Friday, July 18, 2008

Searching for Wow!

Tom Peters wrote a book about Wow!

It was a brilliant choice of topic if only because we all know of products and services that spark the Wow! reaction; ones we can barely wait to tell friends about or show off.

But here's a question: Do we not achieve Wow! because it is difficult to imagine or is it because we get immersed in moving from Point A to Point B and fail to look for the extraordinary at all?

I suspect the latter. You can find teams of very bright people who are busy crunching numbers, preparing a flow chart for this and documenting the justification for that and all the while they are turning out terminally boring products. They are realistic in all matters but one: creating a memorable item.

As with many a marvelous thing, asking for it is the first step. What are we producing that can be described as Wow!? What will cause people to say, "You've got to see this, try this, taste this, experience this?" That should be a standard question for each major brainstorming session.

The Wow! product or service need not be created from scratch. It may only require the retooling or modification of a current item. Combine this with that and it may be a winning recipe.

It may be Wow!

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