Web Ink Now

Does new marketing really work in Istanbul, too?

Last week, I was in Istanbul for the launch of The New Rules of Marketing & PR in Turkish. Of the 22 languages the book is being published in, I like the Turkish cover art the best. Thanks to my Turkish publishers MediaCat and to the book designer Kimac Cabuker for great work.

While in Istanbul, I delivered a presentation for 250 executives.

As some of you may know, when I begin a keynote, I always ask a series of questions to gauge the level of Web use compared to how people use mainstream media to research products and services and answer questions.

Many people just don't believe me when I say that people all over the world are using the Web in high numbers to research products and services.

So I pulled out my flip video camera and recorded the Q&A in Istanbul. Since I am recording myself while speaking it is a little jerky. And some audience members are listening to the simultaneous translation in Turkish. But the conclusion is clear.

Over the course of a year in front of more than 20,000 people from dozens of groups all over the world—including such diverse groups as college students, marketing professionals, and executives at Fortune 500 companies—the answers are surprisingly consistent. Between 5 and 20 percent of people answer "yes" to the first three questions, which means the ways that so many companies try to reach people today (direct mail, advertising, mainstream media) are only effective in reaching a small portion of potential customers. However, between 80 and 100 percent raise their hands for the last two questions.

Clearly, providing great stuff on the Web is critical for any business.

Rather than trying to convince buyers to pay attention to your products and services by dreaming up messages and ad campaigns, offering great Web content delivers interested people, from all over the world, right to your company's virtual doorstep.

This is a marketer's dream come true!

So, is social media global?

Many people ask: "Is social media global?"

Answer: YES

There is no doubt that we're in the middle of an international revolution in the way people communicate and smart organizations the world over are figuring out what it means for their marketplace.

One of my own little proof points comes in the U.S. mail every few weeks or so, another translated edition of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. As of this writing, the book is being published in 22 languages.

This past weekend I learned a little about how the Japanese translation came about. It should not surprise you that it was because blogging.

When the first edition of the book was published in English in June 2007, Kiyo-san talked about it on his blog. Masaki Ishitani then read Kiyo-san's post and also purchased the English language edition and he then recommended it to Ms. Kanbara who is CEO of social media marketing company News2U (they have a direct to consumer press release distribution service in Japan). These social media mavens then suggested to Nikkei, one of Japan’s most influential business publishers to do a Japanese language translation. The lead translator, Mr. Hirata, is also a blogger.

And Nikkei, my Japanese publisher, lost control by publishing a free PDF sample of The New Rules of Marketing & PR in Japanese.

The Japanese version of The New Rules of Marketing & PR ships next week from Amazon Japan.

Social media is indeed global.

Here are the translations. Some are complete (with links and covers here) and many are in progress.

Bulgarian

Portuguese (Portugal)
As novas regras de Marketing e Relacoes Publicas Note that my Portuguese publisher created a blog to promote the book.

Chinese (simplified)

Lithuanian
naujosios rinkodaros ir viešuju ryšiu taisykles

Russian

Polish

Chinese (Orthodox)

Czech
Nova pravidla marketingu a PR

Japanese
マーケティングとPRの実践ネット戦略

Korean

Portuguese (Brazil)
As novas regras de Marketing e do Networking

Vietnamese
Quy Luat Moi Cua PR Và Tiep Thj

Serbian
Nova pravila marketinga i odnosa s javnošcu

Turkish

Romanian

India

Arabic

German

Latvian
Jaunie marketinga un sabiedrisko attiecibu likumi

Bahasa Indonesian

Film producer builds pre-release buzz by making soundtrack available for free download

Readers of this blog know that a great way to build buzz and generate interest in products and services is to make select content available for free online. There's no doubt that free content sells. For example, my free ebook The New Rules of Viral Marketing has been downloaded over 330,000 times propelling my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR to bestseller status and helping to sell translation rights in 22 languages.

So it was with great interest that I had an opportunity to connect with Ryan Gielen, Executive Producer of The Graduates to learn about his strategy of making much the soundtrack of his new film available for free download. From this link, you can get a new song every week, or if you don’t want to wait, you can get the entire soundtrack for just 99 cents.

The Graduates, which will be released in May 2009, is an award-winning comedy about four friends who head to the beach without a care in the world, The film has been developing a loyal 18-34 year old following through a dozen sold-out festival and sneak preview screenings, advertised solely by word-of-mouth.

