Customer Reviews

Coolhunting: Chasing Down the Next Big Thing

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This book was a tough read. When I finished it I asked myself "Why did I read it?" And I asked myself "What did I get from it?" I know I read it thinking there would be some good insight provided into how to identify trends and trendsetters so a reasonably quick profit could be made by jumping on the bandwagon. And now that I have finished the book I know that I certainly didn't get what I was looking for.

As far as I am concerned, the book uses too much of its own terminology and has to spend too much time defining terms. And the authors cite too many names and specific instances instead of smoothing over all of that and telling a simple easily digestible story. The title of the book is "Coolhunters." And that is fine. But why was there so much coverage of "Coolfarmers" in the book. That was a sideshow, and should have been left out in my humble opinion.

Basically I learned that coolhunters are seekers of trends and trendsetters. A coolfarmer is a leader of trendsetters. Swarm creativity is creativity resulting from a collective mindset. And Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs) are teams of trendsetters who share ideas, information, and work in order to produce swarm creativity. Then social networks are cited as an example of some COINs. But so what? I still need to have all this pulled together for me so I can recommend the book to someone interested in starting a business or make their business better. I can't do that!

This book had 10 chapters as follows:

1. Why "cool" matters
2. Swarm creativity creates cool trends
3. Swarms can better predict the future
4. About trendsetters
5. Coolhunters look for coolfarmers
6. When swarms go mad
7. Do-it-yourself coolhunting with technology
8. Coolhunting by automated social network analysis
9. Five steps to becoming a coolfarmer
10. The coming world of swarm creativity

Review for "Coolhunting: Chasing Down the Next Big Thing" by Peter Gloor & Scott Cooper, New York, published by AMACOM 2007, 1. Edition, 236 pages.

The title of the book keeps its promise by chasing down the next big thing: coolhunting. It is a very well grounded in theory, though fun and inspiring book to read about coolhunting for coolhunting, a subject becoming a big subject (June 1, 07: 807,000 google hits). As described by the authors, coolhunting "is not as simple as the simple description - uncovering the source of trends - often given". Coolhunting also investigates how groups of people work together to innovate in so called COINs (Collaborate Innovative Networks), nourished by swarm creativity.

Both authors are renowned, much valued scientists in their respective fields, who published extensively on different interdisciplinary topics. Peter Gloor has many years of experience in management. This strong foundation enables an academically profound and comprehensive book with illustrative examples and inspiring stories about an intriguing, and in many ways paradox issue. Paradox, because "cool" products, themes, issues, designs, ideas etc. are not for everybody, as upon becoming public knowledge they actually loose their "cool" factor. This is the paradox the book is dealing with in a very open, dedicated, and informative way (and perhaps not everybody wants that secrets like this are broken). Beyond, with Social Network Analysis one can even visualize the process how groups of people collaborate, communicate, and innovate. As the authors state: "There can never be too much communication! And talk in galaxy, not as stars!"

When I started to read the book, I was surprised, and quizzical about the openness and diversity of the exemplifications, from personal stories to business cases to the constitution of Switzerland. Further, values like altruism, sharing, fun, responsible citizen came across. My mind was attuned to a technological driven book from two MIT researchers. Far from it! This is a truly diversified, innovative approach combining social processes with technology (coolhunting in swarm creativity), sometimes translating these innovations into real business (coolfarming).

In their recent article "The New Principles of a Swarm Business" (MIT Sloan Management Review, Summer 2007) they state three principles which are contradictory to usual assumptions: gain power by giving it away; share with the swarm; concentrate on the swarm, not on making money. This is exactly what the authors are doing with this book: giving away the information how to reveal innovation; sharing it with the people; for the third there is a blog to be found, where the authors concentrated on the people, not on making money: [..]

This innovative book is a must for everybody interested in detecting, even visualizing how innovation emerges in all kind of fields. It provides insights into a meta process applicable to nearly any kind of issue, therefore making a significant contribution to the open source movement, being innovative and open itself. Consequently, giving you everything you need to chase down your next big thing.

What I really like about this book is that it's easy to read and doesn't just
give you theory. There are lots of compelling examples and good -- even unlikely
-- stories about coolhunting and coolfarming, like the rock musician John Mayall
or a high school theatre group. Plus, there are instructions for putting the
ideas to work in a real experiment, using software to analyze social networks
that the authors' let you download for free.

"Coolhunting: Chasing Down the Next Big Thing" by Peter Gloor & Scott Cooper, AMACOM, New York, 2007. Review.

Reading this bright book is a recommended experience. For three main reasons.

First, it contains a refined abstraction of the human and social mechanisms that by far from we are in existence are the basis of human evolution. That is to point that at the individual side it is not just information exchange that determines the growing patterns of culture and civilization, what we call "trends", but the interaction experience of the "ego" in reality; and, at the collective side, the awareness to be part of a continuously changing collective universe that makes this process the "world experience". As far as we can predict from individual experience the individual evolution in personality, attitudes, choices and performance, from this collective sense of interaction we can track the processes and dynamics that are the premises of the world of tomorrow. We can predict the future.
So the first simple revelation of the work is right a truth: every role we are going to have in the process of trends emersion, leaders or followers, writers or readers, speakers or listeners, observers or proposers, we are all part of it, inevitably. Awareness is the first point.

