If you want to stay ahead of the curve, it’s not enough to catch on to the
latest hot idea once it’s already hot. Coolfarming gives you practical, hands-on advice
on how to carry your own cool ideas over the tipping point, nurture a swarm of creative
collaborators to develop the next big trend for your own target group, and ride a wave of
innovation.
It also contains real-life examples of how to find, develop, and popularize the
trends of tomorrow. . .and reap the benefits.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments IX
1 HOW DO YOU TURN A COOL IDEA INTO A TREND? 1
The Four Steps of Coolfarming 4
Finding the Trendsetters 7
Growing Your Own Trends 9
Coolfarming Is More Than Managing a Project 11
Coolfarming the World Wide Web 17
Coolfarming Linux .21
2 SWARM CREATIVITY: The Force That Fuels Coolfarming 29
The More Swarms Communicate, the Better They Perform 34
Swarm Business Beats “Black Swans” 37
Lessons from the Beehive 40
Swarm Creativity in Ghana 55
Essentials of Coolfarming and Coolhunting 68
3 CREATORS: Building the Vision 73
COIN Leaders Are Not Leaders 75
Eating and Feeding Royal Jelly 77
Royal Pheromone—Nicholas Negroponte 79
Coolfarmers Are Coolhunters 82
How Do Leaders Get Selected? 86
Coolfarming Tourists—Immersing Yourself into the Swarm 88
Coolfarming a Palm Tree Plantation— Empowering the Community 93
Running an Internet Café in Ghana— Using the Swarm to Police the Swarm 95
Seven Guidelines for Creators 98
4 COINS: Building the Product 101
How Picasso Created Cubism Through a COIN 103
Gain Power by Giving It Up—Rotating Leadership 106
Start Out as a Small Fish in a Big Pond 111
Six Guidelines for COINs 114
5 CLNS: Teaching and Preaching the Gospel 117
Increasing Sales Through a CLN of Salespeople 120
Learning About Innovations Through the P&G Technology Entrepreneurs 124
Coolfarming in Twilight 129
Six Guidelines for CLNs 132
6 CIN: Building the Buzz 135
Immersion Gets the Swarm to Explosion—LEGO Mindstorms 137
Building the Heat—Yummy Industries 145
From Creators to CINs— Illustrating the Process Through Social Networks 150
Five Guidelines for CINs 155
7 COOLHUNTING: Find the Trends Through the Trendsetters 159
Coolhunting Combines the Wisdom of Crowds,
Experts, and Swarms 161
Coolhunting U.S. Presidential Candidates 168
Coolhunting the Value of Brands: Looking for the End of the Federer Era 174
Why the World’s Most Influential Intellectual
Is an Islamic Cleric 175
Predicting the Outcome of the Academy Awards 178
Predicting Stock Trends 180
Predicting the Actions of People Using Social Badges 181
8 WHAT MOTIVATES COOLFARMERS? 185
Coolfarmers Show Yhteisöllisyys and Gemeinsinn 186
Coolfarmers Are Ethical 190
COINs Need Cops 192
Coolfarmers Are Happy 193
Coolfarmers Are Altruistic 196
AFTERWORD: It’s Not Chief Executives, but Chief Creators We Need! 205
Notes 209
Index 215
About the Author 225
226 pages, Hardcover