The Big Moo: Stop Trying to Be Perfect and Start Being Remarkable (Hardcover)

~ The Group of 33 (Author), Seth Godin (Editor) "Historians of magic are in total agreement about this: Hou-dini did hackneyed mechanical tricks, showed little evidence of talent, and had almost none of the..." (more)
Key Phrases: big moo, purple cow, New York, United States, Gertrude Bell (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Godin derived the title for this engaging anthology of business homiletics from his marketing manifesto Purple Cow, which extolled the importance of garish new products that grab customers' attention. Phrased as a feel-good kindergarten platitude ("you are not ordinary/In fact, you're remarkable"), the principle seems a harmless nod to fancy-free individualism. But set in an adult business context of constant "change" and cutthroat price competition, where "winning the game has absolutely nothing to do with hard work and paying your dues" and "a constant stream of industry-busting insights and remarkable innovations" is the only guarantee of survival, the exhortation to uniqueness becomes terrifying and demoralizing. Fortunately, the cacophony of unsigned contributions from a "Group of 33" writers (Malcolm Gladwell and Tom Peters are in there somewhere) includes more reassuring and realistic lessons. There's a lot of New Economy histrionics ("They say, 'sure, we need change'"/ "I say, 'we need revolution now'"), but also comparatively restrained parables about marketing and customer service. Some writers note that competent imitation of proven ideas is often a better strategy than innovation, that self-effacing Bill Murray did better than self-aggrandizing Chevy Chase, and that, yup, hard work and paying your dues does pay off. The selections are for the most part brief and pithy, and while they don't add up to a coherent viewpoint, browsers are bound to find something that hits a chord.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"{An}engaging anthology of business homiletics...browsers are bound to find something thai hits a chord."

--This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover (October 20, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591841038
• ISBN-13: 978-1591841036
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,124 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quick bites on how to become remarkable, October 20, 2005

By	Meryl K. Evans "Content Maven behind meryl.net" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

Most essays clearly get the point across although a couple aren't as strong. The book does what it sets out to do: motivate the reader to get out there to put ideas to work to develop a remarkable organization that gets everyone buzzing.

Though the book explains the contributors gave up their by-lines for the book, I would've liked to know who wrote each story. There's no way to guess who wrote which story as few of them relate to the businesses associated with the people. What does knowing who wrote it do for me? It tells me who made the observation or how the person thinks. It's like sharing a quote without the author's name.

It's an easy, gratifying, and fast read. I read the whole thing in about an hour. Each essay is about two pages on the average. All the proceeds from the book go to three charities.

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Have they no shame?, January 31, 2008

By	David M. Giltinan (San Francisco) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I don't know what came over me in the bookstore. Mysteriously, when I got home, this book was at the bottom of the bag. It's an embarrassment.

I would have thought it impossible to come up with something more stupid, more openly contemptuous of the very managers purportedly being 'helped', than the horrendous "Who Moved My Cheese?" of a few years back. You remember, the one which portrayed employees as mildly retarded rodents. But one shouldn't underestimate the intellectual arrogance of the consultant class, nor the gullibility of corporate management.

This book is infinitely worse. It turns out that there is no apparent limit to the degree of atrocity of the rubbish that can be generated (and printed) in an "unprecedented collaboration of the world's smartest business thinkers". Despite the separation of material in this book into separate chapters, there is no individual attribution of responsibility for the individual chapters. This is not a good sign.

Seth Godin, the nominal 'editor', obviously sees no problem in publishing a book which, for any concrete piece of strategic advice that is included, hedges its bets by also advising the diametrically opposing strategy. Thus, to succeed companies should:

1a. Stick with what they know and do it well. (Focusing on your specialty is key).
1b. Not get stuck in the rut of what they know, they should branch out. (Focusing on your specialty is fatal)
2a. (page 23) "ignore your customers" (the customer is ignorant and wrong).
2b. (page 64) the customer is always right.
3a. (page 31) "Every organization that gets into trouble falters because it waited too long to change...". (urgency is crucial)
3b. (page 136) "Remarkable doesn't always mean right now" (urgency is detrimental).

