I've never been an enormous fan of Seth Godin as a how-to-get-it-done man but I am impressed by his ability to get the ideas churning. (i confess to yelling at his books several times with a loud 'WHAT?') Tom Peters Company offered a Purple Cows and Wow projects webinar yesterday that featured Seth and the notion has stuck with me since.

Seth Godin's Site - - - Tom Peters Site

If you are driving down a road and see hundreds of cows, they begin to blur. But if one of those cows was purple you would certainly be thinking about that purple cow. Over simplified yes, but an interesting starting point for a conversation on differentiate or die.

Certainly this principle can be applied to products and there are many good examples - take the iPod for example. There are many MP3 players out there, but the iPod is definitely a purple cow.

How does the principle apply to services? Can you have a purple cow service company without an enormous cheese factor?

Take for example Geek Squad. This is a gimmick that works because the IT industry has an accepted weirdness factor.

Could we create a purple cow in a more stoic service industry like visiting nurses?

More specifically, how does one accomplish this in a pure e-tailing environment where ideas are easily lifted and copied? Add this to the challenge of creating innovations that leapfrog the competition or keep them from creating points of parity and a desire to outthink rather than outspend. Certainly a huge chunk of cash could be spent in advertising or high-technology but are there other alternatives?