Seth Godin's Blog, page 324

Busking at the airport

I have no patience for bureaucracies that proclaim that they are unable to innovate. It's not that they are unable to do so, it's that they don't want to do so.

The other day as I walked through SFO, I heard live music. Live! Looking over, there was Bart Davenport and his band, playing real good for free. Probably not for free, actually, but collecting plenty of tips in the box out front. They sold a lot of CDs too.

What a great venue. What a service (for Bart, for me, for the airport).

Go ahead, d

The art and skill of working with bureaucrats

Have you noticed that most airports feature the same restaurants? It's not an accident. The people who run these chains have organized themselves to be good at dealing with municipal organizations.



Same thing goes for design firms, creative firms, accountants etc. that deal with large corporations.

In my experience, 40% of the fee goes for the work and 60% goes to pay for the do-overs, staffing, project management and hassle that comes from working from big organizations and committees.

Quality, scale and the regular kind

When we talk about quality, it's easy to get confused.

That's because there are two kinds of quality being discussed. The most common way it's talked about in business is "meeting specifications." An item has quality if it's built the way it was designed to be built.

There's another sort of quality, though. This is the quality of, "is it worth doing?". The quality of specialness and humanity, of passion and remarkability.

Hence the conflict. The first sort of quality is easy to mandate, reasonably

Best new way to make an internal sale

How do you get your boss to approve something, the customer service people to understand the pain a system is causing or the folks in engineering to see things your way?

Powerpoint was invented for this precise function, and we all know what's become of that.

Here's a new way that's extraordinarily effective: Make a video.

Take a Flip or cheap video camera and interview your customers. Ask them questions and show the answers to your team. Ji Lee at Google masterminded this man on the street intervi

The fan chasm

How big is the gap between customer and die-hard fan? In other words, between engaging and loving, between attending and craving?

For World of Warcraft, it's huge. It's very difficult to spend just an hour or two. There's a chasm between encounter and enjoyable experience. Tetris was oriented in precisely the other way--everyone who tried it instantly became almost as smart as an expert.

If you want to be an insider at the Four Seasons restaurant, you might have to go thirty times and spend $3,000

Taking the leap

The best businesses and the best projects are a quantum leap above the competition. This gulf represents competitive insulation, because others can't figure out how to get up there with you.

Amazon, for example, has a leap between it and other online retailers. Sure, you might be able to mimic part of what they've got, but the gulf is so huge, it's hard to imagine displacing them any time soon.

Nike has spent billions on advertising, sponsorship, manufacturing, technology and distribution. It's a

The confusion

We frequently confuse internal biochemistry (caused by habits and genetics) with external events. If we didn't, marketing wouldn't work nearly as well.

Our brains are busy processing chemicals that internally change our moods, but find a way to rationalize those mood changes based on events and purchases in the outside world. We often act as though money can buy joy, but of course, it works better when we're joyful in the first place.

We don't say, "I'm genetically pre-disposed to mild depression,

Everyone else reads it

The reason the New York Times matters isn't about the delivery of news (it's old by the time it arrives) or even the analysis (which is often spotty or wrong or banal or biased or boring). No, the reason it matters is because everyone else reads it.

That's the reason certain trade shows matter.

Or industry journals or blogs.

You can change the definition of "everyone" and customize it for your industry or passion, but the fact is, we need to read what everyone else is reading in order to have a sen

What should I do on your birthday?

On July 4, birthday of the USA, we're supposed to blow off fireworks, eat hot dogs and buy a Chevrolet.

On Columbus Day, birthday of an early imperialist, we're supposed to shop and march in a parade.

On Martin Luther King Jr. day, marvelously, we're supposed to participate in a national day of service.

So, what should we do on your birthday?

With all due respect to Hallmark, the idea of sending people cards and presents on their birthday seems both selfish and small-minded. It seems to me that we c

What to do with special requests

The bike shop is busy in June. If you bring your bike in for a tune up, it will cost $39 and take a week.

A week!

What if someone says, "I have a bike trip coming up in three days, can you do it by then?"

At most bike shops, the answer is a shrug, followed by, "I'm sorry, we're swamped."

The problem with telling people to go away is that they go away. And the problem with treating all customers the same is that customers aren't the same. They're different and they demand to be treated (and are often