You can't create cool. Can you?

Let's face it.  Everyone is envious of Apple right now.  They were the king of cool with the iPod.  But then they got out cooled.  By the iPhone. 

Who doesn't want to be the iPod or iPhone of their industry? 

But that's the rub.  The more you chase cool, the less likely you are to catch it.  That's the premise of the book Chasing Cool: Standing Out in Today's Cluttered Marketplace by Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman.  The book interviews brand visionaries about how they discovered, invented or in some cases, tripped over cool.

Here are a few cool deal breakers:

• Decisions by committee
• Trying to be like someone else
• Not having a central vision/brand understanding
• Being slow on the trigger
• Being afraid to offend

How many of those are you guilt of?

The book is an interesting read.  While it gets you fired up, wanting to be cool -- my beef with the authors would be that 90% of their examples are retail, consumer products.  It's a lot easier to be cool selling an iPod than it is being an accountant. 

That doesn't  make it a bad read.  Just fair warning. There's still plenty of inspirational stories and solid reminders of how we can better invite cool into our companies.  But I would have liked it if they went one step further and helped more with the "how to" section.

(Full disclosure: The publishers sent me a copy of the book.)