Blog Profile / Seth Godin's Blog
| URL : | http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Business & Finance / Marketing | |
| Posts on Regator: | 2236 | |
| Posts / Week: | 8.4 | |
| Archived Since: | April 6, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
It's Thomas Midgeley day
Today would be his 124th birthday. A fine occasion to think about the effects of industrialization, and what happens when short-term profit-taking meets marketing. Midgeley is responsible for millions of deaths. Not directly, of course, but by, "just doing his...
Every day is an investment
You're not lucky to have this job, they're lucky to have you. Every day, you invest a little bit of yourself into your work, and one of the biggest choices available to you is where you'll be making that investment....
The river guide and the rapids
It's probably not an accident that rapid (as in rapid change) shares a root with rapids (as in Lava Falls in the Grand Canyon). The river guide, piloting his wooden dory, has but one strategy. Get the boat to the...
Applications open for a short summer internship
I'm offering a short-term paid internship this summer. You'll be in my office, working with me and a tightly knit group to develop a brand new idea. Here are some details, the links to apply are at the end. Please...
Appropriate cheating in the nine-dot problem
All geeks, nerds and puzzle folks are aware of the nine-dot problem, along with the lesson it is frequently used to present. Here's a pencil. Here's a piece of copy paper with nine dots on it. Without lifting the pencil...
The reason they call it a browser
Over the last ten years, the amount that we buy online has gone up. So have the number of ads we click on every day. We're all clicking around, browsing and sometimes buying. But, while these interactions and transactions have...
Spend the day with me in New York in June
I've been remiss in scheduling these full-day transformative Q&A sessions and I miss them. You can find the details and tickets right here. Here's one take on some of the things we covered in an expanded seminar last summer. This...
The certain shortcut
The shortcut that's sure to work, every time: Take the long way. Do the hard work, consistently and with generosity and transparency. And then you won't waste time doing it over.
Life is full of holes
Every scrutinized historical event fails to hold up to serious inspection. There's missing evidence. How did he get from point A to point B? Where's the document or the eyewitness or the proof? Your future opportunities are like this as...
Is this spam?
If you have to ask, it probably is. The essential truth is that spam is always in the eye of the recipient. If you think it's spam, it's spam (if you're the recipient. If you're the sender, your opinion is...
Lead up
What you were trained to do: wait for a good, generous, munificent, tasteful, smart boss or client to tell you what to do. If that doesn't happen, blame the system, blame the boss, blame the client. If the work is...
Miscommunication
The challenge of communication isn't to never miscommunicate, it's to cut down the time between the interaction and the realization that the communication didn't get through. Because the sooner we know we're not connecting, the sooner we can fix it....
Who do you know?
Let's define "know" as... you're connected with them, in real life, by email or through a direct relationship online. It might be someone in a different state, religious, atheist, straight, gay, in a developing country, a lawyer, a politician, struggling...
How to write copy that goes viral
The best thing is to not try to write things that will go viral. The best thing is to write for just one person. Make an impact on just one person. Even better, make it so they can't sleep that...
Avoiding fear by indulging in our fear of fear
Every day, we make a thousand little compromises, avoid opportunities, actions and people--all so that we can stay away from the emotion of fear. Note that I didn't say, "so we can stay away from what we fear." No, that's...
Urgency and accountability are two sides of the innovation coin
As organizations and individuals succeed, it gets more difficult to innovate. There are issues of coordination, sure, but mostly it's about fear. The fear of failing is greater, because it seems as though you've got more to lose. So urgency...
Remind you of anything? Simple typography for non-professionals
Setting type used to have just one function: is it readable? Then, to save money, a new question: Can we get a lot of words on a page? The third question, though, is the most dominant for most people making...
Your best and your same (vs. your different and your truth)
If someone wants your very best version, that probably means that they're going to get the same version that you've done before, the same as the best version you produced a week ago. If you want the best, it also...
Blueberry pancakes and battleships
The typical industrial-era organization is like a battleship. Hundreds or thousands of people onboard, and most of them are essential--but most of them aren't actually directly responsible for the work that we hired the battleship to do. Without the fuel...
The critic stumbles
Last week, I saw an extraordinary play on Broadway. It got the longest standing ovation I've ever seen in a theater, and Alan Cumming deserved every minute of it. The New York Times critic, though, didn't like the show. What's...