And so on. Because chapter authors are not individually identified, should your coin toss happen to choose the wrong option between 1a and 1b, 2a and 2b, 3a and 3b, there can be no assignable blame.

However, at least the examples above have the virtue of giving concrete, specific advice. If that makes you nervous, there is also plenty of this kind of gibberish:

Plant rocks.
Embrace the power of storytelling.
Ignore the regulations. (I'm trying to imagine how this would play out in, say, the pharmaceutical or biotech industries).
Imagine there's a tiger loose in your office. Breathe the fear. Fear is good.
You are not a cog. You are not ordinary. In fact, you are remarkable.


But if you're dumb enough to buy this book, you're a complete moron. Even by the extraordinarily lax standards for business advice books, it sets a new low.

Zero stars.

36 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why not fill your "pasture" with multi-colored "cows"?, October 20, 2005

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    (VINE VOICE)

Q: What's this book all about?

Godin: This is a book about how and why to grow. It's not a book of facts or logical reasoning. Instead of lecturing you about how important and wonderful it is to do scary, brave, and remarkable things, [this book] paints a very different picture for you. My colleagues and I are intent on slipping some subversive ideas into your subconscious...ideas that will help you dream bigger dreams (though they might cost you some sleep as well). We believe one way to get past [what we call] the growth paradox is to avoid addressing it head-on. Instead of warning you about the dangers of stagnation, or promising you benefits of growth, we've decided to tell you some exemplary stories instead. Stories that are easy to read, memorable, and, most important, useful parables for putting growth to work in your own organization.

Q: What's the "growth paradox"?

Godin: Most organizations are paralyzed, stuck in a rut, staring at the growth paradox. On one hand, they understand all the good things that will come with growth. On the other, they're afraid, petrified that growth means change, change means risk, and risk could mean death. Nobody wants to screw up and ruin a good thing, so the organization just sits there, motionless.

Q: Individual contributions by your 33 colleagues aren't credited. Pretty unusual, perhaps even remarkable. You identify them. Why not credit them?

Godin: We did it because it makes it easier to read the book as a whole, to avoid being interrupted by the noise your brain makes as it shifts gears from one voice to another. That and it lets you guess who wrote what.

Those who have read any of Godin's earlier works already know that his thinking is highly unconventional as he relentlessly asks conventional questions such as Why? Why not? Are you sure? How do you know? What if? Have you thought about...? He delights to churning up waves atop gray matter. Heaven knows, he has opinions of his own. Also opinions about those opinions. However, to me, his greatest value as a thinker is his role as what I call a "provocateur of the intellect." That is to say, most of his best ideas focus on how to help others to formulate their own best ideas.

What we have in this volume is a synthesis but NOT a homogenization of what 33 business thinkers have to say in response to two questions:

1. If being remarkable is the only way to grow, how to become remarkable?

2. If the only barrier to being remarkable is one's ability to persuade associates to make it happen, how to do that?

It would be inaccurate to say that the responses are "all over the map" because, in fact, there is no "map." Within the responses, however, are what can correctly be viewed as time capsules of intellectual stimulation. Their impact will vary from one reader to the next. For me, some had significant impact; others none whatsoever.

When we first see a purple cow, it is remarkable. But after seeing hundreds....

What is remarkable this morning is merely familiar tomorrow (or this afternoon) and ho-hum thereafter. According to Godin, "A big moo is an extreme purple cow, the remarkable innovation that completely changes the game....Yes, a purple cow is what you need, but the big moo goes a step further. In order to grow [whatever] at the pace the markets demand, you and your colleagues must find the big moo, the insight that is so astounding that people can't help but remark on it." I agree, while presuming to suggest that the process of "remarkability" proceeds at a high rate of speed. To repeat, what is remarkable this morning is merely familiar tomorrow (or this afternoon) and ho-hum thereafter.

Ultimately and inevitably, the value of what Godin and his colleagues offer in this book will be determined entirely by the value of the ideas which they generate in the conscious and, more importantly, the unconscious mind of each reader.