in my ongoing search for authenticity, creativity, passion and "doing the right thing", i have been following the blog of permission marketing guru seth godin. his concepts of how things work now are boldly different from anything else i have read, and putting these ideas into practice takes courage and commitment. i thought it was unfair of me to keep all these ideas to myself, when i am sharing so much of what i am thinking about, and when i read today's blog post by mr. godin at 3am this morning, i decided it was time to share the wealth. how, you may ask, does this stuff go with body+mind+and spirit? and my answer is, i'm not sure. but i suspect that it does. these are uncharted territories we are marching in these days and we all need to take the responsibility to be leaders (says seth). reading seth's book entitled "tribes" is part of the reason i decided to write this blog, to take risks, to share, to create, to say "here, i made this". whether you are a marketer or a mother, i hope you find this new information inspiring. here is some of what seth has written:
What matters now:
- Trust
- Permission
- Remarkability
- Leadership
- Stories that spread
- Humanity: connection, compassion, and humility
All six of these are the result of successful work by
humans who refuse to follow industrial-age
rules. These assets aren’t generated by external strategies and MBAs and
positioning memos. These are the results of internal struggle, of brave
decisions without a map and the willingness to allow others to live with
dignity.
They are about standing out, not fitting in, about
inventing, not duplicating.
TRUST AND
PERMISSION: In a marketplace that’s open to just about anyone, the only people
we hear are the people we choose to hear. Media is cheap, sure, but attention
is filtered, and it’s virtually impossible to be heard unless the consumer
gives us the ability to be heard. The more valuable someone’s attention is, the
harder it is to earn.
And who gets
heard?
Why would
someone listen to the prankster or the shyster or the huckster? No, we choose
to listen to those we trust. We do business with and donate to those who have
earned our attention. We seek out people who tell us stories that resonate, we
listen to those stories, and we engage with those people or businesses that
delight or reassure or surprise in a positive way.
And all of
those behaviors are the acts of people, not machines. We embrace the humanity
in those around us, particularly as the rest of the world appears to become
less human and more cold. Who will you miss? That is who you are listening to .
REMARKABILITY:
The same bias toward humanity and connection exists in the way we choose which
ideas we’ll share with our friends and colleagues. No one talks about the
boring, the predictable, or the safe. We don’t risk interactions in order to
spread the word about something obvious or trite.
The remarkable
is almost always new and untested, fresh and risky.
LEADERSHIP:
Management is almost diametrically opposed to leadership. Management is about
generating yesterday’s results, but a little faster or a little more cheaply.
We know how to manage the world—we relentlessly seek to cut costs and to limit
variation, while we exalt obedience.
Leadership,
though, is a whole other game. Leadership puts the leader on the line. No
manual, no rule book, no überleader to point the finger at when things go
wrong. If you ask someone for the rule
book on how to lead, you’re secretly wishing to be a manager.
Leaders are
vulnerable, not controlling, and they are racing to the top, taking us to a new
place, not to the place of cheap, fast, compliant safety.
STORIES THAT SPREAD:
The next asset that makes the new economy work is the story that spreads.
Before the revolution, in a world of limited choice, shelf space mattered a
great deal. You could buy your way onto the store shelf, or you could be the
only one on the ballot, or you could use a connection to get your résumé in
front of the hiring guy. In a world of abundant choice, though, none of these
tactics is effective. The chooser has too many alternatives, there’s too much
clutter, and the scarce resources are attention and trust, not shelf space.
This situation is tough for many, because attention and trust must be earned,
not acquired.
More
difficult still is the magic of the story that resonates. After trust is earned
and your work is seen, only a fraction of it is magical enough to be worth
spreading. Again, this magic is the work of the human artist, not the corporate
machine. We’re no longer interested in average stuff for average people.
HUMANITY: We
don’t worship industrial the way we used to. We seek out human originality and
caring instead. When price and availability are no longer sufficient advantages
(because everything is available and the price is no longer news), then what we
are drawn to is the vulnerability and transparency that bring us together, that
turn the “other” into one of us.
For a long time to come the
masses will still clamor for cheap and obvious and reliable. But the people you
seek to lead, the people who are helping to define the next thing and the
interesting frontier, these people want your humanity, not your discounts.
All of these assets, rolled into one, provide the
foundation for the change maker of the future. And that individual (or the team
that person leads) has no choice but to build these assets with novelty, with a
fresh approach to an old problem, with a human touch that is worth talking
about.
I can’t wait until we return to zero percent unemployment,
to a time when people with something to contribute (everyone) pick themselves instead of waiting for a
bureaucrat’s permission to do important work.
read seth godin's whole blog post and/or subscribe here.
