Hey, I’m not special enough to be in the Nikon D80 blogger program (which I could actually benefit from as I’ve been seriously contemplating a camera upgrade – you can see that my pics are taken with a Canon SD550 or Nokia N73 – but I digress), however from time to time people send me interesting things to read.
Steve sent me a copy of Steal These Ideas. Andy sent me a copy of Word Of Mouth Marketing. This week, I got a copy of Chasing Cool by Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman. Read it on the flight from Boston to Minneapolis (where I visited the Mall of America – if Harajuku is an epicenter of cool, this is its antithesis).
These guys know what cool is and how to harness it in a business, as evidenced by their experience. The problem is that many people don’t and will read this book hoping to find a secret formula for coolness. Let me save you the trouble – you won’t find it here. Or in any other book for that matter.
I’ve been lucky enough to see cool from two perspectives, working at two brands in the footwear industry on opposite sides of the fence. One was cool. The other was chasing it desperately. The problem with the latter is captured perfectly in the quote above the image at left. The secret of the former was its authenticity.
As RHCP sang, if you have to ask, you’ll never know. So stick with what you know and have a passion for – that’s what will make you cool.