For the longest time, I’d been using the registered Lockergnome logo for my projects. Then, someone designed a “cool” Chris Pirillo logo – and I started to use that one with more personal endeavors. Dunno. I’m having fun with both of ‘em! One’s a bit more cartoony, and the other is a bit more comicky. Dean Bailey took the time to share his thoughts regarding the use of these logos on real-world products. His email gave me a few chuckles…

In response to your query about the marketability of Chris Pirillo throw pillows, I have to confess that I wouldn’t buy one. I also wouldn’t buy a finder pillow, a Tux pillow, or any other sort of product like that. They’re unfortunately just too much geek for me despite me not only trying very hard to be the best geek I can be, but always wishing I was even better than I am in that respect.

I say this as a fellow Apple fan, however, I have to admit that if there was a slick enough Gentoo logo pillow and it didn’t involve a trip to the post office to pick it up, even though I’m not even running it on anything right now, then I would by a couple of them – if I had a place to put them and my wife let me decorate. It’s something I might even consider doing without consulting my wife or refusing to move the pillows if she didn’t like them.

My main reason for writing, other of the ramble, was to recognize that despite it being something that there may not be a big market for, that there indeed would be one I would imagine. I wouldn’t know what the profitability (or lack of it) would be for you, obviously. More importantly, I thought I should emphasize that the ‘cool Chris’ logo seems to me to be a better marketable item than the ‘fuzzy Chris’ from Lockergnome. If I were to get lost in geek products to the extent of Pirillo throw pillows, I’d want a more tightly crafted ‘Cool Chris’ pillow with a bit of stiffness to them in comparison to the Mac icon pillows, and if I wanted a fuzzy Chris pillow then I’d prefer it to be bigger and fluffy.

The size in your video made the Mac icon pillows look not really functional. As a guy, when buying a functional and comfortable pillow to mould to the shape of my back or stick between my legs while watching a movie, or lay my head on or whatever, I’d rather it not have another dude’s face on it. If the pillow was round and stiff that I could prop a little of my arm on it or stick a corner behind my back, or when I did lay my head on it I found it wasn’t incredibly comfortable, then that would feel more acceptable to fearing what people might think about my geeky affair that I may or may not have with the soft and comfy Pirillo pillows I have on my couch… or worse, on my bed, which by the way is a place they would never be.

I think you’d have to go with the cool Chris pillows that were stiff and shaped like a really short cylinder rather than a shape that just involved two pieces of round material.

Most importantly, as for ‘Cool Chris’ vs ‘Comfy Lockergnome Chris’, I think you’re really short changing yourself by believing that cool Chris is too much. We are geeks, we know we are cool, you have made a thus far successful business of just being yourself as it looks from outside appearance and while there might be women out there that would think a soft squishy Pirillo pillow is cute, funny, lovable, and even sexy, there’s a lot more guys out there who know that despite you appearing to be a physically skinny guy, that like every other red blooded male in the world (and especially geeks) you are a master in Jedi mind tricks, Bruce Lee-style kung fu, and Samurai-sword fighting because every geek out there is naturally skilled at these things through visual osmosis – and has many hours of real life practice with all of these things, and The Force, through all the time we spend working at developing our skills while we dream at night even if we don’t even remember those dreams in which we train to be true masters.

To many people out there, you are a god among dorks. Sorry to word it like that, but I can’t really qualify you as a god among geeks without qualifying myself as a real wanker – since no one is a god, but the point is that there’s a lot of people that look up to you and a lot of them would presumably, by the nature of being a fan, have at least some part of their self image invested in you as the centerpiece of your web based community.

I can’t tie all this crap together. I’ll just say short and simple that you know full well that the cool Chris pillows are just as justifiable in design of persona and furthermore if you can without your head getting too big then its probably good for others. It seems like there’s indeed a place for both presentations of yourself but that “Fluffy Cute Chris” might not be the best thing for a Chris Pirillo fanatic to be looking forward to in the mail, maybe a cool Chris though, if you are actually going to do it.

Now that I’ve typed this, it seems all of a sudden incredibly irrelevant, its still my opinion though, and you asked.

So, the question remains: should we put my caricature’d face on pillows?

Chris Pirillo vs Lockergnome Logos

For months, I’ve been claiming that brand is becoming increasingly decentralized – and emails like this further prove it:

My name’s Ewan and I’m in rainy Scotland, in the UK. I just wanted to let you know that I’m a fan of your show and tell you how I got into it. I don’t usually have the time unfortunately to stay in the chat room or watch the live stream but I do drop by occasionally and I watch the videos through the RSS feed in Firefox. The reason I became interested in the show was through the laptop giveaway. I didn’t “apply” to win the laptop, but I think I was looking for a laptop at the time (still am, think I want a MacBook :D). and somehow I stumbled upon to your giveaway and followed the links back to your main site and the live stream. I think it’s a pretty interesting setup you’ve got going, and whilst I find I already know a lot of what you cover in the videos, they’re still entertaining and usually present a different angle from what I’m used to. I’m actually a student at high school (17), and I do a lot of technical stuff within the school and do advanced higher computing studies as well.

Anyway, I digress. I just wanted to drop you a line to say how I got into the show (that might help you “target your marketing” as it were), and to encourage you to keep up the good work. I understand you probably get a lot of emails every day so don’t worry if you don’t have time to reply, but if you get the chance it would be nice to hear from you.

If you’re a videocaster, podcaster, videoblogger, etc. – you need to have a live presence, and you need to be pushing your stuff onto YouTube in some capacity. Your audience is still trying to discover you, but you have to go to where THEY are and not expect them to come to you in any other way.

Your Audience Doesn’t Know About You

Which sounds more exciting to you: “Atlas” or “ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions?” I certainly understand the need for having descriptive product names – but I still call “Windows Presentation Foundation” by its original (beta) title. Not only is “Avalon” easier to type, but it’s easier to remember as well. Why does Microsoft suck at naming things? Simple: partners and platforms typically come before the user.

And lest you think I’m insane, think about why “Xbox 360″ wasn’t called “Microsoft Windows Media Extender Games and Entertainment Edition.”

I hear all this talk about how Zune is going to kill the iPod, but… that really remains to be seen. The only thing that’s going to kill the iPod is the iPod itself. At least “Zune” sounds better than what “Zune” rumors to be. But it’s not too late! I’m willing to bet that Zune will be renamed “Microsoft Portable Windows Media Wireless Extender Networking Pocket Communications Edition” before it actually sees the light of day.

Microsoft Windows Accurate Naming Platform