Seth Godin's Blog, page 85

Compared to what?

A quick look at Yelp reviews will show you that NY restaurants are not quite as good as those in some suburbs.

This, of course, makes no sense. New York is insanely competitive, with a ton of turnover and a very demanding audience. A fast casual restaurant in Shaker Heights can coast for a long time, because... it's better than the alternatives.

Thanks to marketing, the media and our culture, we spend a lot of our time comparing before we decide whether or not we're happy.

Turn back the clock just 60 years. If you lived in 1957, how would your life compare to the one you live right now? Well, you have access to lifesaving medicines, often in pill form. You can choose from an infinite amount of entertainment, you can connect with humans all over the Earth, for free, at the click of a button. You have access to the sum total of human knowledge. You have control over your reproductive cycle. You can eat sushi (you've even heard of sushi). You can express yourself in a thousand ways that were forbidden then...

That's in one lifetime.

But we don't compare our lives to this imaginary juxtaposition. Instead, we hear two things from the media we choose to engage with: Other people have it better, way better. And, it's going to get worse. Add to that the idea that marketers want us to believe that what we have now isn't that good, but if we merely choose to go into a bit of debt, we can buy our way to a better outcome...

Comparison leads to frustration which sometimes leads to innovation.

More often than not, though, frustration doesn't make us happy. It only makes us frustrated.

If a comparison isn't helping you get to where you're going, it's okay to ignore it.

            

The bingo method

You might need help to turn an idea into a project.

Most of the time, though, project developers walk up to those that might help and say, "I have a glimmer of an idea, will you help me?"

The challenge: It's too challenging. Open-ended. To offer to help means to take on too much. And of course people are hesitant to sign on for an unlimited obligation to help with something that's important to you, not to them.

Consider the bingo method instead.

Build a 5 x 5 grid. 25 squares. Twenty-five elements that have to be present for your project to have a chance. If it's a fundraising concert, one of the grids might be, "find a theater that will host us for less than $1,000."

Here's the key: Fill in most of the grids before you ask someone for generous help. When nine or twelve of the squares are marked, "done," and when another six are marked, "in process," then the ask is a lot smaller.

A glimpse at your bingo card indicates that you understand the problem, that you've highlighted the difficult parts and that you've found the resources and the knowledge necessary to complete most of it.

You've just asked a much easier question.

            

Being wrong until you are right

Are there any other options for people who seek to innovate?

            

'Sort by price' is lazy

Sort by price is the dominant way that shopping online now happens. The cheapest airline ticket or widget or freelancer comes up first, and most people click.

It's a great shortcut for a programmer, of course, because the price is a number, and it's easy to sort.

Alphabetical could work even more easily, but it seems less relevant (especially if you're a fan of Zappos or Zima).

The problem: Just because it's easy, it doesn't mean it's as useful as it appears.

It's lazy for the consumer. If you can't take the time to learn about your options, about quality, about side effects, then it seems like buying the cheapest is the way to go--they're all the same anyway, we think.

And it's easy for the producer. Nothing is easier to improve than price. It takes no nuance, no long-term thinking, no concern about externalities. Just become more brutal with your suppliers and customers, and cut every corner you can. And then blame the system.

The merchandisers and buyers at Wal-Mart were lazy. They didn't have to spend much time figuring out if something was better, they were merely focused on price, regardless of what it cost their community in the long run.

We're part of that system, and if we're not happy with the way we're treated, we ought to think about the system we've permitted to drive those changes.

What would happen if we insisted on 'sort by delight' instead?

What if the airline search engines returned results sorted by a (certainly difficult) score that combined travel time, aircraft quality, reliability, customer service, price and a few other factors? How would that change the experience of flying?

This extends far beyond air travel. We understand that it makes no sense to hire someone merely because they charge the cheapest wage. That we shouldn't pick a book or a movie or a restaurant simply because it costs the least.

