Seth Godin's Blog, page 140

Saying vs. doing

Does this group have a loyalty oath?

Brittle organizations are focused on which end of the egg you open. Are you wearing the team jersey the right way, saying the incantations each time, saluting properly...

Resilient organizations are more focused on what you produce, and why.

Petty dictators care a lot about words, about appearances, about whether everyone is genuflecting in precisely the same way.

The problem with words is that they easily lose their meaning. Say something often enough and it becomes a tic, not an expression of how you actually feel. Not only that, but words rarely change things. Actions do.

It turns out that it's a lot easier to sign up for a tribe that doesn't ask you to think, or take responsibility for your actions. But, in the long run, those are the very things that lead to the changes we seek.

"Use your best judgment, care about your impact, do work that matters..." are significantly more powerful instructions than, "Do it this way. Say it this way. Behave the way I told you to."

            

Natural light

One way to make something is to pre-process all the inputs. Make sure that you've worked the supply chain so that the raw materials are precisely the same every time. Guarantee that the working conditions are identical. Isolate all your processes from the outside world, so they're reliable and predictable.

The other way is to use natural light. Take what you get. Make the variability in your inputs part of what you create.

If you need to control your conditions, by all means, control them. Own that. It costs a lot and you need to make it worth it. It's foolish to expect that you can regularly wrestle variation into perfection without tools and effort. This is how modern surgery is done, and it's a good thing. Hospitals don't hesitate to invest time and money in controlling every element they can control.

Or, take the path of natural light. Embrace the idea that the conditions will never be ideal, which of course makes them always ideal. Because the thing about natural light is that whatever it is, is.

You can make this choice about the way you make ketchup, your hiking & camping methods or the way you do photography. Less equipment, less repeatability, more engagement. HT Paul.

Also: Thanks to you, we've already had 20,000 free downloads of the Thanksgiving Reader. Special thanks to Arianna Huffington and Cool Hunting.

            

A Thanksgiving Reader

In ten days, just about everyone in the United States will celebrate the best holiday of the year: Thanksgiving. I’m hoping that this year, you and your family will help me start a new holiday tradition.

At its best, this is a holiday about gratitude, about family and about possibility. It brings people together to not only celebrate the end of the harvest, but to look one in another in the eye and share something magical.

In a digital age, one where humanity has been corrupted by commerce at every turn, there are very few Thanksgiving piñatas stuffed with coins, no huge market in Thanksgiving wrapping paper, no rush to the stores. We mostly save that for the next day, when the retail-industrial establishment kicks into high gear.

I’m delighted to point you to the Thanksgiving Reader . The file you'll find there is free, it’s printable, it’s sharable and it might give us something universal and personal to do this Thanksgiving.

The idea is simple: At your Thanksgiving celebration (and yes, it’s okay to use it outside the US!), consider going around the table and having each person read a section aloud.

During these ten or fifteen minutes, millions of people will all be reading the same words, thinking about the same issues, connecting with each other over the essence of what we celebrate. After all the travel and the cooking and the hassle, for these ten or fifteen minutes, perhaps we can all breathe the same air and think hard about what we’re thankful for.

It’s free to download and share. I hope you’ll let some people in your life know about it and incorporate it in your celebration this year. There’s no commercial element involved—after all, it’s Thanksgiving. 

Please share. And we're happy to hear your suggestions.

Thank you for everything you do, and for the difference you make to your family and the people who care about you.

[and for international readers, in troubled times...]

Wherever you are, you could celebrate Thanksgiving today. Or any day.

Not the Thanksgiving of a bountiful Massachusetts harvest before the long winter, the holiday of pilgrims and pie. That's a holiday of scarcity averted. I'm imagining something else...

A modern Thanksgiving would celebrate two things:

The people in our lives who give us the support and love we need to make a difference, and...

The opportunity to build something bigger than ourselves, something worth contributing to. The ability to make connections, to lend a hand, to invent and create.

There are more of both now than there have ever been before. For me, for you, for just about all of us. Thank you.

[Backup download in case the other one has too much traffic:  Download The Thanksgiving Reader]

            

Surveys and focus groups

It doesn't matter what people say. Watch what they do.

The story is told of a focus group for a new $100 electronic gadget. The response in the focus group was fabulous, people all talked about the features of the new device with excitement.

At the end of the session, the moderator said, "thanks for coming. As our gift to you, you can have your choice of the device or $25."

Everyone took the cash.

Surveys that ask your customers about their preferences, their net promoter intent, their media habits--they're essentially useless compared to watching what people actually do when they have a chance. The media wastes their time and ours handicapping politics based on polls, on changes in polls, on expectations based on polls—it's sad. Polls are always wrong.

