Posted 8/13/2003 09:51:32 PM by seth godin

From my friend Marcia, a little Zen

The Master in the art of living
makes little distinction between
work and play,
labor and leisure,
mind and body,
education and recreation,
love and religion.
You hardly know which is which.
You simply pursue your vision of
excellence in whatever you do,
leaving others to decide whether
you are working or playing.
To you, it is always both.

Posted 8/12/2003 08:08:32 PM by seth godin

No room left

The September seminar in my office (the last currently scheduled) has just sold out. Thanks to all who are coming... it should be a lot of fun.

(no, that's not me. I'm cuter.)

Posted 8/12/2003 11:40:39 AM by seth godin

So much for branding

Here's an absolutely great article. Elevator pitches that don't work. They took 17 big companies, scrambled up their one line elevator pitches and tried them out on 350 smart marketers. The goal was simple. Match the pitch the to company. eBay, of course, is "To help practically anyone buy and sell practically anything". But which company, precisely, is "Continued investments in IT result in measurable productivity gains."

I don't think the point is that these companies need a better elevator pitch (the product offering is probably too broad.) The point, from where I stand, is that EXPECTING your ads to communicate ideas this complicated in a sentence or two is ridiculous. One more reason ads don't work for complex offerings.

Posted 8/11/2003 04:35:06 PM by seth godin

Best summary yet of Purple Cow

In an airline magazine!

Posted 8/11/2003 03:20:12 PM by seth godin

It's easy to be mean

New trend in business journalism: muckraking, innuendo, schadenfreude, snide remarks and cynicism.

From today's New York Times (Fast Company takes a senseless beating, including plenty of editorial opinion from the writer) to most of the leading business magazines, we're seeing exactly the same thing. The search for the scoop. The rush to demonstrate journalistic chops by refusing to accept anything at face value. The division of the world into good and bad, mostly bad.

The thing is, this is lazy journalism. It's lazy to take potshots at the head of a car company or to search for yet another one of Martha Stewart's bad habits. The reason it's lazy is simple: if you get your facts even close to right, the reader is with you all the way. It's easy to persuade people to be negative, easy to get them to pay attention to gossip, easy to defend yourself as a crusading journalist.

This, of course, is the same sort of laziness that led the very same magazines and papers to overdose on the hype just three years ago. Those stories were effervescent and glowing, but they involved just as little real understanding as today's "exposes" do.

Do you know what's hard? It's hard to be inspirational. It's hard to really understand the lessons (positive and negative) in a story and present them in a way that actually persuades, not just titillates.

Are you ready to rush out the newsstand to buy a magazine that shows us, once and for all, how some Boston real estate was insanely overpriced or how Larry Ellison isn't actually as smart as this very same magazine told you he was two years ago? I'm not.

I don't know about you, but I'm a sucker for an article that actually educates, or even better, inspires. Inspires me to do more, try harder, dig deeper, be more positive and persist longer. C'mon guys, I implore my colleagues, don't be so lazy. We deserve better.

[go ahead and forward this article to your favorite magazine! Here are some email addresses:
letters@nytimes.com
loop@fastcompany.com
letters@fortune.com
Business Week
Forbes
wsjcontact@dowjones.com

Posted 8/8/2003 03:31:10 PM by seth godin

So, who is Laci?

Every once in a while, the Net is magically clairvoyant. Take a look at CorporateAlumni for today's example. This is a site that knows way too much about all the places you used to work, and who worked there with you. I did a search for "yoyodyne" and found names I had already forgotten.

But what's the deal with Laci?

It says she was on my board, but gosh darn it, I don't remember ever arguing with her or having her threaten to fire me or cut off my financing...

Anyway, a tip of the hat to Heath Row's new blog, Fast Company Now for the lead. It's only been up a day, and it's great.

Posted 8/7/2003 08:09:42 PM by seth godin

Talking to ourselves

Too much blogging is about the blogger listening to himself rant. You won't find that with Debbie Weil.

Debbie actually has a purpose... she's collecting data and links and advice about using blogs for business. She also writes about copywriting. No reports on her cats, the weather or her mood, though. Worth a look. Blue walnuts, indeed.

Posted 8/7/2003 07:59:30 PM by seth godin

The big difference between marketing a product and a candidate

Is not what you might think. Rolling out John Kerry or Howard Dean is a lot like any other big money product launch. No doubt the marketers will spend way too much money on TV, and no doubt the real impact (especially early on) comes not from blatant interruption but from ideaviruses that spread...

So the difference?

The difference is that coming in second in detergent or coffee is just fine if your overhead is appropriately small. Coming in second in politics is worthless.

I've been reading all the fawning Dean media hype with a bit of a smile. After all, it's classic Purple Cow thinking. But in politics, of course, being a Purple Cow doesn't mean you're going to win. Which is good, otherwise we'd have peanut farmers, former actors and folks who aren't smart enough to accept scientific facts and rational arguments running the country. Oops. You know what I mean.

I mean that being remarkable doesn't always mean you will capture the majority. It might mean you come in second. If you're a non-political marketer, I beg you to embrace your purpleness and TRY to come in second. Being safe is a bad idea.

If, on the other hand, you are Howard Dean, I have no idea what you should do. The word has spread among the sneezers and opinion leaders who care. Now, how do you leap the chasm to get to everyone else? I have no idea. Remember, awareness does not equal sales. It is necessary, but not sufficient.

Posted 8/6/2003 12:44:15 PM by seth godin

As long as we're talking about Google...

Check this out. Google News Alerts. Thanks to Burton Bruggeman for the tip.

It appears that like the weather, everyone loves to talk about Google. I've received some amazingly good ideas for my, "What Should Google Do?" ebook. But the public is insatiable. Don't hesitate! Send yours in. You'll get full credit, of course.

Posted 8/4/2003 09:42:07 PM by seth godin

What should Google do now?

So, aside from being the official poster child for discussions about the web, marketing or business models (I challenge you to find a pundit, including me, who can resist mentioning Google for ten pages in a row...), it's also a business.

The question isn't whether Google is a good idea, a good business or even something to be jealous about. The question is: Given their position, what do they do now?

Can they compound their influence and growth and mission? Or will they lose their nerve and stick with what they've got...

Anyway, send me an email and put GOOGLE in the subject line. Tell me what you'd do if you ran Google. Would you buy someone? Spin off something? Launch new services?

I'll turn it into a free ebook if the responses are any good. Please keep your comments short and pithy.

Posted 8/1/2003 02:35:45 PM by seth godin

Thomas Dolby is a genius

And if you've ever been interrupted by a cell phone at the opera, check out what the new tech cell phones will have on them.Retro RingTones - Welcome

Posted 8/1/2003 02:18:53 PM by seth godin

A long time ago...

I knew a guy named Derek Scruggs. He was smart then and he's smart now. He's an email marketing consultant (something I don't have the intestinal fortitude to attempt) and while I've not used his services, his site makes a lot of sense. Escalan - Integerated direct marketing services to acquire and retain customers