Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable

Rating:
Summary: This Book is Quite Un-remarkable!
Review: I have never met this guy Seth Godin, but I know this guy. I have worked with and gone to school with people just like this Seth Character. They like to say provactive things like "Marketing is Dead" and come up with catch phrases (Sneezers) that seems to gain them immediate attention. However, when you start analyzing what has been written the realization quickly hits home that nothing has been said at all. Merely Vapor-ware or in this case Vapor-ideas.

For those of us who look back at that phrase and to the whole Dot.Com era and cringe at the foolishness of people who were trying to rewrite the rules of business with their gimmickry and catch phrases, I present you Purple Cow. For this book is to Marketing what the DotCom era was to Business, which is in a word a BUST.

I also like that fact that most of the people that praised the book on the back cover, were coincidentally the very same people that Seth praised in his book for having that special Purple Cow quality...(How about a catch phrase of my own)...I guess this book will appeal to some people, but I guess I am just Lactose intolerant...Ha

Rating:
Summary: 20-20 hindsight is marvelous
Review: This feel good book simply reviews the past and Seth Godin takes the credit for making observations that support his superfluous theory. The real world is SO much harder than he describes.

Having said that, I give him 5 stars for making money - designing a pithy book that took a short time to write and get published. That's the real purple cow.

Rating:
Summary: A good kick in the pants
Review: Seth Godin is a kinder, gentler Tom Peters. Jay Leno to David Letterman. He packs all the "I should have thought of things that way" wallop of a Peters book into a clean, elegant, quick read.

At the end of the day, this isn't a Porter book. This isn't about strategy with a capital "S". Rather, it is a passionate and convincing essay on the business merits of producing remarkable user experiences.

Rating:
Summary: MOO!!!!
Review: This book was so convincing that I bought an additional 25 of his book to go visit him at his office. Some people just understand business.

There are limits to everything in the world around you. If you are creative and courageous enough to explore them you will find success, or it will soon find you.

As important as any message is, the delivery usually dictates what will be successful and what will fail. If you gain nothing from the easy to read book, you should at least recognize that its means of distribution made it a success.

Rating:
Summary: Purple Rabbit marketing
Review: Seth Godin is a great marketer and I have no doubt that he could write a world-class book on marketing. No need to read this book -- not much inside -- just observe the successful formula that allows him to write many books and sell them very well: great packaging, catchy titles, easy messages, scope within our poor span of attention, no more depth that is needed in Corporate America. Do this and often, and you are riding success. Seth, well done! I am your biggest admirer, but I can't give the book itself more than 3 stars. You, however, get 5 stars.

Rating:
Summary: It is what it is . . . know what you're getting into
Review: Cutesy . . . disjointed . . . reads like a monologue . . . powerful . . . simplistic. It's all true. I don't think that author Seth Godin would argue with many of the comments that even the negative reviewers have made here.

My advice is to simply understand what you're getting into with this one. Looking for some light reading that might fire off some creative synapses? Got a few hours on a plane & the ability to take some thought-starters and generate your own applications? This book is for you.

And yes, it is geared towards creative types. Or at least someone who's willing to let a simple, fun book with lots of colorful case studies get the juices flowing.

Interesting that there's such a binary ranking system with this book. Most readers seem to either love it or hate it. Are you a serious executive looking for practical ways to transform? Start with Good to Great by Jim Collins.

Looking for something more unique, but still thick with practical ways to transform a business in a huge way? Try Winning in FastTime by John Warden.

Purple Cow is fun, simple, and powerful. There's practically nothing that's been written in these reviews that I don't agree with. But some of are fortunate enough to have an equal balance between left-brain and right-brain.

This book MAY not be for you, but it was for me.

Rating:
Summary: Vanilla or Habanero Pecan?
Review: In "Purple Cow," Seth Godin makes the point that to get the attention of customers, products have to be remarkable. That may seem obvious, but that doesn't mean that most companies understand it.

