Semi-Academic Eric’s Reviews > Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable > Status Update

Salt is not boring - eight more ways to bring the cow to work: No more Morton boring salt. Then other "interesting" salts entered the market. {There are some questions worth considering in this section.}

Here's a great Google story I heard from Mark Hurst: It turns out that the folks at Google are obsessed with the email they get criticizing the service. They take it very seriously.

Go take a design course. Send your designers to a marketing course. And both of you should spend a week in the factory.

To leverage links with "sneezers":
1. Get permission from people you impressed... not to spam or just to squeeze out extra margins "with leftovers." This is permission to alert them about the next Cow.
2. Give them the tools (and the story) they'll need to share your idea.
3. Once you've crossed the line from remarkable to profitable business, let a different team milk it.
4. Reinvest. Do it again. Launch another.

By making a tin that just begged to be shared, Altoids made it easy for early adopters to sneeze the product to the rest of the market. The result: one of the most profitable candy introductions ever.

Services that are worth talking about get talked about.

An ideavirus is an idea that spreads. A brand is an idea.

It's not an accident that some products catch on and some don't. When an ideavirus occurs, it's often because all the viral pieces work together. How smooth and easy is it to spread your idea? How often will people sneeze it to their friends? How tightly knit is the group you're targeting-do they talk much?...

"Instead of trying to use your technology and expertise to make a better product for your users' standard behavior, experiment with inviting the users to change their behavior to make the product work dramatically better."

I thought about how Franklin Quest had training for their planners.
Then, the Apple store offered complimentary training, in-store and online.
Also, doTerra does this with their essential oils.

Awareness Is Not the Point: In Sergio's own words, "Kmart has plenty of awareness. So what?"