The Deviant's Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets [Hardcover]

Ryan Mathews (Author), Watts Wacker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2002

Don’t consider yourself deviant? Well, that just may be a career breaker. Odds are the idea or product that will transform your business or industry tomorrow is out there right now, hiding in the shadows of the Fringe, raw, messy, untamed, and just waiting to be exploited. Trapping, taming, and marketing it is the key to burying your competition and staying ahead of your market.

Deviance is nothing more than a marked separation from the norm and is the source of innovation, the kind of breakthrough thinking that creates new markets and tumbles traditional ones. Positive deviation is an inexhaustible font of new ideas, products, and services. It’s the source of all creative thinking and dynamic new market development and ultimately the basis of all incremental profit.

The Deviant’s Advantage describes how deviance proceeds along a traceable trajectory from the Fringe, where it originates but has zero commercial potential; to the Edge, where word of mouth creates a limited audience; to the Realm of the Cool, where the buzz and market momentum really start to build; to the Next Big Thing, where demand is honed and intensifies; finally landing at Social Convention, the heart of the mass market.

Ryan Mathews and Watts Wacker, two of America’s most respected futurists, trace the “Path of the Devox” (the voice, spirit, or incarnation of deviant ideas, products, and individuals), using it as a way to explain how and why:
* Christian fundamentalism morphed from college Bible studies to Republican party king-making
* Reebok cares more about what’s on the feet of kids in Detroit and Philadelphia than what the so-hip-it-hurts set is wearing in New York or on Rodeo Drive
* Napster exploded from an idea germinating inside a sixteen-year-old to a movement with 60 million subscribers that very nearly destroyed the music industry
* Hugh Hefner went from America’s most public pornographer to a cultural icon with decidedly Puritan sensibilities

Mathews and Wacker also look at what happens to formerly deviant products and ideas after they are replaced by the next wave from the Fringe—how they morph into Cliché (where their commercial potential may actually increase), become Icons or even Archetypes, or fade into Oblivion, and how you can profitably manage even a fading concept.

Looking for the next big idea for your business? Then it’s past time to quit staring at the Social Convention for inspiration and start scouring the Fringes of society. Tomorrow’s breakthrough concept is lurking out there right now, in the mind of a deviant individual. Your choice is simple: find it and exploit it, or be buried by those who do.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Consultants (and "futurists") Mathews and Wacker present a book about cashing in on weird ideas. Defining deviance as "something or someone operating in a defined measure away from the norm," the authors examine the transformation that takes fringe ideas-such as jazz, holistic medicine, and even personal computing-into mass markets. They use examples such as Virgin mogul Richard Branson (whom they call a "poster boy" for deviance, because of his notion that everyday people should be able to have a lifestyle that would normally be closed to them) to show the process of taking a peripheral idea mainstream and applying it to one's business, even addressing the inevitable occurrence of the once-fringe idea becoming cliché. Although laden with trendy made-up words, e.g., "devox" and "prescreen," Mathews's and Wacker's intriguing book is a fun mix of business savvy and social commentary that will surely appeal to the Fast Company crowd.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

... The Deviant's Advantage is a stimulating work. -- Miami Herald

...intriguing .... written in an engaging and often humorous way with a minimum of consultant-speak. -- The New York Times, August 25th 2002

