Seth Godin's Blog, page 141

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.

            

Advertising's hidden design and its impact on our culture

Media changes everything. Media drives our expectations, our conversations and our culture.

And what drives the media? Ads.

Two kinds, it turns out: Brand ads and direct ads. Brand ads are the unmeasurable, widely seen ads you generally think of when you think of an ad. A billboard, a TV commercial, an imprinted mug. Direct ads, on the other hand, are action-oriented and measurable. Infomercials, mail order catalogs and many sorts of digital media are considered direct marketing. 

It takes guts to be a brand marketer.

What's the return on a $75,000 investment of a full-page ad in the New Yorker?

What's the yield on a three-million dollar Super Bowl commercial?

We have no idea. Brand marketers don't do math. They pay attention to the culture instead.

On the other hand, it takes math to be a direct marketer.

What's the yield on this classified ad? How many people used that discount code? How many clicks did we get?

The challenge of new media is this: Media companies can't figure out if they're selling brand ads or direct ads. And many who want to buy these ads can't decide either.

At the beginning of most sorts of media, it's the brand marketers who go first. The first to buy banner ads, or podcast ads or Facebook ads were brands with a budget to spend on new media that was esteemed by early adopters. MailChimp gets a huge benefit by sponsoring podcasts, but they can't measure those ads. And that's fine with them.

The next wave that hits new forms of media, almost always, is the seduction of the direct marketer. That's because direct marketers always have plenty of money to invest in ads that pay for themselves. The thing is, though, that direct marketers don't care about the medium, they care about the response. As a result, there's a huge gulf, a tension between what the medium wants (a great podcast, a website with authority, a social network with character) and what the direct marketer wants (measurable clicks).

Consider this: The best direct marketing advertising media is permission based. Ads where the ads are the point. Ads where the ads are not only measurable but the focus of the experience. Classified ads. Craigslist. Catalogs. The coupons in the Sunday paper. The Yellow Pages. Google AdWords. These are all forms of advertising we might miss if they were gone, and they are all forms of measurable direct marketing.

The best brand media, on the other hand, is media that informs and entertains despite the ads, not because of them. These podcasts, newscasts, blogs and magazines often run ads as their business model, but the ads don't drive the product, it's the other way around. 

The actionable steps:

a. If you're a media company that one day wants to be respected enough to attract brand marketers, refuse to maximize the clicks. The direct marketers will push you to develop the equivalent of classified ads, of Google Adwords--ads we want to see merely because they're ads. These are the most effective forms of direct marketing, because the people who look at them want to look at them. It's a form of Permission Marketing, and it works. But a short term focus on yield doesn't lead to a great podcast, and too many clickable popunders has been the demise of many a trusted website.

b. If you're considering buying ads, be super clear about what the ads are for. Just because you can measure clicks doesn't mean you should. It's that middle ground, the netherland between direct and brand, that leads to disappoint, both for you and the media company.

The challenge:

a. If you're a media company (particularly a website or a podcast, but possibly a conference or a magazine) and you're hungry for advertising, you'll soon end up hearing from direct marketers who want you to sacrifice your long-term standing with readers and attendees in order to make their clicks go up, who want more coupons redeemed and more short-term results. Try to remember that these advertisers aren't sponsors who care about your status or long-term prospects, they are direct marketers who will switch to a better yield the moment they can. That's the direct marketer's job.

b. If you're a direct marketer, your peers are going to push you to make ads that are more palatable to a brand marketer's sensibility. The problem with this, of course, is that you'll end up neither here nor there. You won't be culturally embraced the way an actual brand marketer can be, and you won't generate the yield you were looking for.

I've been a direct marketer for a long time, and it's entirely possible that I'll get kicked out of the hall of fame for saying this, but the fact is that the media that shapes our culture was not invented for or by direct marketers. 

Now that digital media is becoming a significant driver of our culture, I'm concerned that more and more media companies are hoping to get paid by direct marketers. That's never been a good match.

            

The simple way to get better at business writing

Don't do business writing.

Have you ever met someone in industry who talks like he writes? You visit a store and the person says, "effective January 1, 2015, we have ceased operations at this location. For further information, correspondence should be addressed to our headquarters." Of course not. That would be awkward.

Write like you talk instead.

"We closed this store last year. Sorry for the hassle, please call us if you have any questions."

With effort and practice, it's possible to speak with respect, precision and energy. After you speak that way, write down what you said. 

That's effective business writing.