Swarm Creativity Blog

Recently (see my previous blog post) I was interviewed by a journalist from the Washington Post about how cool Washington is. Her conclusion was that DC is not cool. This led to a backlash of negative reactions - I got my share of it also, see the post here and the comments on the original story. I would like to point out there are very cool places in Washingon. There is for example the hotel I stayed in one of my last trips to DC, the Tabard Inn , a very cool boutique hotel. But there are also less cool things in DC, like when I was scheduled to give a presentation on Collaborative Innovation at the World Bank, and was not let in for 45 minutes because security was so tight they could not find anybody with the right credentials to identify me. But actually it would be quite easy to make Washington very cool. Cool places are made by cool people, and one of them just started in his new job last week. It’s now up to all of us to get more of the same to Washington!

Yesterday the Washington Post published a timely opinion piece on “how to make D.C. cool” , pondering the question whether Washington D.C. could ever be cool. The journalist had interviewed me for this article, and the discussion with her got me thinking about what it takes to make a place “cool”. Why is it that NYC, SF, or Boston are cool, while D.C, a popular tourist destination, seems in dire want of coolness? Let’s first look at what makes things cool. “Cool” things have four properties. First, they need to be fresh and new , we don’t want yesterday’s stale old ideas, but radically new and better ones. Apple is cool, Microsoft is not. Why? By ushering in a new era in computers with the Macintosh, in music players with the iPod, or in mobile phones with the iPhone, Apple has shown a unique knack in coming up with beautiful new things. Microsoft may be more profitable, and having grown to much bigger size with its copycat strategy, but nobody has ever accused it of being cool – tha...

Coolhunt Log #18 Wednesday, May 9, 2007 On Stage: Scott Cooper, MIT research affiliate with the Sloan School of Management, co-author of Coolhunting Peter Gloor, MIT research affiliate with the Sloan School of Management, co-author of Coolhunting Steve O'Keefe, moderator MODERATOR: I'm calling from my home office in New Orleans. Could you tell us where you're calling from? PETER: I'm calling in today from my home office in Switzerland. SCOTT: I'm calling from my home office in Newton Highlands, MA. MODERATOR: I'd like to encourage everyone to see the review of Coolhunting in the Wall Street Journal. Any comments on the review from the authors? SCOTT: Wow! I like that it's above the fold. I like that it also reviews Chasing Cool, and uses our book to talk about the misconceptions of the other book. They mention how we differ from the marketer authors of the other book by our different definition of "cool." And even though we never mention Jessica Si...