The film features the music of some incredible indie bands including:
The New Rags
Plushgun
Sonia Montez
The Mad Tea Party
Our Daughter's Wedding
The Smittens

Of course, the bands also benefit because people are exposed to their music and if they like it, may buy an album or see them live.

David Meerman Scott: How did the idea to offer the music free come about?

Ryan Gielen: "Marc Cuban wrote a great column on why studios should give away their soundtrack to every audience member, and advertise that as part of the ticket price. I forwarded it to my producers, even printed it out and put it on my wall, it's still there (I'm not a Mavs fan, but my best friends are, and turned me onto his blog).

Studios are extremely unlikely to ever adopt this model- for a lot of reasons- but we're not a studio film. We're a very indie film, with very indie bands on our soundtrack. Both the bands and the film need as much promotional help as possible, because we're competing with studio films, major marketing budgets, stars. We don't compete exclusively with low-budget films. We compete with everyone. So what do we have to offer our potential audience to set us apart? A great film and a great soundtrack isn't enough, we need people to know about it.

The film comes out in May, and we'll launch by giving away the first 20-25 minutes, free. But for now, we can only release the soundtrack. So we felt it made sense to give away half the soundtrack leading up to the release to build loyalty, show off the product, and compensate for a zero-dollar marketing budget, all in one fell swoop.

And when the film does well, everyone including the bands will make more than enough money to ease the pain of giving songs and 25 minutes of film away."

DMS: Was there any resistance from others on the film (producers, artists, etc.)?

RG: "My producers and I all loved this idea, and when we carefully explained it to the musicians they came along. I think it helped that everyone was aware of how hard the producers and I are working to promote the film and the individual bands on the soundtrack. They recognized that we're extremely dedicated to their success, not just our own. I think the knee-jerk reaction is to get really uptight about giving stuff away, even if it's just one song, but that's so shortsighted.

I should add that movie studios will probably be very slow to adopt this model, possibly because they load soundtracks with famous music that is too expensive to give away. But anyone outside the studio system can recruit brilliant music from tens of thousands of indie bands and use the soundtrack as a living, breathing flexible promotional tool.

This model is why iTunes has turned record stores into dinosaurs- anyone can preview the product on iTunes, we never have to buy blind again. Our giveaway is really just another version of the preview. If you're already letting people preview your music, why not give a song or two away, just to make sure everyone is listening to you, instead of the MILLIONS of other bands available."

DMS: What advice would you give musicians and filmmakers?

RG: "Music licensing is an enormous headache for indie filmmakers (and probably for ad agencies?), and we have enough challenges in front of us with this tiny little film to promote. We all agreed early on that we would go out and find great bands that hadn't been discovered because that would help us license the music, and they would be excited by the exposure. I expect that if we had pitched this to established, signed bands we would've been laughed out of the room.

But that's their own shortsightedness. The media landscape is so broad that we literally had 9,000 bands submit, something like 100,000 songs to choose from. If our little film takes off, people all over the country will discover new music and buy it through our website and iTunes. The worst-case scenario for even an established band is that we just crafted a $100,000 music video for them. The Rolling Stones should laugh us out of the room, but this is a good opportunity for many, many bands.

Bands need to take their future in their own hands. Track down indie filmmakers on IMDb and send them links. I listen to everything people send because I know they're as hungry as I am. One good indie film can set you up with a brand new audience around the country. One great indie can set you up around the world. If they were really clever bands would even insist on having a thirty-second or one-minute trailer cut exclusively with their song. The filmmaker would be likely to agree because it costs him nothing, and he gets a great piece of music, and the band just got a free music video.

Which, of course, they should give away immediately to any and all potential fans."

DMS: Nice work Ryan! You, your produces, and the bands that are participating are doing the right thing. I wish you great success with The Graduates!

Marketing Me: How smart digital natives reach potential employers

I just love that my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR is used in many college and university classes. Frequently I’ll find references to the book on students' and professors' blogs and I often end up with students as my new Facebook friends or Twitter followers. What a terrific connection to up and coming communicators!

Kyle F. Reinson is professor of Communication at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY, requires The New Rules of Marketing & PR for his COMM 376 class. Besides his teaching gig, Reinson trains business writers and consults on PR strategy for a variety of industries, although he specializes in real estate development.

