Seth Godin's Blog, page 232

Thursday bonuses

First, two signs, each telling a very different story:

This sign says, "we're in power, we're going to use newspeak and double-talk and pretend we've done something to benefit you, which of course, we haven't." It also uses "conveniently" as an adverb, which is just annoying. Why not tell the truth, straight up?

On the other hand, this sign screams transparency and honesty. The farmer explained that on days when the corn was picked that day, he erases the scribbles on the bottom of the sign, but if the corn was picked just one day earlier, it's just not right to say 'fresh'. It's worth noting that instead of having two signs, one for each condition, he uses his own hand to tell the truth, quite vigorously. Guess who has the most popular corn stand in New York, even on days when it is not, apparently, fresh?

...and here's a fascinating, generous and over-the-top-in-a-good-way article on infographics by Ed Fry. Sometimes, earning attention is about being all three, not about gaming the system or getting lucky.

Should the New Yorker change?

For the first time in its history, the editors at The New Yorker know which articles are being read. And they know who's reading them.

They know if the cartoons are the only thing people are reading, or if the fiction really is a backwater. They know when people abandon articles, and they know that the last 3,000 words of a feature on the origin of sand is being widely ignored.

They also know, or should know, whether people are looking at the ads, and what the correlation is between ad lookers and article readers. The iPad app can keep track of all of this, of course.

The question then: should they change? Should the behavior of readers dictate what they publish?

Of course, this choice extends to what you publish as well, doesn't it?

The web leaders hate typography (but not for long)

It probably started with HTML, and then Yahoo, of course. But eBay escalated the hatred and Google and Facebook have institutionalized it.

To have lame typography, to avoid opportunities to speak not just with what you say, but how the letters look—this is part of the web's engineering-first ethos.

Sergey Brin famously said that marketing is the cost you pay for lousy products, and apparently, typography is a variety of marketing.

Sergey's wrong about marketing, of course (great products are marketing), but doubly wrong about the benefits of typography.

Typography is what sets Apple, at first glance, apart from just about everyone at the mall. Typography is what makes a self-published book often look pale in comparison to a 'real' one. Typography (or the lack thereof) is a safety hazard on airplanes (who decided that all the safety labels should be in ALL CAPS)?

The choice of a typeface, the care given to kerning and to readability—it all sends a powerful signal. When your business card is nothing but Arial on a piece of cardboard, you've just told people how they ought to think about you… precisely the opposite of what you were trying to do when you made the card in the first place.

The irony here is clear. It was computer technology (particularly Apple) that put typography into the hands of all of us. And it's computer technology that is relentlessly picking it apart, devaluing expression in a misguided attempt to demonstrate that you're too busy coding to make anything look trustworthy or delightful. Typekit and other web solutions are trying to address this problem, and it's pretty clear that the next generation of sophisticated organizations online is going to look a lot better than this one does.

Great typography isn't as easy as lazy type, but it's worth way more than it costs—in fact, it's a world-class bargain. (some typography resources). And a neat tool via Swiss-Miss.

Waving to myself

When I'm on the bike path riding my truly weird recumbent bicycle, sometimes I pass someone else similarly outfitted. And I wave.

Same thing happens when a pregnant mom meets another at the airport, or when two backpackers encounter each other in a strange city.

Of course, we're not waving at the other person. We're waving at ourselves.

The warning signs of defending the status quo

When confronted with a new idea, do you:

Consider the cost of switching before you consider the benefits?

Highlight the pain to a few instead of the benefits for the many?

Exaggerate how good things are now in order to reduce your fear of change?

Undercut the credibility, authority or experience of people behind the change?

Grab onto the rare thing that could go wrong instead of amplifying the likely thing that will go right?

Focus on short-term costs instead of long-term benefits, because the short-term is more vivid for you?

Fight to retain benefits and status earned only through tenure and longevity?

Embrace an instinct to accept consistent ongoing costs instead of swallowing a one-time expense?

Slow implementation and decision making down instead of speeding it up?

Embrace sunk costs?

Imagine that your competition is going to be as afraid of change as you are? Even the competition that hasn't entered the market yet and has nothing to lose...

Emphasize emergency preparation at the expense of a chronic and degenerative condition?

Compare the best of what you have now with the possible worst of what a change might bring?

Calling it out when you see it might give your team the strength to make a leap.

Form design

The purpose of a form is not to treat the human as a computer, who will dutifully fill in each and every box just the way you want.

No, creating a form is like hosting a party for words.

Those little boxes (one per letter) are on some forms because it communicates to you that you should slow down and write clearly, because a human being is going to have to read what you wrote and type it in for you.

The large lined area on the application implies that you're supposed to write more than one sentence.

Online forms work the same way. When you use big type and big boxes, you're telling the visitor something, talking in a certain tone of voice. The local DMV site feels very different from a web2.0 company that happens to be collecting almost exactly the same data.

We're all looking for clues, clues about what you want, who you are, whether we trust you. Even in a simple form.

More or less

You can either seek to get more out of an opportunity (job, technology, interaction, person, moment), or less.

More exposure, more risk, more upside, more work, more learning, more engagement, more passion, more chance to be blamed, more opportunity to make a difference, more effort...

or less.

The facts

A statement of fact is insufficient and often not even necessary to persuade someone of your point of view.

[I was going to end the post just like that, but then I realized that I was merely telling you a fact, one that might not resonate. Here's the riff:

Politicians, non-profits and most of all, amateur marketers believe that all they need to do to win the day is to recite a fact. You're playing Monopoly and you say, "I'll trade you Illinois for Connecticut." The other person refuses, which is absurd. I mean, Illinois costs WAY more than Connecticut. It's a fact. There's no room for discussion here. You are right and they are wrong.

But they still have the property you want, and you lose. Because all you had was a fact.

On the other hand, the story wins the day every time. When the youngest son, losing the game, offers to trade his mom Baltic for Boardwalk, she says yes in a heartbeat. Because it feels right, not because it is right.

Your position on just about everything, including, yes, your salary, your stock options, your credit card debt and your mortgage are almost certainly based on the story you tell yourself, not some universal fact from the universal fact database.

Not just you, everyone.

Work with that.]

September 13 session in my office

By request, I'm offering a small group session in my office on the 13th of September. Call it group coaching for lack of a better term... bring your marketing, business model, web or other challenges and we'll try to work through them. A few big ideas are likely to come of it for each attendee.

Apologies in advance if you can't get a ticket, but if it goes well, I'll probably do it again. Details and tickets.

A little empty

I guess this is how a sports fan felt when Joe DiMaggio retired.

Business didn't used to be personal. Now it is.

Computers didn't used to make us smile. Now they do.

We didn't used to care about whether a CEO made one decision or another, or whether or not he was healthy. I do now.

Sure, there was baseball after joltin Joe stopped playing. But it was never quite the same.

Thank you, Steve, for giving us all something to talk about and a way to talk about it with beauty (and fonts). We owe you more than we can say.