There are differences, and sometimes, those differences are worth what they cost.

'Worth it' is a fine goal.

What if, before we rushed to sort at all, we decided what was worth sorting for?

Low price is the last refuge of the marketer who doesn't care enough to build something worth paying for.

In your experience, how often is the cheapest choice the best choice?

[PS new dates now posted for the altMBA. ]

            

How thin is your ice?

When something goes wrong, how do you respond?

When you own assets, when your position feels secure, when you're playing the long game, a bump in the road is just that. "Well, that was interesting." You can learn from it, and the professional realizes that freaking out pays little benefit.

On the other hand, the middleman, the person who realizes just how easily he can be replaced, the person who can't stop playing the short game... well, he realizes that it's all sort of a house of cards, and often indulges in the urge to freak out, disgorging panic and fear and even hatred on the person that's easy to blame.

The thing is, thin ice doesn't give you a lot of leverage, and thin ice can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The first step for the agent, the middle manager, the hanger-on is to invest in the long term, to find an arc that actually builds an asset that lasts.

And the second is to act 'as if'. All that panic doesn't pay off. It merely makes it more likely that the people you need to earn trust with will do precisely the opposite.

            

Cursing gravity

You can disdain gravity all you want, call out its unfairness, seek to have it banned.

But that's not going to help you build an airplane.

            

With the sound off or on?

If you watch a well-directed film with the sound turned off, you'll get a lot out of it. On the other hand, it takes practice to read a screenplay and truly understand it.

It's worth remembering that we lived in tribes for millennia, long before we learned how to speak. Emotional connection is our default. We only added words and symbolic logic much later.

There are a few places where all that matters is the words. Where the force of logic is sufficient to change the moment.

The rest of the time, which is almost all the time, the real issues are trust, status, culture, pheromones, peer pressure, urgency and the energy in the room.

It probably pays to know which kind of discussion you're having. 

            

Guardrails

A large, freshly-paved parking lot has no boundaries. You can drive in any direction, free to speed to your destination. 

But once there's more than a few cars driving, traffic stops. It's too risky, there are too many uncertainties. A car could come at you from any direction, and so we crawl.

Flow is far more efficient, and flow comes from well-placed guardrails and intelligently painted lines. Flow only happens when the guardrails are universally accepted, when we can find the confidence to drive just a bit faster than our eyes can see.

One opportunity to make progress presents itself when it's possible to move a guardrail, to show the others a better route.

The other leap occurs when we realize that we've been imagining a guardrail, one that's been causing us to detour when in fact it's not actually there. We're obeying invisible guardrails when it doesn't benefit the others. Ignoring these self-erected guardrails permits us to contribute more than we thought possible.

            

Who cut down the last tree?

Easter Island was the home to a thriving community, thousands of people living good lives.

One by one, though, the trees on this isolated island were cut down. They were cut down for fuel, or to make tools, or boats.

And finally, the last tree was gone. And the population went extinct.

Jared Diamond makes the story real in his brilliant article and book.

My question, though, isn't really about the last tree. It's about the second-to-last tree.

When someone cut it down, how did the community react? Were they afraid to speak up? Was it made clear that the social and societal costs of cutting down a tree were severe, so severe that no one would even contemplate cutting down the last tree?

And maybe they could have started this cultural norm with the third-to-last tree. Or even sooner.

Culture is the most powerful tool we have to change behavior. All around us we see people selfishly taking from the commons, eroding our standards, chopping down trees (real and metaphorical) we depend on.

What will we say the next time someone comes with an axe?

            

Like riding a bike

People talk about bike riding when they want to remind us that some things, once learned, are not forgotten.

What they don't mention is how we learned. No one learns to ride a bike from a book, or even a video.

You learn by doing it.

Actually, by not doing it. You learn by doing it wrong, by falling off, by getting back on, by doing it again.

PS this approach works for lots of things, not just bikes. Most things, in fact.