Seth Godin's Blog, page 304

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Is there a fear shortage?

If so, I'm not seeing it.

When something is scarce, it's valuable and smart people try to make more of it. So, should we be trying to make more fear?

Looking around, it appears as though the government, various media players and lots of well-meaning people have come to a conclusion that there's a shortage of fear. So they're busy making more of it. Making more when we already have a surplus...

We're inundated about ways to avoid this pitfall or that risk.

If you see something, say something...

Without them

One of the most common things I hear is, "I'd like to do something remarkable like that, but my xyz won't let me." Where xyz = my boss, my publisher, my partner, my licensor, my franchisor, etc.

Well, you can fail by going along with that and not doing it, or you can do it, cause a ruckus and work things out later.

In my experience, once it's clear you're willing (not just willing, but itching, moving, and yes, implementing) without them, things start to happen. People are rarely willing to...

Evolution of every medium

Technicians who invented it, run it

Technicians with taste, leverage it

Artists take over from the technicians

MBAs take over from the artists

Bureaucrats drive the medium to banality

TV used to be driven by the guys who knew how to run cameras and transmitters. Then it got handed off to the Ernie Kovacs/Rod Serling types. Then the financial operators like ITT and Gulf + Western milked it. And finally it's just a job.

Same thing happened to oil painting and it'll happen to your...

Welcome to the frustration decade (and the decade of change)

Here are my picks for the two most important trends of the decade we're just starting:

Change: The infrastructure of massive connection is now real. People around the world have cell phones. The first internet generation is old enough to spend money, go to work and build companies. Industries are being built every day (and old ones are fading). The revolution is in full swing, and an entire generation is eager to change everything because of it. Hint: it won't look like the last one with a...

Seven years gone

A friend worried out loud to me the other day, "I spent the last seven months doing this [job:] and I have nothing to show for it. If I had known I would have spent seven months and gotten nothing, you can bet I would have done something a lot more fun."

Ten years ago I wrote this post about the decade that ends today.

The oughts (the "uh-ohs"?) were a tough decade on a macro level. Front page news events will give the textbooks plenty to write about in the years to come.

But on a micro level...

Cheapest reliable alternative

For most products and services, most of the time, people sign up for the Cheapest Reliable Alternative Plan.

If everything appears to be the same, then of course they're going to pick the cheapest one that's good enough.

In the face of this understandable strategy, you have a few choices:

You can be cheapest (difficult to sustain).

You can be more reliable (great if you can figure this out).

You can be redefine the playing the field to be the only one (most preferred).

Buying a new microphone or l...

Put a name on it

Here's a positive step to avoid the faceless bureaucracy that wants to take over your organization:

Every new rule needs to be associated with one and only one person who is willing to stand up for it and explain it (to your people and to the public).

"No swimming until 45 minutes after eating." Really? Why? Who made this rule up? Why?

I think most international travelers would like to know who made the rule that bans wifi from international flights. Or the name of the other person who made the ...

It's not the rats you need to worry about

If you want to know if a ship is going to sink, watch what the richest passengers do.

iTunes and file sharing killed Tower Records. The key symptom: the best customers switched. Of course people who were buying 200 records a year would switch. They had the most incentive. The alternatives were cheaper and faster mostly for the heavy users.

Amazon and the Kindle have killed the bookstore. Why? Because people who buy 100 or 300 books a year are gone forever. The typical American buys just one...

How far away is your future?

Let's try a thought experiment:

A flying saucer comes to Earth, destroys a major city to get our attention, then announces that in 10,000 years it is coming back to destroy the Earth. In order to eliminate any doubt, it then blows up Mars.

Assume for a moment that you believe the threat and there's nothing we can do about it...

Question: how would knowing that the planet would disappear in 10,000 years change your typical day?

Okay, now run the same story, but 1,000 years from now instead.

You...