How Cool Are You?
Ever wondered what makes people cool – or how cool you are? Some years ago, while at The University of Western Sydney we set out to identify what made people cool. We found there were 5 factors:
- Self Belief and Confidence: Being true to yourself no matter what the environment. having a strong internal locus of control
- Defying Convention: Following your own, different path. Born out of passion
- Understated Achievement: Being successful, but modest about your achievements
- Caring for Others: Being sensitive, left leaning and broad-minded
- Connectivity: Being connected to others
At Naked we believe that cool people can help shape the fortunes of many brands and businesses. Therefore understanding who cool people are, and what drives them can be extremely important. We therefore constructed a questionnaire that helped us find and understand cool people.
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We have now modified this questionnaire and turned it into a Facebook application. Now you can find out how cool you are, as well as understand the areas you need to work on to become cooler. Feedback as always is appreciated (and for you (anti) social media types please feedback as if we were in the room together having a real conversation).
Find out how cool you are here.
PS This research was motivated by me being a) The State Under 12 Chess Champion, and b) the school hockey team’s goal keeper. Neither of which were deemed particularly cool by my classmates.
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People who would do well on this test are: Lara Croft, Kevin Rudd, Pink, Johnny Depp,
People who would do badly are: Malcolm Turnbul, John Farnham, Chk Chk Boom girl, Delta Goodrem
Fritz Bachen is a Consumer Psychologist and Founding Partner at Naked Communications. Fritz can be seen, read or heard at; The Gruen Transfer, ABC Radio (Sunday nights), Adnews columnist, as well as The Australian, Cleo, Mumbrella, Shop Till You Drop and so on. He speaks at numerous conferences on marketing, ideas, contemporary culture, and consumer behaviour. Fritz has degress in clinical psychology and commerce (marketing). A registered psychologist and has worked in private practice, forensic settings, advertising (Saatchi & Saatchi) and marketing consultancy (Added Value). He was also state under 12 chess champion on WA, and has a board game called The Analyst selling well in the Benelux countries.
Comments
Anonymous
May 31st, 2009Cool.
Zac Martin
May 31st, 200972% cool. Need to care more for people. Sounds about right.
My only problem with this is that it is very easy to see which questions you should tick highly or lowly if you wanted to seem cooler. Plus I think the word “rad” is still cool.
Fritz Bachen
May 31st, 2009Zac, what you are talking about is Face Validity. Many of the items have been reversed to minimise this – and some are actually quite difficult to work out. Ultimately however, if you feel the urge to cheat on a cool quiz then not only are you not cool – you are possibly a dickhead as well.
Tannie
May 31st, 2009This was really insightful. Very useful.
I’ve just come from doing a career management class at uni and I’ve literally done so many of these that I’ve forgotten them all and I think overall this one is a lot better than most of them.
Whilst a cool test is probably not something likely to appear in such a class the results are mostly the same and I think it’s a lot more accurate in the areas that you need to work on.
So really good job with this.
jemster
May 31st, 20090% cool. I’d have to know all the answers to do that bad
Knowing and understanding who the ‘cool’ people are is important.
Knowing where to find them and how to reach them is an imperative.
Interesting stuff as ever Fritz.
Matt Moore
May 31st, 2009Fritz – If I recall your research at UWS, you were examining the views of teenagers in the Western suburbs of Sydney. If that’s what your survey is based on then it might matter to me if I was selling highstreet fashion in Parramatta but would it matter if I was selling hemorrhoid cream in Oslo? I’d be much more interested in what 60 year old Norwegians think is cool.
Are notions of “cool” invariant across different groups and across time?
Anonymous
May 31st, 2009From Fritz…
Matt. Original sample was taken from suburban and inner city as well as uni students and working full time. Sice this time we have replicated the results against many different populations. Finally the concept of cool cuts across many cultures. Go to a cool hotel anyhere and they look similar. How did you score?
Matt Moore
May 31st, 2009How did you score?
I got an "error loading" message.
Sice this time we have replicated the results against many different populations.
Excellent – what was the method used and what were the populations? Go on, love, evidence out for the lads.
Finally the concept of cool cuts across many cultures.
Hmmm – maybe. But does the equivalent term refer to the same thing in each culture?
Go to a cool hotel anyhere and they look similar.
Do they really? That sounds like a pretty wild generalisation to me. If you said "boutique hotels aimed at people aged 20-40 with a budget of $200-500 per night who consider themselves stylish look similar" then I might buy that.
The problem I have with your stance is that from what I can see, "cool" is a variable, collective value judgement, not an invariant set of properties inherent in a person or object. It's going to vary with the values of the group doing the judging.
I suspect that for a large number of Australians, John Farnham and Delta Goodrem are cool and Kevin Rudd is not.
