Seth Godin's Blog, page 316

Empathy

I have no idea what it's like to be pregnant.

And for most of us, we have no idea what it's like to have $3 to spend on a day's food, or $4,000,000 to spend on a jet. We have no idea what it feels like to be lost in a big city, no idea how confusing it is to go online for the first time, no idea what it's like to own four houses.

Marketers and pundits and writers and bloggers and bosses pretend they are empathetic, but we never can be. Sure, we can try, we can be open to cues and sensitive to c...

True believers (and the truth)

The internet has amplified the volume of the true believers, the defenders of any faith.

If you're into high end stereo, it's far easier to find strident voices in defense of $100,000 stereos than ever before. If you have strong views on health care (either side) it's not hard to find the orthodox and articulate believers. It's not just specialty magazines or conferences any longer. The true believers are in our faces every day.

When you lead a tribe, the volume and accessibility of the true...

Fear of apples

At the farmer's market the other day, not one but three people (perfect strangers) asked me what sort of apple to buy. What do I look like, some sort of apple expert? Apparently.

In our industrialized world, people are now afraid of apples. Afraid of buying the wrong kind. Afraid of making a purchasing mistake or some sort of pie mistake.

And they're afraid of your product and your service. Whatever you sell, there are two big reasons people aren't buying it:

1. They don't know about it.

2...

"Notice me"

If the new web has a mantra, that's it.

So much time and effort is now put into finding followers, accumulating comments and generating controversy... all so that people will notice you. People say and do things that don't benefit them, just because they're hooked on attention.

Attention is fine, as long as you have a goal that is reached in exchange for all this effort.

Far better than being noticed:

Trusted
Engaged with
Purchased from
Discussed
Echoed
Teaching us
Leading

The Rule of High School

Any sufficiently overheated industry will eventually resemble high school. High school is filled with insecurity, social climbing, backbiting, false friends, faux achievements, high drama and not much content. Much of this insecurity comes from a market that doesn't make good judgments, that doesn't understand how to reliably choose between alternatives. So it turns into a popularity contest.

As Tom Hanks reportedly said, "Hollywood is like high school, but with money."

Or the fashion magazine ...

The problem with cable news thinking

Not only the networks of all political persuasions that come to mind, but the mindset they represent...

When I was growing up, Eyewitness News always found a house on fire in South Buffalo. "Tonight's top story," Irv Weinstein would intone, "...a fire in South Buffalo." Every single night. If you watched the news from out of town, you were sure that the city must have completely burned to the ground. 

Cable news thinking has nothing to do with fires or with politics. Instead, it amplifies the...

Creating sustainable competitive advantage

No successful web company (not eBay, Flickr, Amazon, Facebook...) succeeds because of a significant technological barrier to entry. It's not insanely difficult to copy what they've done. Yet they win and the copycats don't.

Few organizations succeed in the long run because of proprietary technology. Not Starbucks or CAA or Nike, certainly. Not Caterpillar or Reuters either.

Technologists often tell me, "this product is very hard to build, that will insulate us from competition and protect our...

Make a decision

It doesn't have to be a wise decision or a perfect one. Just make one.

In fact, make several. Make more decisions could be your three word mantra.

No decision is a decision as well, the decision not to decide. Not deciding is usually the wrong decision. If you are the go-to person, the one who can decide, you'll make more of a difference. It doesn't matter so much that you're right, it matters that you decided.

Of course it's risky and painful. That's why it's a rare and valuable skill.

Two seminars in November

I haven't done a public seminar in six months or so. It's clearly time.

All the details are here. There is one in New York City on November 19th and for the first time, a small roundtable session in my office on November 13th. The small session is by application only.

If you're interested in either one, I hope you'll sign up soon, because they sell out quickly.

Hope to see you there.

Apparent risk and actual risk

There are people who I will never encounter in a restaurant.

That's because when these people go out for dinner, they go to chain restaurants. These are the tourists in New York who seek out the familiar Olive Garden instead of walking down the street to Pure.

That's fine. It's a personal choice.

But it got me thinking about the difference between apparent and actual risk, and how that choice affects just about everything we do.

The concierge at a fancy hotel spends her time...