USFIRST has published the transcript of an interview with Neal Bascomb, author of The New Cool. Responding to a question about the origin of the title, Bascomb said When I heard about FIRST and what it was doing, the book title came to me. It was a 'thunderbolt' kind of moment, and I thought this focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) could and should be the new kind of cool. Bascomb spent an entire season immersed in FIRST, concentrating on a few teams.