Last year Hunt (who has published three books about growing churches and Sunday-school classes) moved to Lubbock to launch 2020 Vision, his own consulting practice. His goal is to help southern Baptists create enough buzz to boost Sunday-school attendance to 20 million by the year 2020.
Whether it's jet-propelled or delicately pollinated, buzz is a business owner's best friend, provided you can keep up. Me, I'm high on recliners at the moment. Only certain recliners, not like the yucky gaff-taped model you see every week on Frasier, or the kind that looks like a puffy parka on steroids. I believe I speak for women everywhere when I say, "So what if it's cushy, it's ug-lee!"
Of course, I used to think Hush Puppies were dorky, and now they're just the coolest shoes around. (I have four pairs, bush league compared with real fanatics.) But recliners. Action Lane makes a leather club-chair style that I swear would fool anybody into thinking it couldn't recline to save its soul. Not only does it recline (in a fraction of the space the old models required), but it's so sleek, it actually won a design award, and you know what that can do for buzz. So now women like me are buzzing that these aren't our dads' recliners. Plus the ubiquity of home theaters and the relentless march of baby boomers toward old age is also pushing demand. Action Lane, located in Tupelo, Miss., reported record sales last year.
I've picked up some other current buzz bits while doing this story, and I'll pass them on now: Women and fly-fishing. Celebs (Richard Gere, Diane Keaton, Kelly Klein) who assemble photographs into gorgeous coffee-table books. London. Bilbao. Sydney. Anything from Levenger, the paper-and-pen company for people who love to write and read. El NiÑo. On-line grocery shopping. The smoothie--that yogurty concoction of decades past--is making a comeback, so I hear. Vitaceuticals. Uncommon pets, like sugar gliders and flying squirrels and hedgehogs. Clever packaging that makes you go "Wow!" (The company that makes Teton Glacier Potato Vodka promoted the product by sending out Idaho potatoes wrapped in gold foil with Teton Glacier labels affixed to them.) Brand names. Tofu. Ostrich fillets. Tequilas sold like single-malt scotches and beers made like champagnes. Bilingualism. Anything that's simple and beautifully designed: OXO vegetable peelers and can openers, Braun coffee makers, Odwalla's delivery vans. Shoulder pads for women, thankfully, are still way, way out.
The main thing to understand is that buzz is always going somewhere. If you try to stop it, buzz grows stronger. You can launch it from nothing, by giving stuff away and by using a spokesperson to seed conversational clouds. If your ear is good enough, you can pick up on the prevailing buzz and build on it. When it moves on--and it will--something new takes its place: a hot movie, a favorite food, a new buzzword. Sometimes big-time buzz even comes roaring back again, after a couple of dormant decades: miniskirts, fondue, that hideous lime-green color that just screams '70s, Saturday Night Live (when it was funny), minimalism.
One thing I can say with total confidence is that buzz is way, way more fun than any other act of communication. It's rebellious and contagious. You're in for a heck of a ride.
Nancy K. Austin is the coauthor, with Tom Peters, of A Passion for Excellence.
Research assistance for this piece was provided by Mike Hofman.
Read the companion piece " The Buzz Factory" by Nancy K. Austin in the May 1998 Inc.
How The Dancing Baby Got its Buzz
Step 1
In 1996, Unreal Pictures works with Kinetix to develop an animation-software package, Character Studio. Staffers design a demo character, a baby who dances.
Step 2
Animator and 3-D artist Ron Lussier refines the baby and shows it to coworkers in fall 1996. Someone sends the baby to a friend as an E-mail attachment.
Step 3
Like a chain letter, the baby E-mail is continually forwarded, through the end of 1996 and early 1997. Music has been added to the image.
Step 4
Web sites devoted to the Dancing Baby proliferate. In summer 1997, the New York Times's on-line CyberTimes runs a story on it.
Step 5
The baby appears in a January 1998 episode of TV comedy Ally McBeal. When McBeal wins two Golden Globes, the baby clip is shown. Kinetix garners a slew of press.
Buzz Through The Decades
60's
Timex
VW Beetles
Timothy Leary
troll dolls
plastics
miniskirts
love beads
70's
Rubik's Cubes
electronic calculators
sensitivity training
Volvo station wagons
mood rings
platform shoes
80's
Cabbage Patch dolls
Reeboks
total quality management
The One Minute Manager
premium ice cream
Trivial Pursuit
90's
cigars
snowboarding
Beanie Babies
reengineering
bottled water
VW Beetles
Martha Stewart
E-mail
