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seth godin

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One of my favorite interviews of all time (and thanks to the handcrafted Aux Hook-up in my car, I listen to many) is Bryan Elliot’s interview of Seth Godin, for the Icarus Deception.

In the interview, Seth says — and I’m going to paraphrase here:

“The excuse that, ‘My boss doesn’t give me permission’ is a bad one. Why should he? You’re not asking for permission, what you’re saying is, ‘Can I go do this thing, and if it works, I’m going to take all the credit, and if it doesn’t, you’ll take all the blame.’ Who would agree to that?”

At the theory level, the logic is simple. But when it’s time for application, the “logic” contends with “emotion”: pride, ego, embarrassment, anger… all of which overwhelm logic in half-a-second.

Let me tell you a story of when this overwhelm happened to me…

While working for a literary management company, I met with a young man who was doing interesting work in the music space, bringing more of a performance art component to EDM, with custom built hardware and software.

He was brilliant and motivated. At the moment, there wasn’t an immediate business opportunity for either of us. I didn’t expect that, though. The meeting was about getting on each other’s radar, should an opportunity present itself.

I took the story of the meeting into a staff meeting — not as a hard sell, but a soft pitch.

Sorta a “hey, met this guy who’s doing really interesting work in this space…”

My boss at the time thought very little of the idea:

  • “That’s pie in the sky shit.”
  • “You’re wasting your time.”
  • “This is what you should be spending your time on…” citing examples of tactics he used… 20 years ago.

I can’t say I wasn’t embarrassed. And angry.

He called me out in a staff meeting… in front of everyone.

As far as I could tell, the extent of my indiscretion was meeting someone — on my own time — that may pan out to nothing (as these things often do).

My immediate gut (read: emotional) response was: “fine, he doesn’t want to ever hear any new ideas, then I will never bring in any. We’ll keep using tactics that worked in the 80s and early 90s.

Don’t Ask Permission. And Don’t Do This, Either…

Later (when I cooled off) I remembered Seth’s words: Don’t ask for permission to do interesting work.

To which I’d like to add the corollary:

Don’t seek validation, either. Seeking validation means you’re not sure if you’re working on the right problem. Without the right problem, what good is any solution you propose?

Do the work. Solve the problem. Then show them the results.

Yes, this is tricky. If you screw up, then it’s on you… which is the whole point, isn’t it?

To which I can only offer:

  • Build confidence in your choices.
  • Confidence comes with experience.
  • Fail quickly, not fatally.

Also, build reversibility into any solution you present:

  • A fleshed out story  bible — that can always be rewritten.
  • A completed website redesign — installed locally, not live on the site.
  • A new marketing strategy — that can implemented in stages.

Why Are You Here, Again?

No, no organization is going to tell you to do these things.

Why would they give you deniability?

You’re responsible for picking and choosing your own risks.

But with that said…

If you’re with a company that actively tells you: “don’t try new things, don’t take risks, toe the line, do what worked before…”

What are you still doing there?

Photo Credit: JD’na

I imagine most cyclists pump Skrillex or Sevendust through their headphones during their rides.

Currently, for me it’s a choice between Katy Perry’s new album PRISM or Seth Godin’s Medicine Ball Sessions. I chose the latter today because I can turn on the former when I get to work.

The Medicine Ball Sessions clarified this sense of urgency I’ve been having in the pit of my stomach. At one point, I attributed the urgency to my age and societal pressure and the effects of social media. I thought:

  • At this age I should have more affect on the world
  • I should be ready to start thinking about marriage and family
  • Why is everyone on Facebook having more fun than me?

Not that these emotions and feelings weren’t real.

But they didn’t fully encompass the range of emotions I felt about my work and career.

It’s more nuanced than age

It’s subtler than how fast one can ascend the ladder in an industry.

After listening to Medicine Ball Sessions, I realized the urgency came from the speed at which entire industries rise and fall… so anytime we waste in a career space that isn’t “right” for us is dramatically heightened.

In other words, it’s not so much the race up the ladder, as much as choosing the right ladder to climb.

Here’s the part that resonated with me (transcribed with ease thanks to Transcribe, by wreally):

“The record industry was perfect. There were a lot of reasons. I’ll name a few. If I bought an LP because I liked it a lot, I would wear it out. So I’d have to buy another one.

If I loaned it to her, I don’t have it anymore, so I have to buy another one. If I have to buy another one, I have to get in my car and drive to a store.

In my car, I turn on the radio, the only thing to do in the car, and the radio, is devoted almost entirely to promoting this product, which the record industry doesn’t have to pay for, not legally anyone.

