Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a highly regarded guru in the advertising/marketing arena. He is, allegedly, the most popular marketing blogger on the web and I recently picked up three of his books at my local library. No, I'm not looking for a career change, I simply believe that marketers tend to have a good read on culture at large. And studying our culture, by borrowing from their insights, is an okay thing for ministers.

The three books I picked up were Purple Cow, the dip and Meatball Sundae.

I really enjoyed Purple Cow and will share some thoughts from it. It was published in 2002 and the subtitle is Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. The first 20-25 pages are excellent layouts of some past and present cultural distinctives; I strongly encourage you to read them. What follows are page #s and quotes:

p.4 "This is a book about why you need to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, why TV and mass media are no longer your secret weapons, and why the profession of marketing has been changed forever. Stop advertising and start innovating."

p.6 Here he shares Geoff Moore's idea diffusion curve (innovators, early adopters...) and I had never seen it in print, it's helpful.

p.7 "Instead of accepting that the old ways are fading away (fast), most companies with a product to market are treating these proven new techniques as interesting fads - worth another look but not worth using as the center of their strategy."

p.10 "The world has changed. There are far more choices, but there is less and less time to sort them out."

Miscellaneous: "It's safer to be risky." People are tuning out. Younger people are just automatically wired to tune out mass media. I think his descriptions and assessments of our culture are 'spot on.' I also appreciate how he uses real-life examples and the fact that he barely uses statistics.

Read Purple Cow! It's only 137 small pages and is very interesting; like I said, the first 20-25 pages are excellent! While this book is about marketing and making money and finding the answers within yourself and your strategies, there are some keen cultural insights for church world.

the dip is a book about knowing when to quit and when to tough it out. I liked his basic disagreement with Vince Lombardi ("Winners never quit.") because it made sense. This book is very short and aesthetically attractive but I'm not gonna buy it or recommend it to anyone.

Meatball Sundae didn't grab me like the other two and I didn't finish it. But I sure like the cover and I see an unforgettable eating contest item in the near future.