I'm currently reading
Blue Ocean Strategy. At the 21% mark, it's a great book, highly
recommended.
I'm making a connection with Seth Godin's idea of "remarkable"
(
video - the cow analogy @ 6:25). The cow analogy: you don't
stop to look at a cow - but you would if the cow was purple.
Because a purple cow is remarkable.
It seems to me that there is a similarity between Blue Ocean
Strategy and remarkable purple cows. They are similar but overlap
in the spectrum of samesness/difference:
It's a spectrum that runs from sameness to higher and higher
levels of difference (between competitors).
On the left end (of sameness) are commodities: products that are
identical regardless of the provider. There, you compete on price.
As you get into more differentiated products, there are other
potential points of competition. If you can outdo your competitors
in one or more areas, then you start to be more differentiated, but
you're still competing.
Remarkable is about being worth talking about. That can happen
by being better in even one significant way - but it must be
significant. So you can be remarkable but still be in
competition.
Blue Ocean Strategy takes it a step further: don't compete at
all. Instead of beating your competitor in one or more ways, you
choose many ways that you'll be different. I won't go into all of
it here (read
the book), but think about Southwest vs. other airlines. They
aren't just cheaper: they are cheaper and friendlier, and have less
frills and more connection points... they are a different offering.
That's a Blue Ocean: they don't just beat them in one way, they
define a new ocean.
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meta-aside: this is blog post #100 for me.