Stop Trying to Be Perfect?
August 28th, 2005 by Hal
Seth Godin continues to innovate with marketing. This time he's gathered 32 of his favorite thinkers to write a book on being remarkable. All royalties will go to three charities Junior Diabetes Research Foundation, Room to Read, and Acumen Fund. The book is a collection of stories that taken together offer an avenue for becoming remark-able. It is a follow-on to Seth's Purple Cow and Free Prize Inside.
You might remember that Purple Cow was initially delivered in a purple milk carton. Free Prize Inside hit the shelves in a cereal box. No packaging gimmicks this time. Instead, the initial supply of books, galley copies for reviewers and for proofing, are only available in lots of 50. That's right, to get one copy you have to buy 49 more. But they're really not for sale. I can't say that it was worth $100 to me to get to read a copy before the book is available in October. But what is worth much more than $100 is getting to share it with my colleagues and clients. I've had the books for two days. 44 copies are going out in the mail this week. 5 more will be available to a few lucky readers who help me finish my project e-tips series. Send me your proposals for delivering remarkable projects. If I publish your tip you'll get a copy of the book.
You'll find plenty of early reviews on the book. I'll let you Google "The Big Moo" to read them. I'll just leave you with a few remarks on one of the more impacting essays in the book, Why Ask Why? The essay starts with airline security allowing knitting needles on board but not nail clippers with attached files. Why? Who knows. The author goes on with one example after another of bureaucratic rules that get in the way of customers and workers. Why? "To make the customer go away," says the author. The essay finishes,
"The moment you start treating your people like people (as opposed to cogs), they're likely to start acting like people. And when that happens, things will begin to improve."
Seth's subtitle for The Big Moo is "Stop trying to be perfect and start being remarkable." It ain't all that hard.
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