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown Business; 1st edition (September 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609609580
• ISBN-13: 978-0609609583
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,580,680 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ryan Mathews, founder and CEO of Black Monk Consulting is a globally recognized futurist, cultural ecologist, speaker and storyteller. Ryan is also a best selling author, a successful international consultant and a sought after commentator on topics as diverse as innovation, technology, global consumer trends, advertising and media and retailing. He and his work have been profiled in a number of periodicals including Wired, which labeled him a philosopher of e-commerce and Red Herring, which said of him, "It's Mr. Mathews' job to ask the hard questions".
His opinions on issues ranging from the future of Internet pornography to ethnic marketing have appeared on the pages of literally hundreds of newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, the Washington Post, Business Week, Chicago Tribune, the Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, Advertising Age, Fortune and American Demographics, which labeled him the "futurist to watch" in an article on individuals who have had the greatest impact on American demography over the past 25 years.
A veteran journalist, Ryan has written cover stories for Fast Company and other leading magazines and has been a frequent contributor to National Public Radio's Marketplace on topics related to innovation. He is widely regarded as an expert on consumers and their relationship to brands, products, services and the companies that offer them. Ryan has also done significant work in related areas including supply chain analysis, advertising and new product development.
He has enjoyed an extensive and diverse career as a consultant. Ryan has worked in every area of advertising from campaign creation; agency branding and positioning; client management; agency selection; and media sales.
Ryan has done extensive brand work with several Fortune 100 companies and has also taken on a number of assignments related to high-level corporate strategy and positioning from market positioning and creating competitive strategies to designing organizational structure and overseeing sales operations.
Ryan is the co-author (with Fred Crawford) of The Myth of Excellence: Why Great Companies Never Try To Be The Best at Everything (Crown Business), which debuted on the Wall Street Journal's list of Best Selling Business Books. Myth was named to the bestseller lists of Business Week, 1-800 CEOREAD and other business book tracking services. It was also a bestseller on Amazon.com. Amazon's Business Editors selected it for their list of the twelve best business books released in 2001. Writing about Myth, Frederick K. Smith, chairman, president and ceo, Federal Express called Ryan and his co-author, "...exceptional strategic thinkers who have given anyone concerned about consumers a practical, innovative and unique approach to competitive differentiation." Procter & Gamble president and ceo A.G. Lafley said of Mathews' work it, ",,,is the best tool I've seen for incorporating consumer wants and needs into your business."
He is also the co-author (with Watts Wacker) of The Deviant's Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets (Crown Business), which received uniformly high reviews from The New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, the Miami Herald and Time magazine. Robert Sutton, professor, Stanford University and co-director of the Stanford Engineering School Center for Work, Technology and Organization, said of Deviant's Advantage, it, "...is the best book ever written about how and why companies can benefit from fringe ideas and people..."
Ryan was also a contributor to the best selling, Business: The Ultimate Resource (Perseus) and The Change Champion's Fieldguide: Strategies and Tools For Leading Change In Your Organization (Best Practice Publications).
In 2007 Ryan published his third book, What s Your Story?: Storytelling To Move Markets, Audiences, People and Brands. Paul A. Laudicina, Managing Officer and Chairman of the Board of A. T. Kearney called the book, "...an essential guidebook for capturing and conveying the essence of corporate identities and enriching brands." Dominique Bourse, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Cyber Group Europe and former Senior Vice President, The Walt Disney Company (Europe) called the book, "...a must-read for marketers, brand managers, marketing students and, more globally, for anyone interested in understanding the emotional attraction/repulsion effects brands have on us." What's Your Story? was short-listed in the Advertising/Marketing Category in the first annual 800-CEO-READ Best Business Book Awards.
Ryan's books have been translated into several languages including German, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Russian.
Ryan is an acknowledged leader in organizational change and innovation practice as well as a pioneer in an area he terms, "corporate cultural ecology" which examines not why companies can't change, but rather why they choose not to.
A frequently requested keynote speaker Ryan has addressed a wide variety of subjects in his speech practice from the future of beauty to the future of house paint. His audiences have included labor groups such as the United Food & Commercial Workers Union; not for profit organizations like Planned Parenthood; associations from the Photographic Retailers Organization to the Grocery Manufacturers of America; academic institutions like Michigan State University and Pennsylvania State University; high technology forums such as Information Week's CIO Boot Camp and Accenture's E-Business Symposium; consulting audiences including Cap-Gemini, Ernst & Young and Deloitte & Touche; to consumer goods manufacturers from Sherwin Williams to Procter & Gamble, Kellogg's, Coca-Cola and numerous others. He has worked and spoken extensively in Europe for clients including Grey Advertising, Musgrave, Ltd, the British Post and Unilever. In addition to speaking and his other areas of expertise Ryan has done significant client work in organizational development as a facilitator and scenario planner.
Ryan received his BA from Hope College in philosophy and Inner Asian history and did his graduate work at the University of Detroit where he studied phenomenological ontology. He has also served on the Advisory Board of the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University's Eli Broad College of Business and is currently Industry Strategist and Senior Futurist at SmartRevenue.com.
Ryan is a Kentucky Colonel and his reputation and experience as a chili authority won him a seat on the International Chili Society's board of directors. He is also a creative artist and is co-founder of The People's Arts Festival - an annual event held in Detroit featuring artists, musicians, filmmakers and performance artists which is the largest free arts event in the state of Michigan. He is also a published poet.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to Achieve "Permanent Transformation", October 22, 2002

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Deviant's Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets (Hardcover)

Mathews and Wacker explain that, by definition, "deviant" and "deviance" refer to "someone or something operating in a defined measure away from the norm....[therefore] everything that is different is deviant." They go on to observe that positive deviance can be a "force for transformation" whereas negative deviance can be a "source of unspeakable evil." In the context of this volume, deviance "irrigates the imagination; offers an inexhaustible font of new ideas, products, and services; and in the end, is the source of all innovation, new market creation, and, for business, ultimately represents the basis of all incremental profit. Deviance equals innovation and innovation equals opportunity. Opportunity creates markets that in turn are destroyed by deviance." Mathews and Wacker assert that deviance follows a linear pattern: Fringe > Edge > Realm of the Cool > Next Big Thing > Social Convention > Cliché > Icon or Archetype or Oblivion.

