Seth Godin's Blog, page 252

Protecting the soft spot

We all have one. Or more than one. It's that place where we can get hurt, the one we seek to defend.

For some people, it's a boss calling us out in front of our peers. For someone else, it's an angry customer. For someone else, it's being confronted with a problem you can solve--but that the effort just seems too great.

The key question is this: how much does the act of protecting the soft spot actually make it more likely you will be hurt?

It turns out that the more you angle yourself, the harder you work to protect the soft spot, the more likely it is that you'll get hurt.

All the time and effort you put into ducking and hiding and holding and avoiding might be sending the market a signal... the irony of your effort is that it's probably making the problem worse.

Kraft singles

Here's a ubiquitous food that succeeds because it's precisely in the center, perfectly normal, exactly the regular kind. No kid whines about how weird they are.

If you're Kraft, this is a good place to be. Singles mint money. My friend Nancy worked on this brand. It's a miracle.

If you're anyone else, forget about becoming more normal than they are, more regular than the regular kind. That slot is taken.

Most mature markets have their own version of Kraft Singles. The challenge for an insurgent is not to try to battle the incumbent for the slot of normal. The challenge is to be edgy and remarkable and to have the market move its center to you.

Live in New York City

One of my favorite events is coming up April 11th.

I'll be spending the day at the Fabulous Helen Mills Theatre in New York. Tickets go on sale today.

This is a live, ad-lib event, driven completely by your questions and issues and opportunities. It's limited to just a hundred tickets, and it always sells out.

If you type in the discount code: sethsentme you'll save another 10%.

PS if you haven't seen the new book yet, it's been on the Amazon top 100 for the last two weeks--the most successful book launch we've ever done. There's even a 52 pack. Thanks for spreading the word.

Are you doing a good job?

One way to approach your work: "I come in on time, even a little early. I do what the boss asks, a bit faster than she expects. I stay on time and on budget, and I'm hardworking and loyal."

The other way: "What aren't they asking me to do that I can do, learn from, make an impact, and possibly fail (yet survive)? What's not on my agenda that I can fight to put there? Who can I frighten, what can I learn, how can I go faster, what sort of legacy am I creating?"

You might very well be doing a good job. But that doesn't mean you're a linchpin, the one we'll miss. For that, you have to stop thinking about the job and start thinking about your platform, your point of view and your mission.

It's entirely possible you work somewhere that gives you no option but to merely do a job. If that's actually true, I wonder why someone with your potential would stay...

In the post-industrial revolution, the very nature of a job is outmoded. Doing a good job is no guarantee of security, advancement or delight.

Bring me stuff that's dead, please

RSS is dead. Blogs are dead. The web is dead.

Good.

Dead means that they are no longer interesting to the drive-by technorati. Dead means that the curiousity factor has been satisfied, that people have gotten the joke.

These people rarely do anything of much value, though.

Great music wasn't created by the first people to grab an electric guitar or a synthesizer. Great snowboarding moves didn't come from the guy who invented the snowboard... No one thinks Gutenberg was a great author, and some of the best books will be written long after books are truly dead.

Only when an innovation is dead can the real work begin. That's when people who are seeking leverage get to work, when we can focus on what we're saying, not how (or where) we're saying it.

The drive-by technorati are well-informed, curious and always probing. They're also hiding... hiding from the real work of creating work that matters, connections with impact and art that lasts. I love to hear about the next big thing, but I'm far more interested in what you're doing with the old big thing.

Seven questions for leaders

Do you let the facts get in the way of a good story?

What do you do with people who disagree with you... do you call them names in order to shut them down?

Are you open to multiple points of view or you demand compliance and uniformity? [Bonus: Are you willing to walk away from a project or customer or employee who has values that don't match yours?]

Is it okay if someone else gets the credit?

How often are you able to change your position?

Do you have a goal that can be reached in multiple ways?

If someone else can get us there faster, are you willing to let them?

No textbook answers... It's easy to get tripped up by these. In fact, most leaders I know do.

Your SXSW agenda (or any conference, for that matter)

It costs a ton of time and money to go to something like SXSW. Other than having a blast, why go?

Here's an interesting way to think about it, something I've used to change the way I attend events (I don't do many, and won't be there, so have fun without me):

Think back a year ago to the last time you went. What do you remember?

Do you remember the presentations that were later on videotape? Do you remember the special screenings of movies? Do you remember the crowded cocktail parties? Bumping into a net celebrity?  I don't.

So I don't do them. At the last TED, I didn't attend a single session. They're fabulous, but I can always watch them later, on video.

Instead, I focus on what I do remember: the engaged conversations. The one on one discussions of what someone is working on. Helping a friend design a book cover or solve a thorny entrepreneurial problem. Sneaking out to go to a taco stand for lunch with a very cool CEO...

These are the reasons it is worth going. (At least for me). So do more of that, I think.

This isn't easy to do. Most conferences are organized around mass, not around individual interactions that last. It takes an effort to seek out conversations that matter.

Will people miss you if you don't show up next year? Why?

Relentlessly smaller

Some people work overtime to make their jobs smaller.

If your job is smaller you're less likely to make a mistake and more likely to please your boss.

But that's a pretty dumb bargain. You're exchanging your upside, energy, opportunity, growth and excitement for the freedom from thinking and a decrease in self-induced anxiety.

What a shame.

Unskilled labor

Perhaps it's time for a new definition.

Unskilled labor is what you call someone who merely has skills that most everyone else has.

If it's not scarce, why pay extra?

Skills matter. The unemployment rate for US workers without a college education is almost triple that for those with one. Even the college rate is still too high, though.  On the other hand, the unemployment rate for skilled neurosurgeons, talented database designers and motivated recombinant DNA biologists is essentially zero, despite the high pay in all three fields.

Unskilled now means not-specially skilled.

Assuming goodwill

Productivity comes from interactivity and the exchange of ideas and talents.

People are happiest when they're encouraged and trusted.

An airport functions far better when we don't strip search passengers. Tiffany's may post guards at the door, but the salespeople are happy to let you hold priceless jewels. Art museums let you stand close enough to paintings to see them. Restaurants don't charge you until after you eat.

Compare this environment of trust with the world that Paypal has to live in. Every day, thousands of mobsters in various parts of the world sit down intent on scamming the company out of millions of dollars. If the site makes one mistake, permits just one security hole to linger, they're going to be taken for a fortune. As a result, the company isn't just paranoid--they know that people really are out to get them.

This is the fork in the road that just about all of us face, whether as individuals or organizations. We have to make an assumption about whether people are going to steal our ideas, break their promises, void their contracts and steal from us, or perhaps, that people are basically honest, trustworthy and generous. It's very hard to have both postures simultaneously. I have no idea how those pistol-packing guys in the movies ever get a good night's sleep.

In just about every industry (except electronic money transfer, apparently), assuming goodwill is not only more productive, it's also likely to be an accurate forecast.

Trust pays.