Customer Reviews

Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have an MBA from Harvard Business School, and to be perfectly honest, I think it was one of the biggest wastes of my time and money. I regularly discourage people from going to business school, telling them that they'll make more "connections" in 2 good years of work in a reputable company, and that anything they NEED to know will be a fraction of what is taught, and is available in categorical business books.

There's one exception to my education at HBS - the part I don't think was a waste. It was the Consumer Marketing class I took with Youngme in my second year.

I am not a marketing person. I have tended to work for technology/internet companies and have a technical/math background. First year Marketing at HBS opened my eyes to the fact that marketing was more than just advertising fluff, but it was Youngme (second year) who really taught me things that I regularly use today to both see the world and shape the products I manage.

I remember when she was able to tell us - *4 YEARS BEFORE THE IPHONE CAME OUT* that the ipod was obviously a stealth way for Apple to get back into the smartphone business after their brand disaster with the Newton. That if they came out with anything that seemed like they were entering the smartphone business, there would be too much baggage. I went back and told my friends (outside of school) "The ipod is Apple's entry into the phone business!!!" and they all thought I was nuts. Apple was too pure for that. Well of course, she was right and in hindsight it seems obvious (but go back and ask people in 2003/2004 what they thought and it wasn't so obvious then ...). The reason I bring this particular example up is because from then on I was able to look at how a company introduced a product and understand what the fundamental strategy might really be, and also how I could understand market dynamics to position a product.

Anyway, by far, Youngme Moon's CoMa class was my favorite class at HBS and the ones where I learned the most. So what does that say about this book? Well, I'll say for one thing, I found a lot of what was in this book to be redundant to what I had learned in her class. I'll consider that a plus for everyone who didn't waste $200k and 2 years on an HBS degree. Read this book and you'll learn pretty much everything (and in some areas a little more and in some a little less) that I learned from my HBS education.

fwiw - I'm not a hater of HBS. If you need it to get ahead in consulting or private equity or investment banking or to switch careers, go ahead. But as far as what I found to be valuable learnings, I'm really not kidding when I say that it's all in this book.

It will change the way you see the world.
It will change the way you see markets.
It will change the way you see companies.
And ...
By Example:
It will teach you how the market is likely to see you.
It will teach you how to position yourself in the market.
It will teach you how to play to your strengths.

It's also an easy read - the chapters are well organized and insights are quick and intuitive once you're led to them. I think this is an important point - business books are often a pain to read because they tend to be dense and say in 10 paragraphs what could have been conveyed in 2. This is a fun and easy read that will leave you thinking about the world ... well ... differently.

Youngme Moon is not only one of the most popular professors at Harvard Business School and the recipient of the student association award for teaching excellence, she has insights into business and life that are unlike anything I've ever experienced. She is the author of Different, the new book called that will blow you away.

Differentmay well break into the business vernacular as powerfully as Jim Collins' Good to Great and Built to Last and Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point and Outliers. Her insights are just as powerful and counter-intuitive and her storytelling and language are breathtaking. What I love about Different is that it's like two books interwoven into one coherent narrative. One is a brisk marketing strategy volume that any CEO and marketing officer should read if they want to understand, perhaps for the first time, why despite their best efforts and 24x7 pace they often feel that are running so hard just to stay in place. The second book, though, is interlaced throughout, and is for me personally, even more impactful. Youngme offers the clearest explanation I've seen of the world we live in and why we often feel numb by all the dazzling technology, abundance, and utter convenience with which we find ourselves. Or why, as parents it's hard to understand how it is that our kids don't appreciate "how lucky they are." Youngme says aptly that Different is "a book for people who don't read business books."

Here are just a few of the gems offered up in Different:

* There will always be a place for brands, or people, or things that are hard to come by. "Restraint," she writes, "can be the new desire." Value is created by being mindful of what we have in abundance and then offering something that is scarce. She implores businesses to offer a break from that which is profuse.

* Apple, Harley Davidson, and other iconic brands lack internal consistency, which is what gives them such resonance. "They defy reductionist logic," she explains, "the same way as we do, the way our own internal lives are marked by multiple and contradictory truths that clash and combine, creating asymmetries in every direction."