Second, the authors develop very further these assumptions in a really concrete way.
The choice, they say, of the role to have in the collective interaction experience relies not only on who we are, our personal characteristics, attitudes and natural instinct.
It may be a conceived rational choice, that starts from the awareness of the creativity developed in a "swarm dimension" toward the owning of the way of managing, rather then following, the process. That is the choice to follow palely emerging ideas, or to look for the emerging new trends, or to create actually new trends by cultivating new ideas.
This is the second revelation the authors explain, followed by the introduction of the appropriate scientific, methodological and technical tools to support our mental model improvement requested for what they call "coolhunting" and "coolfarming".

Third, the authors argue a flowing stream of interesting considerations coming from their own different backgrounds that guide in a easy bright way through a path of evidence about a sort of "intellectual energy" emerging now as in the past, that was the basis for great world changes, inventions, creations, renewed during the last years in shape, speed, accessibility and terms, thanks to new technologies and cultures that reduced space and time, giving a new dimension to the new small world.
Making evidence from a rich variety of relevant examples and cases, coming from about science, democracy, wisdom, collaboration, as much as business, education and art, they built a really thought provoking logical architecture.

Recently themes as social networks, knowledge sharing, creativity have been largely debated. But if their meanings seem to be common, their interactions inside the several aspects of human life still offer interesting insights.
"Coolhunting" of Peter Gloor and Scott Cooper represents a must-read for all people that believe in the knowledge power and in its capabilities to modify the reality and to do it before than the others, making "cool" what for the others is simply "normal".
Moving from interesting personal experiences and authors' backgrounds, the richness of this book is represented by several examples and interesting practical applications offered.
Creativity is the keyword in every human field and represents the challenge for who wants to success and to be effective. But creativity represents also the lens for reading all interactions between humans in terms of social practices, and ethics; in the firms as in the life of everyday.
As the authors suggest, immersing in the swarm environment and as member of a social network, everyone can become a "coolhunter" and in this perspective is called to be careful at the new emerging trends, ready to share his knowledge, to self-organize, to be collaborative.

If you are one of those people who want to discover the next thing, this is a great resource for you. If you are wanting to understand the real power of Web 2.0 technologies, especially social networking this is a great book for you. Some of their insights are straight forward, while some are counter intuitive. E.g. A company could increase its chance of surviving the dot com bubble if they actively went out and talked to their competitors quite often. Those that did not, had much higher failure rates. When in doubt follow the swarm. Bees lead! This is a slim, but thoughtful book with significant academic research (MIT Media Lab) behind it. Most definitely a book for smart folks. I still liked it.

Excellent book. We are now living in an ecosystem where communities/swarms are essential to succeed, and this book helped me better understand them.

COOLHUNTING: CHASING DOWN THE NEXT BIG THING is a key to identifying and capitalizing on trends, and is a reference any serious business library will find contemporary and important in its topic and approach. What is cool? Businesses receives tips on identifying what is presently cool and what desires will evolve from present trends. Chapters show how to identify new ideas which will spark new trends, from identifying people responsible for such ideas to anticipating and building a business model around it. Businesses seeking to capitalize on 'cool' ideas will want this.

This book was a bit long winded for me personally although I eventually reached the objective. The authors do a great job of explaining their theories from every possible angle and make it very understandable for just about anyone due to the numerous examples, case studies, and antidotes.

My main (and only) complaint is that it took quite a bit of time to get to the "meat" of the book as the background and examples of group dynamics dominate the better part of the book. I admit and agree that it's important to establish the background the authors have, but it could have been done in fewer pages with fewer examples in my opinion.

Overall, I'd recommend the book to idea and trend seeking types. Just understand you'll not be discovering new trends and the next big thing immediately. If you understand social networking and how groups interact to become a "mind of one," you might be able to skim the first portions of the book and jump right into the practice of "Coolhunting."

Gloor & Cooper's volume, "Coolhunting" provides deeper insight into the synergy between new social phenomena and innovative product developments. Their use of a descriptive and accessible language, paired with contemporary case studies and reviews of logical patterns provide readers with the necessary tools to refine their thinking toward becoming future change agents. There are numerous failures in the business applications of social networks, such as friendster.com's fatal reliance on "expert advice" from VC firms. Collectively, these failures prove that "common sense" is best described as a misnomer when applied to dynamic social networks.

A fresh interpretation of history reminds innovators that there's a predictable answer waiting (only and always) for knowing eyes. I'd urge all people who are seriously interested in Coolhunting and Swarm creativity principles to look for truth in the galaxies, not in the stars; follow the sage advice of unknown origin (though often attributed to American patent genius Ben Franklin), "Don't judge a book by its cover." Indeed, there is no proven method for 100% accurate predictions of social phenomena, however, Gloor & Cooper have created a usable map for identifying the landmarks along the way to successful business applications of social network analysis.

All researchers, practitioners and prospectors for "the new birth of cool" should study and apply the principles contained in "Coolhunting" to their analyses.