Then I get to the store, which the record industry doesn’t have to pay for, and the store has 100s or thousands of titles all in big containers, vying for my attention. So I might buy more than 1 when I’m there.

Then I get home, and my high school kid is going to the senior prom. The senior prom is not about shoes, it’s not about industrial equipment, it’s about music.

Then, I check my mail, there’s Rolling Stone magazine, all about the music industry. 

Then I turn on MTV, an entire cable network devoted to this perfect industry. Oh, and if you want to start a music career, you need $100K to get into a recording studio because there’s limited means of production, you can’t afford that so you better do a deal with a record company if you want distribution through Tower Records.

You can’t do that by yourself, you better have a record label to do it, and radio, and on and on. The record label gets to keep all that money. 

There’s only six or eight big record labels so it’s an oligopoly, there’s a lot of price-fixing, and its perfect…

Money, money, money. Consistent, planned. Show me the map, I know the artist will change, but the method doesn’t. 

Then you all know what happened. How long did it take? 36 months? For the record industry to go from perfect to broke. 

There’s more music than ever before, performed by more people than ever before, listened to more people than ever before, more widely available than ever before, but the music industry — gone. 3 years, maybe 5, that’s it. Over. That’s what happens. 

Revolutions destroy the perfect, and then they enable the impossible. And it’s going to happen to your industry, whatever you do.” 

What’s the “Right” Industry For You?

We can define “right” many number of ways:

  • Is your education taking drastic jumps every day?
  • Are you surrounded by the best people in your industry?
  • Are you leveraging the most impact you can have at your current level?

What Are the Excuses We Give Not To Leave

They all come back to complacency and comfort. We’re comfortable with:

  • The work required from us on a daily basis
  • Giving 70% of what we’re capable of because that’s enough to get by
  • With a steady paycheck that lands every two weeks, like clockwork

We tell ourselves, why rock the boat? We’ve got a good thing going. I can take my time, because this job and this market isn’t going anywhere.

This is Where We’re Wrong

Just because we’re relevant today doesn’t make us relevant tomorrow.

The record industry proves that just because an industry is perfect yesterday doesn’t mean it won’t be a shell of its former glory tomorrow.

The world changes quickly.

If we’re already not happy with the work we’re doing, things will get worse faster than we think.

If we’re complacent to plod along, moving without urgency, how will we remain relevant in whatever version of the world that exists after the fallout?

If we’re complaining that “no one’s giving us the opportunity to succeed” but we’re not creating our own opportunities… well, why should they?

Photo Credit: serakatie

Work has been giving me an emotional beat down with fists wrapped in quarters lately. Last month, I’ve nearly torn out my eyebrows over the bullshit monotony of scheduling, rescheduling, and emailing. It’s an assistant’s mental equivalent of “I-pick-stuff-up-I-put-stuff-down.” At the end of a day, I’ve spent 90 percent of my time pushing around paper, minus the paper.

This isn’t a rant against who I work for, my role, or my industry. I understand this shit has to get done, and why I’m the one shoveling it. My “win-days” have become those when I manage to carve out 30 minutes of my own to do Deep Study of Literary Option Agreements. For example, last week I sat down and studied Force Majeure and Claim Extension language until I understood it.

force majuere language

Typically my eyes rolled into the back of my head every time I reached any Force Majeure language. Now I understand that while a claim can be capped at 12 months (meaning someone has 12 months to sue or get off the pot) once a claim enters litigation an Option is suspended until it’s settled or litigated — there is no cap.

Everyday, people must engage in an emotional joust against the minutiae. Is there any question to why people stop caring about creating extraordinary work? Apathy is the result of getting ground down by the bullshit tasks we endure, and there are two ways it’s going to go:

You either let it stomp you flat.

Or you grind back.

Surrounding myself with self-development helps with the latter.

purple cow

I finished PURPLE COW by Seth Godin. A remarkable book about being remarkable, covering facets from nearly every industry (though, now that I think about it, I’m not sure if entertainment was covered). Nonetheless, it’s something to inoculate us in our quest to develop into who we want to be and achieve our own goals.

As always, below are noteworthy sections from the book. Bolding is mine.

Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing right into your product or service. Not slapping on marketing as a last-minute add-on, but understand that if your offering itself isn’t remarkable, it’s invisible.

The new rule is: Create remarkable products that the right people seek out.

The marketer of yesterday valued the volume of people she could reach. Mass marketing traditionally targets the early and late majority because this is the largest group. But in many markets, the value of a group isn’t related to its size — a group’s value is related to its influence. In this market, for example, the early adopters heavily influence the rest of the curve, so persuading them is worth far more than wasting ad dollars trying to persuade anyone else.