My favorite part of the book is "The Problem with Compromise." As a marketing instructor and consultant, I've seen way too many businesses try to appeal to everyone, and as a result they appeal to no one.

Godin uses the example of vanilla ice cream. Inoffensive and bland, vanilla ice cream may be acceptable to most people, but vanilla ice cream is boring. The boring, vanilla slot is filled in most industries, so Godin says that success and growth come with products that annoy, offend, don't appeal, are too expensive, too cheap, too heavy, too complicated, too simple--too something. That means that while many people will not be attracted to your product, it will be absolutely perfect for others. They will be your customers.

Although Godin's advice is intended for companies of all sizes, it is especially important to small businesses. Most small companies can't afford to compete with the big guys on the big guys' terms. Instead, shake up the industry with a creative innovation and capture the niche you want to serve, while your competitors are busy making compromises to try to hold on to what they have.

This book will remind you of the importance of breaking away from the herd. Dare to be different, follow your passion, and the customers who share your passion will be drawn to your product.

Rating:
Summary: Manifesto for creating great products
Review: I first became a fan of Seth Godin's books when he came out with Ideavirus, a study of viral products and ideas. Ideavirus was marketed very cleverly. In fact, you can get a free copy of the entire book at www.ideavirus.com. Seth's bet was that the book was so good that you would end up buying a printed copy and buy products from him for years to come. His bet worked with me.

Seth's latest book is Purple Cow: Transform your business by being remarkable. The book is an easy read. Entertaining and informative, its message is even more critical now than ever for companies that want to create winning products. With all of the half-baked products and broken product promises that customers endured during the boom, this book preaches that it's time to get back to creating products and services that are truly remarkable.

Purple Cow advocates that in order to stand out, in order to have your marketing and all of your other efforts make any impact, you must go beyond "good enough". For me, Seth was preaching to the choir, having been a Product Management professional for most of my career working on breakthrough products like the Macintosh Human Interface, Symantec Café and the Whistle Interjet. I've always been convinced that what makes a product phenomenally successful is taking care of the little details that add up to something customers can't stop talking about. Seth's book is somewhat of a manifesto on this topic.

One of my favorite parts of the book is where he discusses the concept that "The opposite of very good is remarkable". Companies like Microsoft make products that are very good (or in many cases their products are just good enough to sell). But look at products that have become phenomenons - the Macintosh, the Palm Pilot, Hotmail, IBM Thinkpads - these are products that truly shined (at least when they were first released). They went far beyond "good enough".

Seth also argues that your marketing needs to be just as remarkable. Combine it with great products and you have the recipe for cutting through the noise and having your product be noticed. As he says in the book, "Safe is risky".

Full of case studies, including Krispy Kreme, Jet Blue, and many other tech and non-tech companies, Purple Cow is a must read for anyone involved in product development and product definition. Every entrepreneur, CEO, general manager, product manager and marketing professional interested in creating industry-changing products should read this book.

Reviewed by Brian Lawley at www.280group.com

Rating:
Summary: P.T. Barnum lives, writes "business" books!
Review: Let's just start with the startling tautology that is this book:

To be remarkable, be remarkable!

This reminds me immediately of Steve Martin's advice on how to make ten million dollars:

"First, start with nine million dollars."

I was tempted by the headline, "Udderly ridiculous," but that sounds too mirthful. This book and its apparent viral marketing strategy distrubs, even angers me.

Predicted next books:
"Getting Rich By Getting Rich"
"To Lose Weight, Lose Weight!"
"Burning Calories The Exercise Way!"

It's one thing to write an unremarkable book. It's another to try to pull the purple cowhide over our eyes. I'm not fooled. At least a dozen other readers apparently weren't either.

Rating:
Summary: Pretentious in Purple
Review: This book is as vacuous and superificial as its cutesey title. With much swagger and self promotion, but scant substance and a dirth of new ideas. Be different, stand out, the author admonishes, without ever saying how. There is simply no there there. Its about as meaningful, helpful and deep as a thin coat of purple paint. A poor show!