Category Archives: Seth Godin

Don’t Miss These Great New Summaries!

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Summer is known to be a time for blockbusters in the entertainment industry. Although the start date seems to be earlier each year, it’s generally accepted that by the middle of June, we’re well into a stretch of time that sees multiple big-budget, highly-anticipated films debuting every Friday in theaters across the nation.

I bring this up because the latest edition of Soundview Executive Book Summaries could easily be described as a summer blockbuster. We’ve got three incredible summaries for readers this month featuring some serious star-power in the author department. Let’s take a look at the titles in this exciting triple-feature:

For those who enjoy a great story as part of their learning experience, we start our latest edition with Patrick Lencioni’s Getting Naked: A Business Fable About Shedding the Three Fears that Sabotage Client Loyalty. Lencioni, an expert at weaving fiction and strong business applications together, tells the tale of Jack, a consultant tasked with learning about a competitor his company recently acquired. Jack learns a surprising lesson about why absolute transparency can create intense loyalty in customers.

Innovation is a topic that continues to garner a great deal of interest among our subscribers. The U.S. is engaged in an ongoing race with developing nations to maintain an economic presence in the innovation arena. With this in mind, Adam Richards offers Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems are Its Greatest Advantage. Richards offers an intriguing argument that defines a new class of business problems — X-Problems. These tough new challenges thwart conventional planning but present massive innovation opportunities.

Finally, we take a look at the building blocks of a great organization. While CEOs tend to garner attention from internal and external audiences, there are individuals in an organization who are an indispensable part of the company’s success. Marketing mastermind Seth Godin terms these individuals “linchpins” and his new book Linchpins: Are You Indispensable? helps readers understand how to exude the attributes of the linchpin employee.

Like I said, it’s a real blockbuster this month! It’s a great time to subscribe to Soundview. Also, each of the above summaries are available for individual purchase for low, low prices. The online edition of each summary is only $8.50. Depending on where you live, that’s less than the price of a movie ticket … and unlike the occasional big-budget action film, these summaries won’t disappoint.

Who Sits at the Head of the Table?

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From time to time, I like to take a little poll when I write this blog. Here’s today’s poll question: for Americans at home or abroad, raise your hand if you have already (or plan to) use the Internet to search for recipes for your Thanksgiving Day meal? OK, here’s the second question: for those of you who need a search engine, how many will use Google?

My reasons for asking these questions are simple. I read this blog post from ZDNet today and was entertained by the notion that a media titan has hopes of blocking his company’s content from the all-encompassing reach of Google.

The book to which the blogger refers is one that we’ve covered at Soundview. If you’ve never checked it out before, it’s an excellent exploration of the secrets that caused and continue to extend Google’s impact on the globe. Actually, this post drops a few of Soundview’s favorite names, including Seth Godin, who had a particularly nice quote about what happens when you attempt to charge people for their attention.

However, the company that made “search” one of the most important marketing terms of the past decade, continues to innovate beyond its beginnings. Chris Anderson, author of FREE: The Future of a Radical Price, also an upcoming Soundview Summary, discusses in his book the power of Google’s Web based software as one avenue in which the company continues to grow and influence the online world.

Google’s dominance in the Web landscape is enough to easily land it a seat at the head of the Internet’s Thanksgiving table. Although, I’m sure there are some Web-based companies who continue to wish that the company would pass the potatoes (both big and small).

A final, more personal note, as we prepare to celebrate our day of thanks tomorrow, I want to take a moment to thank the men and women of the Armed Forces who will be apart from their loved ones on this holiday. Let’s save our greatest thanks for them.

Skip Business School

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For some people, that statement may come a little late. Many of you are probably already 5, 10, 20 years well into your career, and business school may (or may not) have been what got you there. Some of you may not have an MBA, but you have a Bachelors in business, maybe marketing or finance or even HR. Or maybe not.

 

Nevertheless, with the current economic climate, some of you may be keeping your eyes open for better career possibilities, or have even begun considering going back to school to tack the letters M.B.A onto the end of your name.

 

Quite frankly, Seth Godin doesn’t think you should do that.

 

Instead, Godin thinks you should join him for six months at his office, unpaid, gaining the experience of a lifetime. The program he’s proposing is slated to begin January 19, 2009, and Godin claims he may even ask one or more people to stay on after the program comes to an end. The program he’s interested in creating, breaks down in the following:

 

l  One hour a day of class/dialogue

l  Four hours a day of working on my projects

l  Three hours a day of working on your personal project

l  Five hours a day of living, noticing, doing and connecting

 

He also writes, “We’re going to read books, have discussions but most of all, do stuff. Do it, complete it, push it through the Dip.”

 

Godin’s program feels like something we might end up watching on reality TV, but it smacks with more reality and productivity than many of those shows. I have a gut feeling that the people he selects to join him for this six-month journey are going to come away with a lot amazing experiences.

 

If interested, time is closing in fast since Godin requests that all applications be sent in by Dec. 14, 2008, with no exceptions. Go to the site and read through all the details and see if it’s something that would fit for you. Remember, this is not something to be taken lightly, especially since it’s an unpaid experience. And if you do apply, good luck!