The best part of show & tell has never been the telling part.

            

Iceland

If every person in Iceland bought your product, loved your music, read your book, would it be enough?

Iceland has a tiny population, but if you had all of them, would it be enough?

Of course, you don’t have to go to Iceland to get 320,000 customers. Geography is just one way to seek out edge cases.

Most successes aren’t the result of trying to be a huge success and settling for what you get. They are the result of focusing on exactly what you need, and getting it.

            

The initiator

For each person who cares enough to make something, who is bold enough to ship it, who is generous enough to say, "here, I made this,"...

There are ten people who say, "I could have done it better."

A hundred people who say, "Who are you to do this?"

A thousand people who say, "I was just about to do that,"

and ten thousand people who don't care at all.

And all of that is okay, because the person we need, the one we cherish, the one we would miss, is the first person, the initiator, the one who cares.

Thanks for shipping your work.

            

Falling down the quality abyss

Attention stops being paid, compromises are made, quality goes down.

Expectations aren't met.

Expectations are lowered.

Customers drift away.

Budgets are cut, because there are fewer customers.

Quality erodes even more, because there's less to spend, and employees care less.

Repeat.

The alternative is the quality ratchet:

Over-focus on quality.

Expectations go up.

Sales rise as a result of word of mouth and customer satisfaction.

More money is spent on quality.

Repeat.

Often, organizations don't realize that they're falling down the abyss until extraordinary efforts are required to make a difference. But it's always easier to fix it today than it will be tomorrow.

And here's the hard part: You don't fall down the abyss all at once. You compromise, you cut corners, you don't bring as much to your work, and nothing bad happens (at first). So the feedback loop is broken.

Working your way back out works the same way: You work harder, you raise your standards, you invest, and nothing good happens (at first).

The challenge is to have the guts to care even when you're not apparently rewarded for caring.

            

Alumni updates

Over the years, I've had the extraordinary privilege of working with an all-star cast of interns, students, co-conspirators and employees. One of the thrills of my career is watching each of them go off and make a ruckus, a generous one, in the communities they care about.

I got a note from one the other day, and I thought you might want to hear about what she's doing. That led me to asking about fifty of them for an update, and without further ado (click each ellipsis for more information):

Michelle Welsch crowdfunded money to establish an education center in Nepal that provides language classes, career counseling and weekly seminars. ...

Al Pittampalli is following up his last bestseller with a new one, Persuadable, that promises to change the way we think about leadership. ...

Alex Krupp is launching a social network that lets you share great emails with everyone. ...

Allan Young is the founder of Runway and TopLine, two of the largest technology startup incubators and communities for innovators in the San Francisco Bay Area. ...

Allison Myers and her team continue to fight Big Tobacco where they enter our communities, in the retail environment. ...

Amber Rae continues to spread creativity around the world, and give people a platform to share their voice through public art. ...

Andrew Chapman is refining his venture into cause-related publishing, now exploring the idea of incorporating an app into his business model. ...

Andy Levitt's vegan meal kit business, Purple Carrot, has now expanded across the country, helping people eat more plant-based food. ...

Barrett Brooks is working to build the best place on the web to learn to build an independent business you believe in. ...

Bestselling business author Michael Parrish DuDell just finished his second book for ABC's Shark Tank and is a recognized television pundit. ...

Bonnie Diczhazy is working on fun projects for Pack with fellow alumni Megan Casey. ...

Calvin Liu continues to grow and develop Outpour, an award-winning app for honoring the special people in our lives. ...

Casper ter Kuile is convening secular communities that are playing increasingly religious functions in people's lives like CrossFit and The Dinner Party ...

Chelsea Shukov makes beautiful things with paper, so beautiful that Target has asked her to make them available to a lot of people. ...

Clay Hebert continues to help entrepreneurs, creatives and ruckusmakers fund their dreams. ...

Corey Brown is Chief Instigator at Coreyweb, a small team offering expertise from 20 years of inventing, designing, building and improving successful websites. ...

Dahna Goldstein's company, PhilanTech, was acquired and she continues to work to help social sector organizations maximize their impact. ...

Evan Kirsch continues to expand the impresario philosophy by becoming a Partner at MAKE Digital Group, a technology consulting firm allowing him to focus his efforts on educational reform and implement indispensable leadership principles through the entire organization.  ...

Gil Hildebrand is leading a team of designers, developers, and marketers that supercharge some of the world's greatest brands. ...

