Seth Godin's Blog, page 320

The problem with non

Non as in non-profit.

The first issue is the way you describe yourself. I know what you're not but what are you?

Did you start or join this non-profit because of the non part? I doubt it. It's because you want to make change. The way the world is just isn't right or good enough for you... there's an emergency or an injustice or an opportunity and you want to make change.

These organizations exist solely to make change. That's why you joined, isn't it?

The problem facing your group, ironically...

The hierarchy of success

I think it looks like this:

Attitude

Approach

Goals

Strategy

Tactics

Execution

We spend all our time on execution. Use this word instead of that one. This web host. That color. This material or that frequency of mailing.

Big news: No one ever succeeded because of execution tactics learned from a Dummies book.

Tactics tell you what to execute. They're important, but dwarfed by strategy. Strategy determines which tactics might work.

But what's the point of a strategy if your goals...

The end of dumb software

In the age of rapid cycles and connected data, how long are we going to have to settle for dumb software?

Here's the detail screen from iCal. If I write a long text to go with an appointment, the only way to see the whole thing is to hit "edit."  But I don't want to edit it, I just want to see it.

If I try to schedule an appointment for 2 pm, it requires me to not only hit the 2, but also select pm. I have never once had a meeting at 2 am. Shouldn't it know that?

When I type in someone's name, ...

Flipping abundance and scarcity

I think it's dangerous and often fatal to put free on top of an existing business model. Things fall apart.

People look at the free revolution and say, "oh, that could never work. If I gave x, y or z away for free, I'd fail." They're right. They will fail... If they keep the model the same and just give away stuff for free.

The way you win is by reinventing the model itself. So, for example, lululemon doing giant free yoga classes in New York. The more people come, the more clothes they'll...

Taking the time to teach

What we do in the long run, over time, drip by drip, affects the market so much more than an angry reaction or urgent event.

Smoking a pack a day for twenty years is a great way to be sure you'll die early. Far more likely, in fact, than getting hit by a car. And yet it's so easy to talk to our kids about cars...

Delivering out of the box remarkability day after day counts for far more than one hit or one misstep. When we teach people about our story or our industry or about making...

The big drop off

We try so hard to build the first circle.

This is the circle of followers, friends, subscribers, customers, media outlets and others willing to hear our pitch. This is the group we tell about our new product, our new record, our upcoming big sale. We want more of their attention and more people on the list.

Which takes our attention away from the circle that matters, which is the second circle.

The second circle are the people who hear about us from the first circle.

If the first circle is...

Righteous indignation

This is a default response for many people--irked customers, angry bosses, disappointed colleagues. It's easy to go into high dudgeon (in fact, low dudgeon isn't even in the dictionary, it's always 'high').

The thing is: it doesn't work. It rarely succeeds in accomplishing much, and it makes you unhappy at the same time.

What if you took it out of your toolbox of responses?

What if, just like becoming a cannibal or painting your face green, you eliminated righteous indignation as an option in...

Bonus: a big week for books

Lots of books cross my desk, and I think Amazon has me down as customer of the year. I've noticed that the quality of books keeps going up, particularly some of the business titles I've seen lately.

No room for all of them here, but I've made a handy one-page guide to some books I've been reading lately. You can't go wrong with any of them. If you meet an author in the street, give him a hug. Then buy his book.

Achievable avalanche opportunities

That's what your team wants. Your employees, your investors, your boss. They're willing to put in the time and the energy and the work if they think:

The outcome might be an avalanche of attention, new business and growth, and

Their work makes that outcome achievable, even likely.

If you are vague about the outcome, or if the steps are too complex, or involve sacrificing a goat or waiting for lightning to hit, it's going to be very difficult to get the group excited. People are far...

Clout

The web knows something, but it's not telling us, at least not yet.

The web knows how many followers you have on Twitter, how many friends you have on Facebook, how many people read your blog.

It also knows how often those people retweet, amplify and spread your ideas.

It also knows how many followers your followers have...

So, what if, Google-style, someone took all this data and figured out who has clout. Which of your readers is the one capable of making an idea break through the noise and...