In other words, what began "operating in a defined measure away from the norm" eventually becomes the norm and thus vulnerable to something else "operating in a defined measure away from the norm" which eventually....You get the idea. Mathews and Wacker describe the voice, spirit, or incarnation of deviance with a neologism, the devox. Used as a metaphor, the devox illustrates that "things have changed -- and continue to change -- at such a rate that conventional language is no longer an effective tool for describing what's going on around around us." Nor can then conventional language describe what has yet to occur. "Remember the first rule of the devox: Nothing's more foolish than conventional wisdom."

Of the ten themes which Mathews and Wacker examine (see pages 10-12), for me the most powerful is what they characterize as "the Abolition of Context" which occurs when Social Convention has eroded to the point at which it loses its authority to define reality for the society it theoretically describes. As context is abolished, the challenge is to build a new culture "and this demands a whole new set of plans and equipment. We need new language to communicate what we're about. We need to get beyond the wisdom of the ages and learn how to embrace the wisdom of the moment. We need to toss out the standards and design new standards." In this context, Mathews and Wacker do not limit their attention to the business world; rather, to the entire global culture within which business is conducted throughout the world. They insist that "real diversity" is all about ideas, perspectives, and sometimes good old fashioned weirdness, not race, age or gender." Deviance will abolish context with or without our permission. "The endgame is that there is no endgame. The goal is permanent transformation, not one-time self-definition."

Mathews and Wacker conclude their book with a brief but insightful analysis of what they call "the public faces of deviance": the Trickster, the Clown, the Wizard or Magician, the Shaman, the Seer, Mystics, Visionaries, the Saboteur, the Provocateur, the Monk, the Hermit, and the Mendicant. "We saved the best deviant for last": the Fool who combines elements of the Clown, the Provocateur, the Saboteur, the Magician, and the Trickster. For those who have not as yet read the book, I realize that these are merely names of creatures who, in an entirely different context, would perhaps torment Batman and Robin. In fact, as Mathews and Wacker carefully explain in the final chapter, they are change agents who -- together -- can help us to initiate and then sustain "permanent transformation." How? Please allow Mathews and Wacker the opportunity to respond to that critically important question.

For many readers, I think this may well be the most thought-provoking book they have read in many years and that may remain true for years to come. Were a higher rating available, I would give it.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CUSTOMER REVIEWS , SO SO WRONG, May 20, 2003

By 

DOUG BLANCHARD (Providence, Rhode Island) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Deviant's Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets (Hardcover)

I haven't even finished the book and i can't disagree more with the reviews people have written here. My question is, should it really have been marketed as a "business" book. I would classify it as a book worthy required reading for an American Studies course. It fits in with the idea of "the other", people who had "deviant" ideas and thru their actions propelled society to move ahead. These deviances then become the so called "norm". They move society/culture whether it be "pop culture" or products. Hmmm? does America have "culture" other than "pop culture" which is so tied in with consumerism. I think this book is more for the creative thinkers/artists etc. than for business people or people who want to "cash in" on an idea. This book is for people who as kids did NOT color within the lines. I found out about the book thru a radio show interview that was so interesting. This is the type of book that you don't read in one sitting. It is not a "get rich" quick book. duh!!! This is a book where you can read one concept/idea they have pushed forth and you put the book down and "THINK" about it. I think it is brilliant.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Who is Normal, Who is Not., October 31, 2002

By 

Dr. David Arelette (Yarrambat, Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Deviant's Advantage: How Fringe Ideas Create Mass Markets (Hardcover)

I read the three reviews on this book and they are all correct to some extent. It is a refreshing book but presented without a clear thread to their proposition; it does formalise how new ideas move from the cult fringe to mainstream everyday but does not provide a model of how this can be used; it does provide "outside the square" thinkers with a purposeful justification of their right to want to implement new ideas, but it does leave a lot of insights short of the "so what" end point.

If you are someone who likes working in the unclear world of the creative ground breaker, this is a book worth having. If you are afraid of losing or quiting your job for an idea, then leave this alone - it is not your cup of tea at all.

The creative will find the layout challenging but will probably ignore the dead ends and enjoy the journey through the ideas and examples. Worth the money if you are the deviant thinker in the team - you know who you are because all the other people are normal and just want to do the job that the boss wants and you want to deliver what the boss (and the customer) really needs.