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Bestselling author, Entrepreneur and Agent of change. Seth's blog can be found at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
July 2009
Friday July 31, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:05AM EST on July 31, 2009
"I'm just here to learn." Learning is fine. Listening is good. Consensus is natural. But initiating is rare and valuable and essential. How often do you or your brand initiate rather than react? How often do you tweet instead of...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:55AM EST on July 31, 2009
If it's worth doing, it's probably worth paying to do it very well. If you're going to do a presentation or write an eBook, spend the money to do it right. Paul Durban created this example of motion graphics. It's...
Thursday July 30, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:25AM EST on July 30, 2009
Over the past few months, I've had quite a few interactions with several people who work at a (previously great) brand. One person will email to ask me for a favor or a connection, and I'll point out that just...
Wednesday July 29, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:33AM EST on July 29, 2009
One of the biggest brands in the world is getting ready to go online, and they're aiming to not win. Sure, they've been online all along, but now it's become clear to them that the web is a real thing,...
Tuesday July 28, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:25AM EST on July 28, 2009
Monday July 27, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:50AM EST on July 27, 2009
Here are four new videos from the Tom Peters Amex/Open session I did last year. Enjoy. (If you want to, you can press all four at once and it will sound like a UN debate)...
Sunday July 26, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:11AM EST on July 26, 2009
...is because it's sudden. All the time you're practicing, you aren't actually riding. You're falling. Then, if you don't give up after all this failure, in a blink, you're riding. No in-between. Failing...riding. Learning things that are binary like this...
Saturday July 25, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:56AM EST on July 25, 2009
When I get a manuscript or see a sign that misuses its and it's and quotes, I immediately assume that the person who created it is stupid. I understand that this is a mistake on my part. They're not necessarily...
Friday July 24, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:53AM EST on July 24, 2009
The math for handshakes is difficult. You have to stand, look, squeeze, time and end in just the right way or it's weird. Skip the handshake or do a six-second version and people look at you funny. Interpersonal relations have...
Thursday July 23, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:20AM EST on July 23, 2009
If you run a business on a small island, every interaction matters and every customer is precious. There's a finite number of people you're going to be able to sell to, and every person you interact with knows everyone else,...
Wednesday July 22, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:45PM EST on July 22, 2009
Amazon just announced that they're spending $800,000,000.00 (looks better that way) to buy Zappos.com. But wait. Amazon already has plenty of shoes. Amazon already has great technology. Amazon already has relationships with Fedex and UPS. What you buy when you...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 3:26PM EST on July 22, 2009
Please welcome Ishita Gupta, who now doubles the size of the team here at my tiny version of a company. Ishita is our newly appointed Head of Hoopla. She's working with me on strategy, new projects, digital detailing, publishing and...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:11AM EST on July 22, 2009
You've probably seen it. The fish monger sees a decline in business, so they have less money to spend on upkeep and inventory, so they keep the fish a bit longer and don't clean up as often, so of course,...
Tuesday July 21, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:29AM EST on July 21, 2009
Interesting business lesson learned on a bicycle: it's very difficult to improve your performance on the downhills. I used to dread the uphill parts of my ride. On a recumbent bike, they're particularly difficult. So I'd slog through, barely surviving,...
Monday July 20, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:51AM EST on July 20, 2009
In fact, everyone is always doing their best under the circumstances. As my friend Al says, there's no such thing as irrational behavior. That's because in this moment, given the perceptions someone is holding, the way they behave is in...
Sunday July 19, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:08AM EST on July 19, 2009
Your users, employees, consumers and donors are obsessed with data now. Are you helping them solve their knowledge problem? Years ago, I had an automatic transmission car with a tachometer. Why I needed to know my RPMs when I couldn't...
Saturday July 18, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:38AM EST on July 18, 2009
If you want to dig a big hole, you need to stay in one place. If you walk around town with a little shovel, you'll just end up digging thousands of little holes, not one big one. Call on one...
Friday July 17, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 9:33PM EST on July 17, 2009
Here's the thing about the life of Walter Cronkite: At every turn, he acted as if he had a responsibility to his audience. He didn't do the right thing because he thought it would help him get ahead and then...
