Purple Cow

Many of my friends were talking about it, I had noticed many of them as successful innovation, and now I finally read it: the Purple Cow by Seth Godin.
The book hammers down one key point: just good doesn't cut it anymore. A product can't be sold by advertising. It should sell itself by being remarkable. Or as Mr. Schurman of Herman Miller says: "The best design solves complex problems but if you can weld that to the cool factor you have a home run."
Simply put: Safe is Risky and Very good is boring. I you design something that appeals to the general public you won't be able to sell it, since they are very good at ignoring you. You have to target the lead user, the niche, the people craving for the new, the better and the remarkable. The sneezers who start spreading the virus, who can create critical mass.
The good thing is that not many people will try to launch purple cows, so the playing field is all open. In good times, they say: "Safe is good enough." In bad times: "Let's play it safe in these bad times." We should take a break to produce a classic. Sit there don't just do anything. Marketing departments want to justify themselves.

So what I will implement in my design practice is this:
- I will devise a process or service to help clients find lead users
- I will use purple cow examples to convince clients to divert money from advertising budgets to the design budget, because it will be the better investment.
- Purple Cow questions are nice triggers in brainstorms: "How do we make this idea so remarkable it gets on the news? On leading blogs? How do we make this idea collectible? What would happen if we told the truth, like McDonalds France?"
- In my design practice we also have ambassadors, people who love our work. I'll invite them for brief sessions in strategic meetings and give them my home number if they're on to some business...
- Since remarkable products come from otaku's (some kind of deep fascination) I will be more alert on them and the people who have them, so I can call them for advice. I'll start with finding out all about the otakus of my collegues.
- I'll invite a couple of marketeer guest speakers to introduce our designers to the marketing practice.
- I'll set up a product or service teaching our clients 'design thinking' or visual thinking. It should help them identify better opportunities and it will help them to work creatively with the identities and websites we design.
- We also need a smart way to do research, since focus groups are a waste. How can we release prototypes to the interested public? How can we find them? How can we create an incentive to talk back to us? A point saving system?