I picked up Seth Godin’s Purple Cow book the other evening at Exclusive Books and sat down to start reading it when one of the stores staff members told me that they were closing in 5 minutes. Damn.

So, a spur of the moment thing - a purple cow moment - I bought the book.

And I am so glad I did. I haven’t yet finished the book, and am totally inspired by it. Here is a quick excerpt from the book that explains what a purple cow is:

While driving through France a few years ago, my family and I were enchanted by the hundreds of storybook cows grazing in lovely pastures right next to the road. For dozens of kilometres, we all gazed out the window, marvelling at the beauty. Then, within a few minutes, we started ignoring the cows. The new cows were just like the old cows, and what was once amazing was now common. Worse than common: It was boring.

Cows, after you’ve seen them for a while, are boring. They may be perfect cows, attractive cows, cows with great personalities, cows lit by a beautiful light, but they are still boring.

A Purple Cow, though. Now, that would be interesting. (For a while.)

The essence of the Purple Cow is that it must be remarkable. This book is about the why, the what, and the how of remarkable.

One thing that I really love about this book are some of Seth’s one liners. One of my favourites is “The opposite of remarkable is very good.”. New media is exactly what Seth is talking about in this book. No longer are ordinary television, print and radio advertising cutting it. Shouting no longer works, as there is so much noise around, that you and your product, no matter how much money you throw into the marketing pot, is going to get you heard.

Two companies I love are shining examples of Purple Cows. Carsonified and 37signals. They do remarkable. It also goes to show that you don’t need to be a massive conglomerate to do remarkable. In fact, the smaller you are, the better chance you have of being remarkable!