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:39AM EST on July 17, 2009
1. Don't let popular spreadsheets be in charge of the way you look 92% of all the business presentations made in the United States are done with templates created by big companies in Excel or Powerpoint. This is a horrible...
Thursday July 16, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:17AM EST on July 16, 2009
I used to hate the lawn. Growing up, we lived on a curved street, and as a result, our house had a back lawn much bigger than normal. My job was to mow it, using an old, noisy, non-sharp, broken...
Wednesday July 15, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:05PM EST on July 15, 2009
True confession: I didn't attend graduation from Stanford Business School. They mailed me my MBA instead. I hadn't been on campus in months, I was already busy running a brand in Boston, learning more than I could have in school....
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:44AM EST on July 15, 2009
A few weeks ago, my tooth fell out (on a cross country flight no less). I managed to get home and then eagerly put some Anbesol ("for oral pain relief, dentist strong so the pain is gone!") on the hole....
Tuesday July 14, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:58AM EST on July 14, 2009
If you're selling a business to business service and you can prove that it's better, that it delivers more value, that it's cheaper or more durable or more efficient, shouldn't that mean you will close every sale? Even hard-headed business...
Monday July 13, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:36AM EST on July 13, 2009
Ads online typically cost $5 to $20 for one thousand impressions. A fancy magazine might cost two or three times that. But it's still pennies a person. Attending a conference, on the other hand, costs $1000 by the time you...
Sunday July 12, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:04AM EST on July 12, 2009
I have no patience for bureaucracies that proclaim that they are unable to innovate. It's not that they are unable to do so, it's that they don't want to do so. The other day as I walked through SFO, I...
Saturday July 11, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:27AM EST on July 11, 2009
Have you noticed that most airports feature the same restaurants? It's not an accident. The people who run these chains have organized themselves to be good at dealing with municipal organizations. Same thing goes for design firms, creative firms, accountants...
Friday July 10, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:23AM EST on July 10, 2009
When we talk about quality, it's easy to get confused. That's because there are two kinds of quality being discussed. The most common way it's talked about in business is "meeting specifications." An item has quality if it's built the...
Thursday July 9, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:31AM EST on July 9, 2009
How do you get your boss to approve something, the customer service people to understand the pain a system is causing or the folks in engineering to see things your way? Powerpoint was invented for this precise function, and we...
Wednesday July 8, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:09AM EST on July 8, 2009
How big is the gap between customer and die-hard fan? In other words, between engaging and loving, between attending and craving? For World of Warcraft, it's huge. It's very difficult to spend just an hour or two. There's a chasm...
Tuesday July 7, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:27AM EST on July 7, 2009
The best businesses and the best projects are a quantum leap above the competition. This gulf represents competitive insulation, because others can't figure out how to get up there with you. Amazon, for example, has a leap between it and...
Monday July 6, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:05AM EST on July 6, 2009
We frequently confuse internal biochemistry (caused by habits and genetics) with external events. If we didn't, marketing wouldn't work nearly as well. Our brains are busy processing chemicals that internally change our moods, but find a way to rationalize those...
Sunday July 5, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:02AM EST on July 5, 2009
The reason the New York Times matters isn't about the delivery of news (it's old by the time it arrives) or even the analysis (which is often spotty or wrong or banal or biased or boring). No, the reason it...
Saturday July 4, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 4:37AM EST on July 4, 2009
On July 4, birthday of the USA, we're supposed to blow off fireworks, eat hot dogs and buy a Chevrolet. On Columbus Day, birthday of an early imperialist, we're supposed to shop and march in a parade. On Martin Luther...
Friday July 3, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 5:20AM EST on July 3, 2009
The bike shop is busy in June. If you bring your bike in for a tune up, it will cost $39 and take a week. A week! What if someone says, "I have a bike trip coming up in three...
Thursday July 2, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:11AM EST on July 2, 2009
(and I think it works for lots of products) Is the purpose of the cover to sell books, to accurately describe what's in the book, or to tee up the reader so the book has maximum impact? The third. It's...
Wednesday July 1, 2009
Posted by: Seth Godin at 6:13AM EST on July 1, 2009
It's easy to to adopt the policy of avoiding risk at all costs, that whenever possible, the products you launch or the engagements you have should be flawless and without downside. Here's the problem: in most endeavors, a small increase...
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