A few quotes from one of my favorite books of 2010 - Different: Escaping the Competitive Herd, By Youngme Moon. Full blog post here - http://www.arandomjog.com/2010/10/a-great-marketing-and-product-book-different/

1. Different: Escaping the
Competitive Herd
By Youngme Moon
Favorite Quotes
Captured By Josh Duncan
www.arandomjog.com

2. People, real people, view the world more organically.
They are idiosyncratic.
They are unpredictable.
They are beautifully disorganized.

3. In business, just as in life, sometimes the most illuminating
insights can emerge from the throwaways

4. People want to feel
fascinated by a
product or
experience, and will
pay more—often far
more—for a brand that
fascinates them.

5. The problem with asking
consumers what they
want is that not only will
they ask for things they’re
not getting, but their
requests will usually be
driven by what they see
being offered by the
competition

6. If aliens were to visit a grocery store or a
drugstore in this country, they would have to
conclude that we are a people hooked on the
pleasures of picking needles out of haystacks

7. If you’re looking for a unique
solution, the last thing you should
do is ask for a vote

8. The minute we choose to measure something, we are
essentially choosing to aspire to it. A metric, in other
words, creates a pointer in a particular direction. And
once the pointer is created, it is only a matter of time
before competitors herd in the direction of that pointer.

9. What this means is that these are categories
in which companies are literally running to
stand still.

10. There comes a point
beyond which we
are hard to impress.
There comes a point beyond which additional
improvement ceases to add value.

11. The product marketers who work in these companies have become
masters at the dual arts of repetitive augmentation and competitive
cloning.

12. The paradox of progress is that it
makes things better, until it
makes things worse

13. The objective is to not blend into the blur; the
objective is to stand out from it.
This is what it means to be
DIFFERENT .

14. This is the problem with shifts: They tend to happen in real time, which
means that there are going to be moments of ambiguity when remnants
of the old truth still hold together, even as remnants of it are falling
apart.

15. If you’re a brand manager, this is
precisely what you want—people who
not only love your brand but feel that
it’s the only brand able to deliver what
they’re looking for.

16. Restraint can be the new desire.
A whisper can be the new shout.

17. Differentiation is a
way of thinking.
It’s a mindset.
A commitment to engage with people.

18. Photo Credits
• Graffiti - http://www.flickr.com/photos/monsterpete/3016913303/sizes/l/
• Milk Crate -http://www.flickr.com/photos/mugley/2997879253/sizes/o/
• Bike - http://www.flickr.com/photos/twotone666/1433090066/sizes/o/
• Vote -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/european_parliament/4462502498/sizes/o/in/photo
stream/
• Hamster - http://www.flickr.com/photos/artbandito/2074456252/sizes/o/
• Shopping -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/suvcougar/883890246/sizes/o/in/photostream/
• Bakery -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesyu/13042995/sizes/o/in/photostream/
• Whisper -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eulothg/4829009536/sizes/l/in/photostream/