COMM 376 prepares students for the practice of public relations and students are challenged to think managerially and tactically. They work with traditional press releases, special events and advertisements, Web-based applications and Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC).

One project the students worked in was a blog devoted to campus fashion. Motto: We love fashion and want to share it with the world!

Marketing Me

Another project the class worked on was to market themselves online.

"In the 'Marketing Me' project they either had to construct an online portfolio future employers could access or they had to exhibit thought leadership on an idea or concept that they found of interest," Reinson says. "I had very few rules. The class featured guest speakers from the Student Press Law Center, RIT and Kodak -- all helping the students to address how they might market themselves to future employers as digital natives."

If you're looking to hire someone to help with your online marketing and PR, take a look at these digital natives or those studying at other colleges and universities with strong online communications programs.

David Baker
Catherine Alton
Selena Cochran
Jim Ernst
Emily Urbanski

Attention marketers: Time to stop abusing Twitter

The smart folks over at HubSpot released an interesting State of the Twittersphere report for Q4 2008.

The report is based on real data pulled from hundreds of thousands of Twitter profiles of people who have used Twitter Grader. (If you are on Twitter and have not used Twitter Grader, you should check it out).

Here is a glance at some of the more interesting findings.
- Twitter is dominated by newer users - 70% of Twitter users joined in 2008
- An estimated 5-10 thousand new accounts are opened per day
- 35% of Twitter users have 10 or fewer followers
- 9% of Twitter users follow no one at all
- There is a strong correlation between the number of followers you have and the number of people you follow

I'm a big fan of Twitter and as of this writing, I have 4,346 followers to my feed @dmscott on Twitter, way off to the right of this chart. As people choose to follow me, I've learned a lot about Twitter and marketing because I spend a moment looking at each follower.

Twitter and marketing

Many marketers have now discovered Twitter. That's a good thing. And many marketers are using Twitter in very interesting and useful ways. However I'm seeing more and more Twitter feeds created not with a person's name "Mary Smith at XYZ Company" but instead the feed is created with the company name instead "XYZ Company." There are also a lot of Twitter feeds from causes, religious groups, nonprofits, organization, sports teams and the like. While I am okay with that under certain circumstances (like using Twitter as a way to say that the club meeting is cancelled because of snow), I am not a fan of Twitter feeds from inanimate objects without a person behind the feed.

For example, today I was followed by @acne__ Yes, that acne. Like in teenagers. The site associated with the acne Twitter feed is Best Acne Treatment, a products site. While I'm sure acne is an important issue, what the heck does it have to do with me? And should I follow Acne back?

While I'm sure that some people may want to follow their favorite company, nonprofit, or group, I'm seeing many of these feeds as a derivative of spam because they just prattle on about their products and services all day.

Twitter is not an advertising tool.

I predict that in 2009 there will be a backlash against company Twitter accounts and either the Twitter community will need to self-police or the good people who run Twitter will need to make rules.

It may be tough to do, but I wonder if Twitter Grader or the next State of the Twittersphere report can identify the ratio of real people on Twitter vs. inanimate objects.

For more about Twitter as a marketing tool for their business, check out the HubSpot webinar How to Use Twitter for Marketing & PR.

Disclosure: I am on the HubSpot board of advisors.

New marketing at work: BitDefender and the hip new Malware City site reach internet security geeks

Regular readers of this blog know that one of the things that I discuss regularly is the big issue we all struggle with: How to convince the bosses, management, boards, sales teams, and other people within our organizations that we should be focused on new marketing.

I've offered suggestions in blog posts such as Answering the ultimate question: "How do I convince my boss of the ROI of new marketing?" and another post The one question to ask new marketing & PR detractors.

However, many people have written me and asked for case examples that show how others have convinced bosses to move forward and then successfully implemented a social media strategy. So here is a terrific example. I hope to have more in the coming months.

Vitor Souza is Global Communications Manager at BitDefender, creator of internationally certified security software, used by tens of millions of people and sold in more than 100 countries. A true global company, Souza works from offices in Mountain View, CA and Bucharest, Romania. This is a particularly interesting example because the market that BitDefender serves is very competitive and product differentiation is not easy to do.

Souza read my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR and the ideas resonated with him so he purchased ten copies for others on his team as well as the BitDefender CEO. Souza then got approval to bring his team to the U.S. to attend my New Rules of Marketing full-day seminar.