I don’t think there’s a shortage of remarkable ideas. I think your business has plenty of great opportunities to do great things. Nope, what’s missing isn’t the ideas. It’s the will to execute them. My goal in PURPLE COW is to make it clear that it’s safer to be risky – to fortify your desire to do truly amazing things… One of the best excuses your colleagues will come up with, though, is that they don’t have the ability to find the great idea, or if they do, they don’t know how to distinguish the great idea from the lousy ones.

If a product’s future is unlikely to be remarkable — if you can’t imagine a future in which people are once again fascinated by your product – it’s time to realize that the game has changed. Instead of investing in a dying product, take profits and reinvest them in building something new.

It’s not an accident that some products catch on and some don’t. When an idea virus occurs, it’s often because all the viral pieces work together. How smooth and easy is it to spread your idea? How often will people sneeze it to their friends? How tightly knit is the group you’re targeting – do they talk much? Do they believe each other? How reputable are the people most likely to promote your idea?

Cheating

  • Jetblue – low-cost structure and underused airports give them unfair adv
  • Starbucks
  • Vanguard – low-cost index funds makes it impossible for a full-service broker to compete
  • Ducati – they don’t make motorcycles for the entire market, they can specialize in high-profit, amazing bikes, which sell out every year
  • To their entrenched but nervous competitors, these companies appear to be cheating because they’re not playing by the rules. Why aren’t you cheating?

It’s easy to look at the idea diffusion curve and decide that the juicy, profitable, wonderful place to be is right in the center, where all the people are. However, that’s rarely true. Often, the valuable slices are located to one side or the other. What this bank might realize is that b focusing on these innovative customers, the bank may be able to bring in even more highly profitable risk-seeking customers, leaving the slow and declining sector to seek other (less profitable) banks. Differentiate your customers. Find the group that’s most profitable or most likely to sneeze. Figure out how to develop/advertise/reward either group. Ignore the rest.

We’ve been raised with a false belief: We mistakenly believe that criticism leads to failure. From the time we get to school, we’re taught that being noticed is almost always bad. It gets us sent to the principal’s office, not to Harvard. Nobody says, “Yeah, I’d like to set myself up for some serious criticism!” And yet… the only way to be remarkable is to do just that. You do not equal the project. Criticism of the project is not criticism of you. The fact that we needed to be reminded of this points to how unprepared we are for the era of the Cow. Will you do some things wrong in your career and be justly criticized for being unprepared, sloppy, or thoughtless? Sure you will. But these errors have nothing at all to do with the ups and downs you’ll experience as a result of being associated with the Purple Cow.

Lionel Poilane: French bread baker who did extensive research, interviewed more than 8,000 French bakes about their techniques. His sourdough bread is are with just loud, water, starter, and sea salt, and it’s baked in a wood-fired oven. At first, the French establishment rejected his products, considering them too daring and different. But the overwhelming quality of the loaves and Poilane’s desire to do it right finally won them over. Last year, Lionel sold more than $10 million worth of bread.

A the same time, the marketplace is getting faster and more fluid. Yes, we’re too busy to pay attention, but a portion of the population is more restless than ever. Some people are happy to switch their long distance service, their airline, their accounting from — whatever it takes to get an edge. So while fewer people attempt to become the Cow, the rewards for being remarkable continue to increase! At work is the ability of a smaller portion of eager experimenters to influence the rest us. It’s too easy to sit out the next round, rationalizing that you’re spending the time and energy to build on what you’ve got instead of investing in the future.

The opposite of “remarkable” is very good. Very good is an everyday occurrence hardly worth mentioning.

The Magic Cycle of the Cow – it’s the sneezers we care about:  

  1. Get permission from people you impressed the first time to alert them the next time you might have another cow. Not permission to spam them or sell them leftovers or squeeze extra margins from them.
  2. Work with the sneezers in that audience to make it easier for them to help your idea cross the chasm. Give them the tools (and the story) they’ll need to sell your idea to a winder audience.
  3. Once you’re crossed the line from remarkable to profitable business, let a different team milk it. Productize your services, servicize your products, let a thousand variations bloom. But don’t believe your own press releases. This is the inevitable downward slide to commodity. Milk it for all it’s worth, and fast.
  4. Reinvest. Do it again. With a vengeance. Launch another Purple Cow to the same audience. Fail and fail and fail again. Assume that what was remarkable a last time won’t be remarkable this time.

Where does remarkable come from? Often, it comes from passionate people who are making something for themselves. The Burton snowboard, the Vanguard mutual fund, the Apple iPod, and the Learjet, Starbucks coffee, people working at Patagonia.

