The Cool Curve – A hot new concept like the Long Tail or Tipping Point?

I was going to put this into a Fluffy link but think this deserves a full post by itself. Toby Moores gave a presentation on the idea of the cool curve. I got the video via Sizemore.

Moores is the CEO of SleepyDog, makers of the Playstation game amongst other creative projects. In the video he talks about being creative and matching your output and work to an audience and potential clients. He talks about Van Gogh being highly talented but his curve did not align with potential audiences of his time. It’s a fascinating talk and concept and might help people to guide their own work so as to tie into a paying audience. All without becoming a sell out. Worth watching.

12 Responses to “The Cool Curve – A hot new concept like the Long Tail or Tipping Point?”

  1. David says:

    Love the ‘Tob the Strobe’ star chart of brilliance! 😀

    The video makes an incredible amount of sense – lots of thought food.

  2. Jim Carroll says:

    I’ll wait for Gerry McGovern’s take on it…… 😉

  3. Parnell says:

    Cool curve dynamics might make for more awareness in business logic but when applied to personal development, a little fixed judgment together with a modest fraction of thinking outside of our own comfort zone would prove more beneficial. Shit!! Hold on a minute! Toby Moores , galvanizes that point perfectly well. Lest I think he did…

  4. Damien says:

    @jim I kid you not, Gerry has introduced the idea of ‘the Long Neck”

  5. Walter says:

    @Damien Neck like a jockey’s bollox more like.

  6. Jim Carroll says:

    Damien – I knew I had read that somewhere. Surely no-one is taken in by that auld shite anymore? Are they?

  7. Toby Moores says:

    Hey Damien – thanks for the write-up. I guess it is self evident that you will be more successful in what ever you do if you produce stuff that other people like or want. So on one level the Cool Curve simply shows graphically what we already know.

    The bit that got me excited was the power to model schematically the relationship dynamics of two or more people/groups (yeah sorry it that sound like new shite! – it does work for me though).

    The bit that is still lumpy is the geology of ideas bit at the end. It is clear that any group, business, institution or hobby tribe has its own cool curve and that zoomed out it is reminiscent of a landscape. It is also true that water is often used as an analogy for conversation. Whether ideas as grains of sand stands up is yet to be seen!

    Cheers Toby

  8. Damien says:

    Toby, I’m not worthy.

  9. […] a nice piece of synchronicity. I just came across the video below on Mulley.net: “The Cool Curve” by Toby Moore CEO of Sleepydog talks about ideas that are in the comfort zone that exists somewhere between far […]

  10. Fearghal says:

    Nice idea. I love applying nice easy to understand graphs and quantitive tools to the complex world of quality.

    Any views on where a circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle fits on the cool curve?