"After our seminar my team and I highlighted all the main points and presented to the executive team," Souza says. "We had a Q&A section and with a bit of discussion it was realized that we knew more about what is going on today with the new rules." Souza and his team also put together a series of stories from mainstream media (publications that his management deemed credible) to share. Together with this information, the team presented an action plan to the management team that required very little budget.

What I like about this approach to convincing management is that it was presented in steps over several months and the approach was very well thought out. In particular, an action plan was presented. Instead of saying "we should start a blog" there was a clear plan for how to do it.

"They gave us a 3-month trial on the program," Souza says. "And I made sure we over delivered the results."

Introducing Malware City

A cornerstone of the new marketing approach was the development of a new site called Malware City, launched in mid-2008, focused on key influencers within the IT security community. The new site was not a redesign of the existing company site, but instead was an informational supplement to the BitDefender main site that is used to sell BitDefender products.

"We launched Malware City for people that are interested in the latest information on internet threats," Souza says. "It has a blog from our lab analysts, educational materials for IT guys, and many other interactive tools."

Understanding buyer personas

Souza and his team clearly understood that the best online initiatives are those that deliver specific information tailored to a particular buyer persona. The Malware City site was developed to appeal to three different buyer personas:
1) Information Technology security press (both mainstream press and social media)
2) BitDefender users
3) A group Souza describes as "internet security geeks" -- the most important buyer persona for Malware City.

The Malware City site appeals directly to the internet security geek buyer persona with language such as: "Our citizens are wise warriors fighting malware, willing to share their knowledge in order to breed an army ready to battle security threats. Want to join us? Demonstrate your skills and we will be glad to welcome you into our family."

"Malware City is the property of BitDefender," Souza says. "We didn't brag about it but didn't hide it either. We want it to be a site dedicated to all interested on their online security, and not only to BitDefender users."

An important aspect of Malware City are blogs such as The Spam Omelette. "The Malware City Blog is open to everyone willing to put a post there if relevant for its theme," Souza says.

I asked Souza: How is Malware City different from traditional forms of marketing (like advertising and direct mail)?

"Instead of pumping them with irrelevant messages and interrupt their activities, we offer helpful and relevant information that our visitors are interested in," he says. "And we ask nothing in return. We can see from the subscriber's comments or the emails that we received that they consider Malware City a helpful source of information. Other clear evidence is increasing number of visitors, from the fact that they are talking about the site on their blogs, or they are bookmarking it."

Editorial comment

I love Malware City. It is a terrific example of what excellent information, created especially for buyer personas can do. Unlike product advertising hype, Malware City shows potential customers that BitDefender is a smart player in the market.

BitDefender video channel

There are also a BitDefender video channel that includes BitDefender produced videos such as the funny Guy Goes Nuts In Office!

What are the results?

Souza says that they have successfully achieved the one important result that they were focused on: Building an active community of users interested in malware and antimalware software.

"People subscribe to our RSS feeds, to our weekly newsletter, they use the tools available in the Fan Zone section to promote the site," Souza says. "We receive feed-back emails, links to our site, comments and a good number of new and returning visitors. We have been getting great results out of this site. Very often our subscribers speak with us, so we are also gathering great feedback."

What do the bosses say?

"Now everyone in the company is behind us. My online communications and social communications team has grown by three more employees and I plan on hiring two more at the beginning of 2009. We still have a lot to learn and improve but we are trying to do as many actions as possible, and get immediate feedback."

Nice job Vitor! I hope your story is helpful to others looking to implement these ideas in their organizations.

How David Murray found a new job via Twitter

On Monday I posted on something I’ve been thinking about for a long time: The New Rules of Marketing & PR also apply to the job search. In my post Downsized? Fired? Here are the new rules of finding a job I talked about how those looking for a new opportunity need to think not just like the seller of a product (that's what a resume does) but also think like a publisher of interesting information that companies that may want to hire you will find and be eager to consume.

It seems like every article I've read about job search focuses on traditional ways to find a job: write a great resume and network like crazy. While I'm not suggesting that those looking for work should abandon these efforts, there are many really interesting ways to use social media to conduct a job search.

I was particularly excited that David Murray commented on my post, saying that he found his new job via Twitter. Murray agreed to share his story here.

Murray says that after being laid off, he immediately did the traditional thing, completing his resume and calling people. But he realized that he would have to change gears and pay attention to blogs, social networks, and online communities.

He already had a Twitter account @DaveMurr, so he reached out to his followers and publicly announced that he was looking for work.