Robyn waters is the person who persuaded Michael Graves to make a teapot for Target. She’s the one who searches out amazing cheap (but cool) flatware, and little pens with float in targets in them. Instead of spending time and money trying to buy market share with a advertising, Target has realized that b offering exclusive items that would be cool a any price — but that are amazing when they’re cheap – they can win without a big ad budget. If a big-box retailer like Target can obliterate Sears and Kmart, what’s stopping you from being many degrees cooler than your bigger competitors? 

Photos Credit: Dallas Moore

I finished Dennis Lehane’s MOONLIGHT MILE recently. It’s disheartening to say, but I felt he didn’t bring his A-game on this one. It was as if he tried so hard to be relevant, to cover every iota of modern day society, from adoption to Twitter to unemployment, that he lost sight of the razor sharp characterizations that made Patrick and Angie novels so enticing.

I can’t say I’m the foremost expert on Dennis’s writings, though I’d like to think I’m in a pretty good position to comment on his work — at least in the top 5 percentile of “critics who should keep their opinions to themselves but can’t help sharing anyway.”

Having read LIVE BY NIGHT, THE GIVEN DAY, DARKNESS TAKE MY HAND, and A DRINK BEFORE THE WAR, I’m slowly working through his body of work in the novel form.

But I’ve readhis short story, ANIMAL RESCUE. The film adaptation which recently wrapped production in Brooklyn, starring Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace. I’ve also read every draft of the screenplay.

THE CONSUMERS, another Lehane short, I’ve read. I also read the treatment that Dennis allowed a young, up-and-coming writer to write. I read another person’s script adaptation of another short story, RUNNING OUT OF DOG.

I’ve read the spec pilot for MOONLIGHT MILE, which he co-wrote. I’ve read his proposals, when his ideas are still raw and incubating, and watched them not so much as grow into treatments and scripts, but explode off the page like a hormonal teenager on the brink of puberty. I’ve read Dennis at every stage, which is why I can respectfully say, this wasn’t his best.

So what’s the takeaway?

That LIVE BY NIGHT, which is probably one of his best works, he wrote after MOONLIGHT MILE. The point is it doesn’t matter what you created yesterday, what you create today is how you’re be measured. Every new project is your opportunity to find your A-game.

My notes on the book below after the hashtags, which mostly consist of choice language that Dennis used, but first, a quick plug for piece of audio I’ve been listening to, Bryan Elliott’s interview with Seth Godin and their discussion of Seth’s new book, ICARUS DECEPTION. As with most of Seth’s material, if you’re an artist, you should check it out:

“Hey, Patrick.” The breeze was sharper up top and she dealt with it by burrowing into a flimsy jean jacket, the collar pulled up to her earlobes.

“You look good,” she said.

“You, too.”

“It’s nice of you to lie,” she said.

“I wasn’t,” I lied.

The lines in her face were deep enough to hide gravel in. She had the air of someone clinging to a wall of soap

Monument High was the kind of school where kids studied math by counting their shell casings.

Beatrice watched them go and their happiness shrank her. She looked light enough for the breeze to toss her down the stairs.

I exited South Station and shook my arms and legs… I walked over to Two Interantional place, a skyscraper as sleek and heartless as an ice pick. Here, on the twenty-eighth floor, sat the officesof Duhamel-Standiford Global.

DS didn’t’ tweet. They didn’t have a blog or pop up on the right side of a Google screen when someone typed in “private investigation greater Boston.” Not to be found in the Yellow Pages, on the back of Security and You magazine, or begging for your business at two AM between commercials for Thighmaster 6000 and 888-GalPals. Most of the city had never heard of them. Their advertising budget amounted to the same number every quarter: 0.

And they’d been in business for 170 years.

They occupied half of the 28th floor of Two International. The windos facing east overlooked the harbor. Those facing north peered down on the city.

After I was buzzed through that door, I entered a wide anteroom with ice-white walls. The only things hanging… frost glass… it made you want to put on your coat.

Behind the sole desk in the vast anteroom sat a man who’d outlived everyone who could remember at time he hadn’t sat there

He buzzed me through the next set of doors. Dove-gray carpet.

Dent carried whatever had chased him out of the service like a nail in the back of his neck.

“I’ll kill you just for being short,” Bubba said.

While I’d slept, someone had seeded the folds of my brain with red pepper and glass.

She nodded. It was barely a question, really. Angie could tell Bubba she needed him yesterday in Kathmandu and he’d remind her that he was already there.

I flicked the dead cigarette butt from the center of my palm as Violeta Borzakov said, “Kirill, you’re blocking the TV.”

Photos Credit: ALA The American Library Association