Desiree Vargas Wrigley and GiveForward have helped keep thousands of people out of medical bankruptcy and put nearly $180M into the hands of American families when they need it the most. ...

Grant Spanier has been having conversations (on his podcast 10,000 HOURS) with some of the most interesting creative people in the world for two years now. ...

Rachel Simpson is continuing to work on Google Chrome - focusing on making important things easy and delightful to use. ...

Jeremy Wilson is continuing to connect his tribe and spread stories of inspiration through yoga classes he teaches in Chicago. ...

Jess Pillmore's living out loud with her revolution in sustainable artistry, provoking the arts and education to embrace play, ownership, and desiring the impossible. ...

Jessica Lawrence continues to build community through her leadership of NY Tech Meetup, a 47,000 member non-profit organization and the world's largest Meetup group. ...

Jonathan Van is continuing to help entrepreneurs build venture backed companies with great tools and investment. ...

Katrina Razavi has channeled her passion for communication skills and self-improvement into a blog that helps people improve their social confidence. ...

Kristina Villarini took her love for building community and amplifying voices to GLSEN, the leading national education nonprofit focused on keeping schools safe and affirming in grades K-12. ...

Leanne Hilgart's ethical fashion label VAUTE is one of the first private fashion brands to raise money from their biggest fans, with a goal to set a new standard of ethics in fashion. ...

Leslie Madsen-Brooks directs the IDEA Shop at Boise State, where she and her team help faculty use emerging technologies to develop novel learning experiences. ...

Liz Bohannon's ethical fashion company experienced record growth this year and continues to create opportunity for women and girls in East Africa. ...

Matt Frazier built thriving vegan running groups around the world, connecting no-meat athletes in places as unlikely as Oklahoma City and as far away as Sydney, Australia. ...

Matt Radcliffe uses his multi-faceted talents to produce and support live performance art in Colorado Springs. ...

McKenzie Cerri and team continue to transform the way teachers communicate, inspire and support their students, by embedding coaching-cultures in schools. ...

Phoebe Espiritu is midway through 25x52.com, an initiative to launch 25 projects in 52 weeks. Among the projects is Project Moccasin, a mentorship program where applicants get to spend a day at work with a design, product or entrepreneurial mentor. ...

Mike Ambassador Bruny continues to work on making a difference at work with his latest podcast, No More Reasonable Doubt, geared towards young professionals of color. ...

Nicola Gammon continues to grow Shoot to transform the way we garden. ...

Noah Weiss is the SVP of Product Management at Foursquare, where he's helping build software that make cities more fun and easier to use. ...

Paul Jun is continuing his coaching for the altMBA, and inspired by the students' growth, he started a project in rebranding his platform (ships November 15th). ...

Rebecca Rodskog is enabling organizations to think about the future of work, be more innovative, and help them create environments where their employees can thrive. ...

Rebecca Shomair founded an art fundraising event that is now held across the US raising over a million dollars for the Anti-Defamation League. ...

Reggie Black contines to share his art in non-traditional spaces with people around the world, redefining how we interact with inspiration. ...

Sean O'Connor has launched a new edtech platform that makes tutoring more affordable and accessible. ...

Sharon Rowe is collaborating on #MagicAndMayhem: a speaking platform to inspire entrepreneurs, powered by women telling their real stories of launching multimillion dollar businesses. ...

Stefy Cohen is working in Latin America to promote entrepreneurship & innovation through her series of talks, courses, and events. ...

Susan Danziger launched Ziggeo, the leading recorded video technology, a powerful way to gather videos from applicants. ...

Willie Jackson is creating a space for black men (and women) to connect with opportunities, jobs, and each other. ...

This is what it means to make a ruckus, to do work that matters and to ship your art. Wow.

            

Your progress report

I'm not sure we need to see a checklist of what you got done last week. What we really need:

a. the difficult questions that remain unanswered

b. the long-term goals where you don’t feel like progress is being made

c. risky, generous acts that worked

Even more important: All the things that aren't on your list, but could be.

            

Certain failure

Last night, a comedian tried out some new material, and someone in the front row didn't laugh.

Last week, I put up a post with a new idea in it, and thousands of people who read it didn't retweet or share it.

Last year, someone ran for office and didn't get every single vote cast.

Failure! Certain failure.

Of course your next project isn't going to delight everyone. That's impossible. It's certain that for some people, your project is going to be a failure.

At the same time, it's also quite unlikely that your project will please no one.

So now, we can agree that it's all on a spectrum, and that success and failure are merely localized generalizations.

Once you realize that failure is certain, it's a lot easier to focus on impact instead.