12 Months of White Pages - ugh!, originally uploaded by mdconrad.

Only 7 days into it, the first book goes through the washing machine… the carnage!!!

So what is the best reaction when a competitor beats you to market with a product or service? I think maybe the best you can do it begin to pull it apart and learn from it - methods of improvement, expanded or constrained functionality, etc. - but the moral hit you take can be tough on the team. On the flip side, I think it can also be great to get the affirmation that an idea is solid when others find enough merit to do it themselves.

When I first discovered the Jack Spade brand I felt that sort of guilty pleasure you get when listening to a top-forty musician who you really actually really kind-of like, but won’t admit it. The queen of the hand-bag, Kate Spade, had worked her way into the man’s world and planted a very quiet, very fruitful seed - Jack Spade. There’s an element of design involved in the Jack Spade products that hints at refinement and that is all fine and good. But a lot of products out there do that - especially with wallets and messanger bags. So what was it about the brand that was so alluring to me?It was quiet. There are few brands out there that manage to be quiet and yet disruptive. They build affinity through a direct response to a customer need - in this case my desire for a clean-lined bag with simple colors and features, but with bold accents that remind the passerby “hey, I’m not a stuffy business guy - look at the orange on this bag would ya’?!”Now the manner in which “quiet brands” get introduced is critical to their success in that capacity. They must seep, slowly into our lives. They are more likely to be introduced by a friend or loved one than by and ad in a magazine. They are often the result of those “mavens” that Gladwell characterizes in “The Tipping Point.” Some other examples of quiet and no-so-quiet brands might include: Land Rover- not BMW, Tsubo - not Steve Madden, Phaidon - not Chronicle, Cassina - not Herman Miller,

Wall Sculpture at Kris & Michaels, originally uploaded by d5d.

Saw this great piece at Kris and Michael’s tonight.