From the viewpoint of Seth Godin and Rockstar Group, being remarkable is about capturing the attention and emotion of the audience. This slideshare presentation highlights 60 remarkable people and organizations. As you will see, they exude different characteristics of remarkability. With a range from Eminem, Crocs to Mother Theresa, they possess remarkable traits.
Why be remarkable? Be remarkable because it makes you successful, drives competitive advantage, allows people to talk about you in an emotional way and will make you happy.
What does it mean to be remarkable? I am using the definition of remarkable in the way that Seth Godin defined it and describes it in Purple Cow. Seth’s idea is pretty simple – find a small group that cares, give them something remarkable and make it easy to tell their friends. Remarkability yields competitive differentiation and is found at the edges. Being remarkable won’t yield the majority, at least at first. Rather, it will yield a very loyal niche of raving fans whom will share your story. Think about people like Eminem and Dennis Rodman. The have both been remarkable during their careers – Eminem remains remarkable, whereas Rodman does not. Andre Agassi was and is remarkable. He played and dressed at the edges. He continues to deliver at the edge with his foundation.
Remarkability does not last forever – you need to iterate. In the case of Eminem, he has iterated and is the top selling artist of the decade – yes, the decade. In the case of Dennis Rodman, not so much or at least not so well.
The good news is that it isn’t very difficult to be remarkable since most companies and people are not. Most play it safe so they don’t offend or place themselves in a state of perceived risk. Being remarkable can be risky, but I will suggest that being boring is actually a greater risk. Remarkable people and companies will always have an audience, customer base or job – that is not always the case for me-too people and companies. Who do you find to be remarkable? Don’t you want to be remarkable too?
See a slideshare about being remarkable here.
