In this letter, we introduce a whole new approach in defining and representing optical orthogonal codes (OOCs), namely, outer-product matrix representation. Instead of applying commonly used approaches based on inner product to construct OOC codes, we use the newly defined approach to obtain a more efficient algorithm in constructing and generating OOC codes. The outer-product matrix approach can obtain a family of OOC codes with a cardinality closer to the Johnson upper bound, when compared with the previously defined accelerated greedy algorithm using the inner-product approach. We believe the new look introduced in this letter on OOCs could help to devise new approaches in designing and generating OOC codes, using the rich literature in matrix algebra