* Human behavior is complicated and studying or writing about it doesn't make it any less so. The "truth" can be elusive. "People are hungry for familiarity. No, sometimes they're starved for change. Yes, people are impatient for progress; no wait, sometimes they yearn for the simplicity of the past. Yes, people are desirous of more, no wait a minute, what they actually want is less."

* Monotony can be just as sapping as over-exertion. "The secret to cheating old age," she quotes one of the subjects in her book, "is to stay a moving target." Stillness seems to have the effect of easing the senses until it dulls them. We need some stability and motion. "We need activity to help us feel our synapses firing again."

Youngme Moon's Different will show you how differentiation is much more than a marketing tactic, it is a way of thinking. It is a fundamental mind-set and a way of living that derives from respecting, observing, and absorbing people and the world around you.

The core concept of Different, that unfocused and short-sighted competition breeds sameness that ultimately hurts all parties involved, is so elegantly simple that it's easy to take Youngme Moon's work for granted. Different is very approachable and written in a colloquial manner instead of what might be expected in a traditional business text, and thus appeals to a broad audience. It assumes very little about the reader's business knowledge and instead relies on familiar brands such as Harley Davidson, IKEA, Red Bull, etc. to drive the point. Even if some of the brands are unfamiliar, Youngme is very good at identifying particular traits and extracting a brand's essence. For me, one of the most compelling comparisons was the parallel between companies deadlocked in competition and the autonomous self-organizing and directional behavior of migrating birds.

From the beginning, the author says that Different is the start of a conversation and not a how-to. It is successful from that perspective, but at the same time, since it never really gets in-depth, I found myself unsatisfied and wanting more. Each of the discussed brands justifies its own in-depth analysis, and Different only really scratches the surface. While the Harvard Business School case study numbers are provided for further reading and these reports do go in depth, they are not free.

I decided to buy this book after reading about it and watching the animated trailer. I honestly learned a lot and thought the fresh take on brands I was already familiar with was intriguing. I also appreciated the advice about how to nurture the creative process. When I finished though, I couldn't help feeling a bit frustrated because the book principally revolved around marketing to consumers and generally forgoes traditional analysis and avoids discussion of branding failures. I think the scope is too narrow and that the book is of only limited value to those already combating hyper-maturity. As it stands, I enjoyed the book and learned something, but wish Different was more substantial.

This lovely, thoughtful book will change the way business leaders consider the design and launch of products, the development of advertising messages, and their competitive positioning. More importantly, Different is appealing to absolutely anyone who has ever walked down a cereal aisle and pondered why and how we make purchase decisions. In addition to its remarkably creative eye-opening content, the reason why I thoroughly enjoyed this book is that it is so very beautifully written. Each paragraph is simply lyrical. Ms. Moon has obviously put as much thought into her choice of words, as she has put towards the concepts. Each interesting turn of phrase is pure joy. I consider myself a voracious reader, and I've read a considerably large number of business books. Comparatively speaking, this book simply shines. It was a pleasure to read and I found myself wishing there was more. The concepts have changed the way I make decisions at work each day.

The book is an amazingly insightful, entertaining, and thought provoking read. BUT, the title and the description are beyond horrible and terribly innacurate. It really should be more academically promoted, perhaps have been called "Moon's Discussion of the Homogeneity through Differentiation Paradox."

Unfortunately because of the publisher's attempt at tricking the non-academic public into buying books, they've titled and described this book wrong - which will just end up disappointing a few readers. HOWEVER, in reality Moon's discussion is SO good that I'm upset she's publicly divulged her thoughts. Thoughts that could have been used as competitive advantage, but unfortunately now it's something that every CEO and marketing executive can read and think about - likely to cause another cascade of business beliefs across all companies resulting in the same marketplace nonesense she complains about.

I've always thought that differentiation was overrated - there is some profit to be made from copycatting and conformity. Moon has provided an excellent discussion showing why differentiation has not proven to be useful. It's perhaps not that differentation itself is near useless, it's that we do it in conformist fashion. Again, I would have liked her to tell me that personally and not irresponsibly reveal useful thoughts to the world and break down competitive advantages. But she's not John Nash, she's Youngme Moon and we should cut her some slack ;).

The con: it's annoyingly repetitive. Lots of filler. The book can easily lose 150 pages and be the exact same book.

