision some young turk MBA who never experienced a cut from ancient double edge blades saying, "We'll make sure that Schick can't leapfrog us by putting in six blades. Now where can we put that extra blade?"

To add insult to injury, the street price for 8 Power Fusion cartridges (as listed at CVS.com) is $27.59 -- 27 percent higher than the $21.69 you'd pay for eight M3 Power cartridges. For a man who changes his blades weekly, that's $179, an increase of $40 annually, for the privilege of upgrading.

No wonder P&G executives talk about the importance of the Fusion line to their near-term future. That's a lot of incremental revenue.

Digital drive time

Since we're talking about clunker ideas -- how about the concept of digital drive time traffic reports on the radio? Sitting in traffic is not a digital experience. Neither is listening to the traffic report on the radio or collecting the data to report on it. The phrase sounds good, but it makes no sense, adds no value to a driver's traffic experience, and makes the people at the radio station sound less smart than they really are.