Godin 07-09-10: On Lists and Commitment
July 11, 2010
I’m a skeptic by nature, so when I see lots of classes (tele- and otherwise) offered on how to grow your lists – on social networks, for your newsletter, for your blog – I have lots of questions. Then I read an article or excerpt and hear the techniques, and my skepticism grows. What’s the benefit of adding someone who falls for that technique?
People with strong reputations say it’s all about the numbers. But I’m pretty sure the list of subscribers for someone with a strong reputation is a lot more responsive than a quickly grown list built by “techniques”.
Seth Godin’s recent post on fans, participants, and spectators confirms my skepticism. The stats he shows for conversions are a little dreary. But he offers a solution.
Polishing That Turd
June 4, 2010
Seth Godin says it so eloquently. “Instead of polishing that turd, why not work harder to think of something remarkable or important to say in the first place?”
It Was a Fast-Straight-Road Weekend
May 31, 2010
It’s been a hectic Memorial Day weekend totally consumed by… let’s just call it extended-family-madness. I planned to have a little time over the last couple of days to put together a post but life interrupted my plans. But I’m home now and the chaos is left behind.
Fortunately I found a powerful and brief analogy for my recurring warning about focusing on chasing the latest new marketing tactic before figuring out your marketing plan. It was a link in a recent blog post by Seth Godin.
Seth referenced a post by Rich Goidel, blogging at “The Back of the Napkin,” titled Playing with turtles. The core message here is to focus on the important thing — marketing message — and not get distracted by secondary things — playing with marketing channels.
I’m writing a corollary. When someone else has written a beautifully concise post that conveys a valuable message to your audience, call it good, link to it, and shut up.
(Bonus to me: I don’t really have time to write a post, much less edit one to make it good.
Bonus to you: You don’t have to read that meandering post I don’t have time to write!)
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
Writing sdrawckaB
May 14, 2010
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time writing articles and pulling together ideas I’ve collected for an information product for people considering self-employment. I enjoy writing because it’s a slightly new experience each time.
Sometimes things just flow, but the next day I reread what I wrote and it looks like… it flowed, alright, but for a very different reason. Sometimes I wrestle and fight with a piece and don’t like it very much, but other people give me great feedback. Considering that, I might just be writing some of my best stuff ever right now, because I’m having to unscramble things I originally wrote backwards.
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Godin 05-13-10: Cowabunga!
May 13, 2010
Some call the new pattern of working from project to project the “gig economy.” Instead of having a predictable job, more and more people are contractors working with a particular person or company for the length of a project. Cool idea in the world of self-directed careers, because it allows people to have more control over their schedules.
But the phrase doesn’t even come close to capturing the joy of experimenting and playing and expanding our minds and our abilities that we experience as the creatively self-employed. That’s what Barbara Winter calls the “Joyfully Jobless life.” It’s joyful because it’s an adventure of self-discovery.
Leave it to Seth Godin to capture this wonderful idea in a high-octane analogy: surfing. In this recent post he compares the joy from work that grows us by developing our gifts and talents with the intoxication of the next wave for the surfer.
I can see the surf breaking in the distance with the sun rising on the horizon behind it as I round the corner on the Twisting Road.
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