Coolfarming: Turn Your Great Idea into the Next Big Thing

Citation

Paswan, A. (2012), "Coolfarming: Turn Your Great Idea into the Next Big Thing", Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 21 No. 2, pp. 148-148. https://doi.org/10.1108/10610421211215616

Coolfarming focuses on an important question of how to grow and nurture new ideas that would become market leaders. Gloor contends that Coolfarming is a logical step beyond Coolhunting, his earlier book which focused on how to seek and find new ideas and trends. To that extent, these two books seem to resemble the two broad stages of human evolution – hunter gatherer to farming and cultivating mindset – with new revolutionary ideas as the coveted prize. This book relies very heavily on natural science and draws parallels between how natural swarms –, e.g. bees and ants – use the group to get to the best food source and use it to maximize the survival of the group. While the analogy is intuitively appealing, it does not go far enough to establish the parallel between how swarms locate and use good food sources and how entrepreneurs and firms can grow and nurture good ideas, because the swarms often are hunters gatherers.

Gloor starts out by outlining the four steps of coolfarming (p. 4):

1. 1.

   The creator comes up with the cool idea.

2. 2.

   The creator recruits additional members to form a collaborative innovation network (COIN).

3. 3.

   The COIN grows into a collaborative learning network (CLN) by adding friends and family.

4. 4.

   Outsiders join, forming a collaborative interest network (CIN).

He then provides support for these four steps by using examples from the world wide web and Linux. Finally, the differences between project management and coolfarming – intrinsic motivation, self‐organization, disruptive innovation, and dynamic development (p. 17) – are discussed.

The second chapter elaborates the dynamics behind coolfarming by using the swarm analogy. After identifying a key success factor – i.e. communication among bees and the notion of self organizing – the book illustrates the existence of the four steps (Creator, COIN, CLN, and CIN) of coolfarming in swarm creativity. Further justification for the use of swarm analogy and the four steps of coolfarming is provided by using the example of a community marketplace (Makola market) in Ghana – i.e. the creative ways in which the Makola market deals with problems is paralleled with the ways a swarm of bees creatively deals with problems.

The next four chapters in the book focus on the four stages of coolfarming (Creator, COIN, CLN, and CIN) and elaborate on the finer details of each stage and offer some very practical normative suggestions. For example, seven guidelines for creators are detailed in Chapter Three:

1. 1.

   Choose your swarm.

2. 2.

   Listen to the swarm.

3. 3.

   Immerse yourself into the swarm.

4. 4.

   Share with the swarm.

5. 5.

   Demand a lot – from others and, most of all, from yourself.

6. 6.

   Be a perfectionist.

7. 7.

   Do not be afraid to have a different opinion.

For COINs, six guidelines are suggested in Chapter Four:

1. 1.

   Waggle dance for the best honeybees.

2. 2.

   Understand that COIN members work for the greater good and an ego boost.

3. 3.

   Allow COINS to go through multiple phases.

4. 4.

   Accept rotational leadership.

5. 5.

   Be a small fish in a big pond.

6. 6.

   Ask for and give advice.

Similarly, for CLNs, the six steps (Chapter 5) include:

1. 1.

   Let the CLN teach the COIN.

2. 2.

   Advertise your success to find more success.

3. 3.

   Be nice to the members of your CLN.

4. 4.

   Learn about your products from your market.

5. 5.

   Find the attributes of cool.

6. 6.

   Find the locations for the hive.

Finally, Chapter Six offers five guidelines for CINs:

1. 1.

   Delegate power to the swarm.

2. 2.

   Organize loosely, knit tightly.

3. 3.

   Develop the idea first, making money will follow later.

4. 4.

   Build up the heat.

5. 5.

   Use immersive techniques to get the swarm to explode.

After presenting these normative guidelines, the author reverts back to his earlier book and argues that coolfarmers are also coolhunters, and hence must have the ability to hunt for cool and innovative ideas.

In Chapter Eight, Gloor focuses on the motivation behind coolfarners. One of the key characteristics of coolfarners identified is being community minded – specifically, propensity to form communities and public spirited. Together, they capture a mindset where the emphasis is on making everyone benefit.

A second characteristic of a coolfarmer is adherence to strict ethical code. Other characteristics of a coolfarmer include being altruistic and deriving a sense of happiness by helping others. The book ends with an afterword that the business world needs coolfarmers (people who identify, promote and cultivate creativity and cool and trendy ideas) more than CEOs.

In conclusion, the book deals with an interesting idea – how to be someone who helps create, identify, promote, and cultivate cool trends (i.e. a coolfarmer). The concepts discussed and normative guidelines suggested in this book are intuitively appealing.

The book also uses plenty of examples to anecdotes to support the arguments presented. I just wish the author would have also used the evidences and research findings from the rich body of literature in areas such as the new product development, brand community, and entrepreneurship. I would have liked to have seen some of these studies referenced here. Notwithstanding this limitation, there is no doubt that the topic is critical and would provide food for thought for new product development managers, entrepreneurs, and trendsetters.