"I guess you could say I used a new tool for old school networking," Murray says. "The response was overwhelming and I received several leads and opportunities that were far more fruitful than my previous attempts."

Murray then hit on a creative way to use Twitter Search in his job search. "I came across Chris Brogan's comment how he used Twitter Search to keep track of his 10,000 followers using RSS feeds," Murray says. "So I simply began entering keywords in Twitter Search like: Hiring Social Media, Social Media Jobs, Online Community Manager, Blogging Jobs, etc. I then pulled the RSS feeds of these keyword conversations into Google Reader and made it a habit to check these first thing in the morning everyday."

Bingo.

Murray came across conversations related to his keywords and if something sounded like a good fit for him, he took the liberty of introducing himself via Twitter. "Many times when inquiring about the open positions, the jobs had not been officially posted," Murray says.

How cool that on Twitter you can express interest in a job opportunity that hasn't even been announced yet? It’s like inside information.

Hired.

It didn't take long for Murray to land the perfect job. He's now happily employed as Assistant Webmaster, Client Services for The Bivings Group.

As Heather Huhman, who writes the Entry Level Careers pages for Examiner.com says: “The Internet is changing just about everything – the internship/entry-level job search included. Gone are the days of printing out your cover letter and resume on 'special' paper, sticking both in an envelope and mailing the application package off. We are officially in the Job Search 2.0 era."

Some people might argue that this technique only works to find jobs related to social media and online marketing (like Murray did). While it's true that social media savvy people like Murray are first to use these techniques, I'm convinced that they'd work for many other kinds of roles too. And here's an added benefit. If you're an accountant, or salesperson, or production manager looking for work, then you're really going to stand out from the crowd of 1,000 resumes if you use social media to find a job.

Here's an added bonus tip for reading this far.

What comes up when you Google your name with the name of your most recent employer? Potential employers do that all the time. And you can influence what they see! Remember, on the Web you are what you publish.

Answering the ultimate question: "How do I convince my boss of the ROI of new marketing?"

During my keynote presentation kicking off the Inbound Marketing Summit, Brian Halligan, HubSpot CEO asked me "the ultimate question."

A version of this question is asked at almost every one of the 60 or so keynotes I deliver each year. Frequently it is the very first question asked.

The question is usually asked something like this: "At my company we measure sales leads and press clips. So how do I explain to my boss the value to giving up control of my marketing and engaging my customers via social media? How do I measure the ROI of 'new marketing' via social media and creating information of value to my buyers?"

Warning: My answer contains a cynical component as well as a practical component.

Thanks to Bob Collins for formatting this one question into a short video. Direct link to the video here.

Ten marketing lessons from the Barack Obama Presidential campaign

I wanted to make a few observations about why Obama was elected to be the 44th President of the United States.

This is a marketing blog, not a political blog. These are not political observations, but thoughts about marketing. It doesn't matter who I supported or voted for or who you supported or voted for us all to learn from Obama's victory.

1. Social media and the new rules of marketing are essential. The other campaigns seemed to be fighting using the playbooks of past campaigns. Hillary Clinton was relying on what worked to elect Bill Clinton. John McCain was relying on what worked to elect George W. Bush. Obama realized that to become president, he had to deliver information to people online as a primary tool, not an afterthought. In my opinion, Barack Obama is the most successful "new marketer" in history.

2. Embrace citizen journalists. My friend Steve Garfield is a well-known videoblogger. He's got tens of thousands of followers. During the primaries, Garfield attended several rallies held by various candidates. When he asked to go to the media section at a Hillary Clinton rally in Boston he was tuned away (because he was "not a real journalist") and had to cover it from the back of the crowd. However, Obama's campaign immediately brought him up to the media section where he was placed with print reporters from the major dailies and TV crews from the networks. The Obama campaign understood that citizen journalists have immense power.

3. Clearly and simply articulate what you want people to believe. From the beginning, Obama was about "change." The word "change" was everywhere in his campaign, so much that the entire world knew what Obama stood for. I asked a group of 300 people in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia what was the one word they think of when I say Barack Obama and all in the room said "CHANGE". Amazing. Quick: What do the following candidates stand for? John McCain, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, or any others. Hard to say isn't it?