I also suggest this book that everyone seems to get use out of: Rock Star Recipes

Unlike many business books, this one is well written and to the point. Her Big Idea:the harder we try to compete with competitors, the more we ape them, and thus the more we become like them, not different from them.This leads to the dreaded "C" word in business:commodity.She then takes us through a brisk review of companies that don't ape others , but instead alters a customer's expectations:Jet Blue(took away much of what travelers expected but replaced it with media centers on each seat); Ikea(no delievery or set up help but replaced it with limited but good choices, daycare, and Las Vegas style, excellent and cheap food);and so on. She has a very perceptive and funny section on companies who go to the extreme and tell potential customers that maybe they are just not good enough to be their customer. Unlike Jim Collins and his ilk, she offers ideas to provoke further discusssion, eschewing her ideas as THE ideas. She does not talk about her ideas as applied to professional services firms,but there is, I think, some(or maybe a lot)of applicability. A refreshing read.

A book of observations and reflections but not real analysis.
Does not come to a conclusion (aside from the obvious "we can do better") nor suggest ideas for improvement.
The first chapter is good. You can skip the rest of the book.

I've worked with Youngme Moon when I was an undergrad and when she was a TA; she is enthusiastic, brilliant, caring, and personable, and it comes through in her writing. Everything I've heard about her teaching at HBS also confirms this. So I'm a bit sad to say I can't wholeheartedly rave about this book. In essence, it lacks real - no pun intended - differentiation. If this was an attempt to distill established MBA marketing curricula into an easier every-person's newsstand book, then it succeeds. But as real, substantive addition to marketing thought, it doesn't add anything earth-shattering. I was disappointed when the example brands came up one by one, they are part of the de rigueur case studies passed out in course packets to practically any MBA today: Apple, Harley-Davidson, Swatch, Cirque du Soleil, Dove Real Beauty Campaign, and Benetton. Moon's explanation of differentiation strategies has largely been covered by Kim and Mauborgne in their Blue Ocean Theory (i.e. finding uncontested markets). The strategy around the Mini launch is also decades old (look up the Bernbach ad campaign for the Beetle in the 60 and 70s: "Think Small"). Moon also doesn't address the main reason companies continue their never-ending competitive death-spiral into boring similarity: it is profitable. Sure, it's cool to be able to build a company like Apple, but there are hundreds of other less glamorous firms minting millionaires every day, and that's who the thousands of MBAs graduating every year will settle down working for. If they all tried to make something refreshingly different, they wouldn't become wealthy.

This is a fantastic book. Well written, excellent argumentation, full of practical examples and easy to read. It's a little boring sometimes with a few irrelevant stories. Maybe that's because, as a Mathematician and Computer Scientist, I'm used to more direct books. That's the only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, but the book is excellent.

I watched Youngme Moon's presentation in a conference in Boston (Business of Software 2010). That's a very good conference with many famous speakers. But Youngme's presentation was the best one by far. I received a free printed copy of "Different" in the conference and started to read immediately. The book was so amazing that, after a few pages reading my free printed copy, I bought the Kindle edition to be able to make my notes and highlights.

If you're facing problems with competition, lack of differentiation, an endless "inovate and copy" cicle, and no passion from your customers, then this book is for you. The author did an amazing job detecting the roots of Differentiation in many industries and describing their strategies. It's sometimes shocking to realize that to be different, you need to take a radical path today and do things you never thought. "Ignore your customers", "Remove features", "Promote the bad things about you", "Don't try to please everybody".

But, if your goal is to be different, you need this book.

Let's face it. For the vast majority of businesses struggling to differentiate themselves in the jungle of corporate America, they fail miserably. Instead, their management is comprised of people motivated by fear; risk taking and innovation is discouraged, while maintaining the safe status-quo seems to be the best course of action (or inaction).

I'm afraid that approach to business is counter-productive, and the author, Youngme Moon agrees. Actually, I agree with her, since she wrote the book. Instead of falling into a rut, we should be focusing on ways to provide that little extra something that gives us that slight edge over the competition. Failure to do so usually results in...failure.

If you enjoy the iconoclastic works of Seth Godin, Chip & Dan Heath, Marshall Goldsmith or Malcolm Gladwell, to name a few; you'll certainly embrace the philosophy Moon is proposing. If you dare to be different, you'll want to grab of copy of this terrific book; you won't regret it.