Grace Chen - Seth Godin on Standing Out

http://www.ted.com/talks/seth_godin_on_sliced_bread.html

The TED talk I watched was presented by Seth Godin, a marketer, author, public speaker, entrepreneur, and blogger who specializes in the marketing of ideas in the digital age. Godin’s blog is perhaps the most popular in the world written by a single individual, and he has written books about marketing, the spread of ideas, leadership, and initiating change. Because I have always valued the importance of creativity and being unique, the title of the TED talk—“Seth Godin on standing out”—is really what caught my eye. In addition, I saw that the speaker was referred to as a “marketing guru” and “marketing god,” and so, being interested in marketing and advertising, I decided to find out more about what he had to say.

Godin's main purpose in his TED talk was to emphasis the importance of spreading an idea and to make that idea “remarkable.” He starts out with the example of sliced bread; for the first 15 years since the invention of sliced bread, no one had heard about it, no one wanted it. It wasn’t until a company called Wonder came along and recognized the need to promote the product that sliced bread finally became a food phenomenon. Godin repeatedly claims that change fundamentally comes from whether or not one can get one’s idea to spread, and this principle applies to everyone, regardless of what they do. According to Godin, we are living in a century of idea diffusion, and all the products that succeed have done so because someone figured out how to reach people who are interested in those products. However, he says that the TV industrial complex, in which a company makes a larger profit by showing more ads through the media, is no longer working, because modern-day consumers now have way more choices and way less time than they used to, so they have simply become accustomed to ignoring ads. The key to getting noticed, therefore, is to be “remarkable.” Godin uses the metaphor of someone driving down a road next to cows. Since cows are “average” and “common,” one would generally ignore them. However, if a cow was purple, one would notice it, at least for a while. Therefore, the question that ultimately decides what gets noticed is: “Is it remarkable? Is it worth making a remark about?” And not only does one’s idea need to be different, but it also needs to be delivered to people with “otaku,” the Japanese term for obsession. The traditional marketing strategy was to target products towards the “average” crowd, but now, the “average” crowd has learned to ignore ads; the better strategy today is to target towards those with otaku, those who actually care and are willing to listen, and as a result, they will tell their friends, and the idea will continue to spread. Godin says that companies like Krispy Kreme and Apple have figured out otaku; they did not become successful by advertising excessively, but by being remarkable. The riskiest thing one can do, Godin says, is to be safe. Instead, it is crucial to be at the fringes and to be remarkable, since a “purple cow” is the only thing worth noticing.

Godin graduated from Tufts University in 1979 with a degree in computer science and philosophy, and he earned his MBA in marketing from Stanford Business School. In the mid-1980s, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software. After leaving Spinnaker Software in 1986, Godin founded Seth Godin Productions, primarly a book packaging business, out of his New York City studio apartment. He later founded his first internet company, Yoyodyne, and sold Seth Godin Productions to his employees in order to focus on Yoyodyne, one of the very first online marketing companies. It was with Yoyodyne that Godin came up with the concept of permission marketing — the idea that companies needed to rethink how they reached customers through the use of ethical direct mail online. After Yahoo! noticed his efforts and bought his company in 1998, Godin worked as Vice President of Direct Marketing at Yahoo! (Yahoo! currently has a model of a purple cow in the lobby of its Sunnyvale campus) before leaving to become a full time speaker, writer and blogger. Godin also founded Squidoo.com in 2005, a website started with the tagline “Everyone’s an expert (on something),” allowing anyone to create pages, called “lenses,” about any topic they are passionate about. The website raises money for charity and pays royalties to its more than a million members. As of October 2010, it is one of the 100 most popular websites in the United States.

According to Forbes.com, Godin is a “demigod on the Web, a best-selling author, highly sought-after lecturer, successful entrepreneur, respected pundit and high-profile blogger. He is uniquely respected for his understanding of the Internet.” A significant factor to Godin’s success and reputation as a leader in his field is his persistence and determination. As an entrepreneur, he founded dozens of companies, many of which failed. Nevertheless, he stayed consistent with his hard work and did not give up. Also, for a time, Godfin commuted every week between California and Boston in order to simultaneously work at his new job and complete his MBA, demonstrating his high level of dedication. By watching his TED talk video, it is also apparent that Godin is a strong leader through his confidence and assertion. He also gathers knowledge from experience, mentioning his own failures and pointing out mistakes that led up to those failures in order to reinforce his message. In addition, Godin knows how to reach his audience by talking about numerous examples that help to prove his point, and he inserts bits of humor throughout his talk to further attract his audience. And, of course, Godin is creative and thinks out of the box, which is the key to making something “remarkable” and spreading ideas for success.

In regards to my own life after high school, I’m thinking of majoring in either Marketing or Business Administration/Management and hopefully going to graduate school to earn an MBA, or at least a master’s degree in one of my areas of interest. As for internships, I worked as an intern at NAVAJO Marketing Communications last summer, so I might resume my internship there again this summer, or I may try and look for an internship elsewhere in order to expand my horizons. This summer I am also attending the American Legion Auxiliary's Girl State Leadership Conference to gain further leadership and management experience. I am not entirely sure of what specific jobs I want to apply for in the future yet, but they will most likely be in the area of marketing, business, advertising, management, or something where I can help come up with new ideas, since I am really just looking for a career in which I will be able to apply my creativity and leadership/management skills in order to help make an impact in the world, and eventually I want to direct those efforts towards serving others and making a direct difference in their lives. And although that may sound like an ambitious aspiration, to quote Edward Everett Hale: “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”