4. People don't care about products and services, instead they care about themselves and about solving their problems. Obama understood that his job was to solve the problems facing voters. He also knew that voters were buying into solutions, not just an individual. Did you notice in speeches how often Obama referred to his audience compared to how often he referred to himself? How about the other candidates in the primaries? How about John McCain? The other candidates talked about themselves a hell of a lot more than Obama did. Obama was the most Tuned In candidate.

5. Don't obsess over the competition. Did you notice that Obama rarely talked about his competition? Once in a while he would, but mainly he talked about the problems facing voters. McCain talked a lot about Obama. Interestingly, Clinton and McCain both tried to associate themselves with the "change" word (the competition's word) but both failed because people already associated it with Obama.

6. Put your fans first. Obama had many ways to make an inclusive campaign and alert fans about developments first. I found out on Twitter that Joe Biden was to be Obama's running mate. Amazing. Obama told his fans first BEFORE mainstream media. (Of course, smart reporters were following his Twitter feed).

7. People don't like tele-marketing. Do you like getting phone calls at dinnertime? McCain supporters seem to think so as they unleashed a barrage of so called robo-calls, which seemed to have backfired.

8. Negativity doesn't sell. Obama’s theme of hope and the idea that life can be better with change was uplifting to many people. The other campaigns of fear didn’t work this time around.

9. When someone becomes a customer, they want to talk about it. Obama tapped over 3 million donors who provided $640 million to the campaign. The majority contributed small amounts online. Once someone donates money, they have a vested interest in the candidate. So lots of small donors are better than a few fat cats.

10. Take time for your family. (Okay maybe this isn’t really a marketing observation). Obama took time to be with his wife and daughters when he could have done another rally somewhere. He took several days at the end of the race to spend time with his ailing grandmother. While he was pulled away from "work" I think people respected his devotion to family.

Anyone have any other observations?

Marketers can learn a great deal from political campaigns. I encourage you to take a look at these ten lessons and apply them to your business.

Announcing the winners of The Cool Factor challenge

Last week, in partnership with Del Breckenfeld, author of The Cool Factor: Building Your Brands Image through Partnership Marketing, I announced a challenge on my blog: Define "cool" in two sentences or less. Many thanks to all of you who entered. There were some great entries.

The winner receives an amazing Fender® Classic 72 Telecaster® Deluxe guitar that was used in a concert in front of 40,000 fans and is signed by Billy F. Gibbons.

Congratulations to the winner, Bryan Bliss. You can read Bryan's blog or check out his Twitter page. Brian’s entry was:

"Cool is knowing exactly which rules and conventions to bend, having the confidence to try your own way and the strength to succeed. Cool is more than being trendy or fashionable but excelling at inspiration and creativity in a way that invigorates the observers otherwise dreary and uninspired lives."

The winner was chosen by Shannon Vargo of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. the publisher of The Cool Factor (and my latest books). Note that neither Del Breckenfeld nor I had any part in selecting the winner.

In addition to the winner, there are ten runners-up who have been selected to receive a complimentary copy of The Cool Factor as well as the brand new paperback edition of my book The New Rules of Marketing & PR. The runners up are:

Joel Johnson: "Cool is the nudge that gets us to look up from where we are and to imagine ourselves a little closer to who we dream we could be."

Colin Clark: "Cool occurs where brilliance and indifference meet. Cool is the most amazing thing you've ever seen in your life that refuses to acknowledge its own impact."

Gavin Heaton: "Cool cuts a swathe through the mundane yet is unaware of its impact on the world around it."

Paul Dettman: "When you see something that is cool, you instantly become an inch taller and a pound lighter. Cool just makes you feel... great."

Tim Kaschinske: "For me, Cool is a moment in time where everything comes together in such a perfect way that a magnificent experience is created. In those moments, the only possible response is 'Cool!'"

Bobby Lehew: "Cool is a personal metamorphose: when excellence becomes a protest against mediocrity, life becomes a calculated exploit, and success becomes a state of mind; when you live intentionally, love magnanimously, and leave regrettably - you are cool."

Mark R. Hinkle: "Cool is an intangible aesthetic tempered by eccentricity colored by indifference."

Jaculynn Peterson: "Cool is communicating and connecting on a level that transcends languages, cultures, boundaries, barriers, and inhibitions of the heart – just like music."

Jim Benson: "Cool: An event or object of awesome social value."

Jon Mierow: "Cool is being comfortable with who you are no matter who you are with or what you are doing."

Thanks to all who entered. Now we know how to define cool.