[gmays]

Good idea. I build SMB products, so I have an older target demographic. I've found jury duty a great place to get feedback as well due to the ages and type of people that end up there.

It works well because it's scheduled and after going a couple times you know how long you have until any given person or group has to leave. Just get to the waiting room early, sit in the back, then start striking up conversations as people who fit your demographic file in.

I've found people are more willing to chat at jury duty than the DMV. At the DMV they typically have some (misguided) hope of getting out of there quickly. At jury duty there is no hope. There's just a sort of quiet resignation that they'll be there all day (or maybe even all week).

[jgrall]

Jury duty! That's brilliant! The only other location I came up with was hospital waiting rooms, but those have the disadvantage of being socially inappropriate, in addition to exposing you to possible infection! For Jury Duty, they don't check if you've been assigned to a case? You can just show up?

[gmays]

It depends on your court house I guess. I typically just go in the back door so I can be in the waiting room before anyone else (the jury duty line in the front is massive). It's secured, so I just wait for someone else to walk in and follow them in or ask a passerby to let me in. They never ask to see the jury duty slip at the back door, just a metal detector/security search.

Also, there's usually other stuff going on in a courthouse aside from jury duty. For example, there's family law and other offices that you could say you have an appointment there. The key is to just look respectable (clean haircut, nice clothes, nice watch) and confidently state where you're headed. Besides, it's a public building, it's not like it's some secured facility that's illegal to enter.

If you're unsure just google your local courthouse and see if there's anywhere to make appointments, or at the very least see which offices are in there. Then go to the courthouse and if they ask for a reason say you're there to visit soandso (the name/office you got on the website). The worse they can say is no.

[fsk]

In NYC, when I was on Jury Duty, they checked my invitation slip at the security checkpoint. Due to security paranoia nowadays, I doubt you would be able to do it.

Jury Duty = judges and lawyers and important people, so restricted access

DMV = only peons work there, so you can walk right in

[gmays]

Yeah, I can imagine in NYC things are different. I live in a town of about 50,000 though the courthouse is still a pretty good size with a couple hundred for jury duty.