P.S. I'm also a bit dubious about your 5 categories. When I was growing up, Steve McQueen & Clint Eastwood were probably the epitome of male cool. They'd score highly on the first 2, probably middling on 3 and then quite low on 4 & 5.
Matt Moore
May 31st, 2009And if being cool involves "Self Belief and Confidence" and "Defying Convention" then surely taking a test to see how cool someone else thinks you are means that automatically you cannot be cool.
N.B. I am a fat, sweaty, middle-aged former librarian – so it's highly unlikely I'm cool no matter what the test says.
SM
Jun 1st, 2009… “Ultimately however, if you feel the urge to cheat on a cool quiz then not only are you not cool – you are possibly a dickhead as well.”
funniest thing i’ve ever read (today), nice to see that you took your own advice and provided feedback as though you were in the same room! hahaha. brilliant.
Fritz Bachen
Jun 2nd, 2009Matt, you’ll be happy to know that being cool is not correlated with looks – at all. Many cool people are quite ugly.
The research set out to explore what makes people cool – not ‘who’s cool’. ie if two different people nominate different people as cool – are they using the word cool in a similar way – or do they just mean something generic such as ‘good’ or ‘popular’. The research showed 5 constructs that were normally associated with cool people. Over time the work we have done is showing these to be rather consistent, working across cultures and across age groups.
The point about cool hotels was used to show that ‘cool’ transgresses culture much easier than ‘mainstream’. ie a cool hotel is likely to be very similar looking no matter where you are in the world – as opposed to a middle market hotel that will vary dramatically depending what country you are in.
Also Matt – it’s sometimes good to try these things – a little self exploration – even into the world of cool may not be a bad thing.
Fritz Bachen
Jun 4th, 2009Matt I hope you dont take offence but Ive removed your last comment from this post. Please feel free to post it elsewhere.
This is just a quiz trying to understand what makes people cool. Don't take it to seriously, but at the same time – it's an important aspect of consumer culture to try and understand.
Jeremy
Jun 5th, 2009Hi Fritz,
Interesting 5-factor take on the concept of coolness. Did you take a similar approach to the Big5 with its development? (i.e. factor analysis)
Also, with connectness, which dimensions of social capital does it most strongly represent (i.e. Granovetter's Weak Ties concept or Burt's Structural Hole)?
Fritz Bachen
Jun 6th, 2009Hi Jeremy,
I wasn't familiar with Burt's Structural hole (and can't help but find it mildly funny). Í looked it up here
http://ezinearticles.com/?Structural-Holes-And-Online-Social-Networks&id=744899
The style of connectedness we identified was more along the lines of the 'Weak Ties' concept. Or as we discribe it – having lots of lose associations with many aspects of society – rather than just a few close friends. Further, cool people made an effort to stay in touch with others (or others made an effort to stay in touch with them).
It's worth mentioning that of the 5 factors this is the one that accounted for the least variance – and was originally called 'Energy and Sociability'
Jeremy – what is your background?
Jeremy
Jun 6th, 2009Hi Fritz,
I agree, that sounds more along the lines of the Weak Ties concept. I am rather surprised it was the lowest loading factor though.
I would love to read more about the 5 factors of cool and how they work within brand personalities, are there any public sources?
Also, I share a similar background to you: psychology and commerce.
Kleidung
Jun 6th, 200963% cool,thats a cool app to,i believe i am just bit lazy goint out and meeting more new peoples so that i improve my attitude towards life
Matt Moore
Jun 6th, 2009Fritz – When I got it to work, I took the test and got 80%.
Out of curiosity, how would Naked collectively score on this test? Obviously there is self-belief and confidence but do you have a culture of understated achievement?
And why would I be offended by having a comment deleted? Just a little disappointed is all.
Jeremy & Fritz – social network analysis (SNA – of whom Burt is an interesting writer but not necessarily the most relevant) has generated a lot of interest in the US – it only took 70 years to find its way into the mainstream. Much less in Australia so far. Which is shame because one of the best SNA practitioners in the world lives in rural NSW…
Sorry, am I going off-track again?
Anonymous
Jun 6th, 200968 percent. Story of my life.
Fritz Bachen
Jun 7th, 2009Matt 80% is great well done. On your question on Naked – come into the office sometime, and see for yourself what the culture is like. I think you will be plesantly surprised.
Fake Tim Burrowes
Jun 17th, 2009And do you think I'd fall into the cool category or the not cool category?
Fritz Bachen
Jun 17th, 2009Hi Fake Tim – Gee thats funny.
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Sep 20th, 2010In my opinion the principal factor to considerate one person cool is the humility of that person, no matter his/her achievements or social position, owing to the act we have to learn everybody is equal.
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