Seth Godin, editor of the book, has collected 33 inspiring ideas and they become The Big Moo. The Group of 33, as the book references these successful business people, includes Mark Cuban, Dave Balter, Malcolm Gladwell, Tom Peters, and Guy Kawasaki. The aim of the stories or ideas is to show what it takes to become remarkable.
The book's title comes from Godin's previous best seller, Purple Cow which shows how to stand out in a world of brown cows. According to the book's synopsis, "... sometimes you need something even bigger than a purple cow. You need a big moo — an insight so astounding that people can't help but remark on it."
While Purple Cow focuses on standing out, it lacks the second and very important step — getting others to talk about your business. Standing out alone doesn't lead to business. How do people find out about you? That's what The Big Moo is about — sharing ideas and real-life examples of how to get people talking.
"Some Things Just Don't Translate" points that the way we see our products may not be the way customers see them. Sounds obvious, but it isn't. An Italian in the house ware business opened a store in the U.S. His foot traffic wasn't match by sales. He observed his customers and remained baffled as to why they were looking and taking an interest, but not buying.
He asked a customer how she liked the store and merchandise. It turned out that what Americans considered vases, Italians saw as glasses — and vice versa. The owner, of course, was selling glasses of six in a case and vases as singles. Americans didn't want to buy six vases — they could've bought six glasses with ease, though. This type of valuable advice appears throughout the book.
Article comments
1 - Christine
I got my hands on a pre-printed copy of the big moo. I really liked it. The preface was a little preachy, but Seth is a marketing guy and he has to stand on his soapbox and tell you what he thinks. I really liked that the entries are short. For today's ADHD society, it will be read by the masses. I have little time to sit and read more than a chapter at a time, and to be able to pick up and put down the book was great.
I do wish also to know who wrote what. Because each entry isn't credited, it makes it frustrating to try to find more thoughts by that particular author that strikes a cord.
There is definitely something for everyone in this book. And I do agree with Seth that being great isn't good enough you need to be remarkable.
The website http://www.sethgodin.com/bigmoo/authors.html does give you a better insight to who contributed to the book.
All in all I would recommend this book to anyone business minded that had even a few minutes to read
2 - meryl
Thanks for providing an excellent comment. I agree with everything you said, Christine.
3 - Adam Riemer
Meryl, Thank you for your wonderful review and you are a Purple Cow with a Big Moo!!!!
I would like to also say that remarkabalize, started by The Big Moo authors customizes and personalizes copies of The Big Moo for your and your organization as well as holds innovation workshops and seminars all over with The Big Moo tour. Please feel free to contact me http://www.remarkabalize.com for more info about the tour and the books.
We are also a full service, non-traditional marketing firm with Cattleists and ShMOOze guides.
4 - Jason
Meryl and Seth should work on many projects together.