Coolhunting: Chasing Down the Next Big Thing

257 Pages·2007·4.271 MB·English

by  Peter Gloor, Scott Cooper

COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page I
CC OO OO LL HH UU NN TT II NN GG
This page intentionally left blank
COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page III
Coolhunting
Chasing Down the Next Big Thing
PPEETTEERR AA.. GGLLOOOORR
AANNDD
SSCCOOTTTT MM.. CCOOOOPPEERR
AMERICAN MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION
New York ‡ Atlanta ‡ Brussels ‡ Chicago ‡ Mexico City ‡ San Francisco
Shanghai ‡ Tokyo ‡ Toronto ‡ Washington, D. C.
COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page IV
Special discounts on bulk quantities of AMACOM books are available to cor-
porations, professional associations, and other organizations. For details, con-
tact Special Sales Department, AMACOM, a division of American
Management Association, 1601 Broadway, New York, NY 10019.
Tel.: [phone]. Fax: [phone].
Web site: www. amacombooks.org
This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in
regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the
publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional serv-
ice. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a compe-
tent professional person should be sought.
Gloor, Peter A. (Peter Andreas), 1961–
Coolhunting : chasing down the next big thing / Peter Gloor & Scott Cooper.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8144-7386-3
ISBN-10: 0-8144-7386-5
1. Creative ability in business. 2. Technological innovations—Management.
3. Social networks—Research. 4. Data mining. 5. Group decision making.
I. Cooper, Scott (Scott M.) II. Title.
HD53.G55 2007
658.4'72—dc22
2006034160
© 2007 Peter A. Gloor and Scott M. Cooper.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmit-
ted in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, pho-
tocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, 1601 Broadway,
New York, NY 10019.
Printing number
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page V
CC OO NN TTEE NN TTSS
Foreword by danah boyd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv
INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1 WHY “COOL” MATTERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
What Is “Cool”?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Coolhunting Offers Tremendous Benefits in Business . . . . . . . . . . 9
The Diffusion of Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Predicting How Coolhunting Might Be Applied. . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 SWARM CREATIVITY CREATES COOL TRENDS. . . . . . . . . 23
Self-Organization in the Beehive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
It’s Cool to Give Power Away. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
It’s Cool to Share Knowledge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page VI
VI y CCOONNTTEENNTTSS
It’s Cool to Self-Organize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Applying Swarm Creativity to Coolhunting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3 SWARMS CAN BETTER PREDICT THE FUTURE. . . . . . . . . 45
Prediction Markets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Birds of a Feather Flock Together: Predicting Success
Based on Peer Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
You Can Predict Your Future Network. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
4 ABOUT TRENDSETTERS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Benjamin Franklin as Role Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
The Anti-Ben?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Don’t Be a Star, Be a Galaxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Galaxies Are High Performers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
5 COOLHUNTERS LOOK FOR COOLFARMERS. . . . . . . . . . . 83
Coolhunting for Trendsetters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
From Idea to Trend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Coolfarming “Enhanced Gravity”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
The Four Principles of Coolfarming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
A Coolfarming Example from Beyond the Business World . . . . . 100
Coolfarming That Truly Changed the World: Netscape. . . . . . . 104
Coolfarming Gone Wrong: Boo.com. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
6 WHEN SWARMS GO MAD. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
Collective Madness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Lack of Open Communication Can Be Fatal: NASA . . . . . . . . . 121
COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page VII
CCOONNTTEENNTTSS y VII
Egomania at Enron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
What a COIN and a Religious Cult Have
in Common: “The Family” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
7 DO-IT-YOURSELF COOLHUNTING WITH TECHNOLOGY. . . 133
Do-It-Yourself Coolhunting in the Blogosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Tracking Physical Interactions in Social Networks. . . . . . . . . . . 139
Finding Learning Trends and Making Education Cooler. . . . . . . 144
Some Lessons for Virtual Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
8 COOLHUNTING BY AUTOMATED SOCIAL
NETWORK ANALYSIS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Discovering Trends by Mining Communication Archives . . . . . . 151
1. Identifying Trendsetters in a Social Network: Wikinews . . . . . 156
2. Coolhunting New Product Trends in an
Online Forum: eCoustics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
3. Coolhunting Trendsetters Among Product Users:
Mobile Phones in a High School Class . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
4. Discovering Suspicious Patterns of Innovation: Enron . . . . . . 177
5. Coolfarming a Computer Gaming Community. . . . . . . . . . . 186
9 FIVE STEPS TO BECOMING A COOLFARMER . . . . . . . . . 191
Step 1: Learn About Swarm Creativity, COINS,
and Social Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Step 2: Form a COIN. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
Step 3: Coolhunt in an Online Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Step 4: Measure Communication in Your Own COIN . . . . . . . . 199
Step 5: Become a Coolfarmer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page VIII
VIII y CCOONNTTEENNTTSS
10 THE COMING WORLD OF SWARM CREATIVITY. . . . . . . . 205
Morphing into Swarm Creativity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Stakeholders or Shareholders? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Immerse Yourself in the Swarm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Listen to the Swarm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Trust the Swarm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Share with the Swarm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
COOL_ FM_pI-XX 1/26/07 12:09 PM Page IX
FF OO RR EE WW OO RR DD
In the summer of 2003, you could not walk into any twenty-some-
thing environment in San Francisco, where I lived, without hearing
about Friendster—a new type of website, a social network site. You
can’t understand coolhunting without thinking about the impor-
tance of social networks (friends, family, coworkers, lovers).
Likewise, it only makes sense to consider the rise in popularity of
social network sites like Friendster and MySpace in order to under-
stand coolhunting. Just like social networks allow people to spread
ideas, social network sites allow people to leverage their social net-
works to spread information, culture, and gossip.
In this book, Peter Gloor and Scott Cooper explore what cool-
hunting is, describe many of its varied (and sometimes surprising)
incarnations, and point the way to its practical application. The story
of MySpace—the world’s foremost social network site—illustrates
both, while also explaining how broad and deep online coolhunting
can be. To understand the rise of MySpace, however, we must begin
with Friendster.