This is my introduction for #etmooc, the tribe i joined for some professional and personal development. The Internet is a tool that helps me to create meaning in my life by seeking out opportunities to make connections and change. For example, Seth Godin is a thought leader and innovator in what he describes as our post-industrial connection economy. His recent interview, with Krista Tippett on the radio show On Being, succinctly describes how I create meaning in my life in a connected world.
Here is the unedited interview: Seth Godin Unedited Interview (mp3, 1:26:50).The unedited version provides more insight than the original podcast-
Here are some highlights from the interview
Rather than merely tolerate change, we are all called now to rise to it. We are invited and stretched in whatever we do to be artists — to create in ways that matter to other people. Although we live in an abundance economy we, the thing we don’t have enough of is we don’t have enough connection — we’re lonely. And we don’t have enough time. We can have more faith in community and charity and innovation and dignity and education.
Make connections between struggle and hope — the moments in our lives when we had to struggle and when we did something, when we got out of a jam and we didn’t know how we could do that, that those are the moments we became who we are.
The connection economy— technology is actually empowering bottom-up change, and dismantling the hierarchical overbearing leader model that a lot of us actually still grew up with. At the same time that is what’s empowering technology.
The Internet wasn’t built by 30 people who are working for a boss. It was built by 300,000 people, many of whom have never met each other and work together even without a central organizing force. It’s happening to every industry,to the way our communities organize, and the spiritual organizations we get involved in.
We pay extra for are connections. The things we pay extra for are what are other people using — what networks can we be part of — what conference can we go to — who can we be with? And the people we choose to be with, the products and services we choose to talk about are all interesting and unique and human and real, as opposed to industrial and cheap and polished and normal.
We have to see is a shift has gone on from the days of Henry Ford when one creative person had 50,000 people acting on their wishes. Everyone has their own printing press. So what are you going to put on it? What are you going to put out to the world? Because if we’re moving beyond you work for me and you do what I say — to a world where I say, here, here’s a microphone, speak up. Here, here’s the connection to the Internet — touch who you want. We’re going to notice what you do. And so whether or not you choose to be a marketer, you are one.
Build a life and career where if someone knew the truth they’d want to work with us. Marketing is the work a person does when they tell a story that resonates with us. And that marketing isn’t advertising — marketing is the product we make, the service we offer, the life we live.
Four questions worth answering:
- Who is your next customer? You mean that conceptually. Their outlook, hopes, dreams, needs and wants.
- What is the story the customer told about himself before he met you?
- How do you encounter him in a way that he trusts the story you want to tell him about what you have to offer?
- What changes are you trying to make in him, his life, his story?
We can make more mistakes, take bigger risks, and make a bigger impact. Not to a lot of people. That’s not the point. The point is will someone come up to me and say, based on what I learned from you I taught 1o other people to do this, and we made something that mattered. Tell 10 people — there are 10 people who trust you enough to listen. And if you tell your thing to 10 people — if you send your e-book to 10 people — if you do your sermon to 10 people or show your product to 10 people and none of them want to tell their friends, and none of them are changed — then you failed. That you didn’t really understand what was good. But if some of them tell their friends, then they’ll tell their friends, and that’s how ideas spread. So it’s this 10 at a time — 10 by 10 by 10. How do you put an idea in the world that resonates enough with people if they trust you enough to hear it. That then it can go to the next step and the next step. We’re doing something genuine that connects, as opposed to doing something fake that’s entertainment.
There isn’t this bright line between off duty and on duty, but that the life is life and you ought to live it like people are looking at you, because they are. And it’s that teaching. Explore the edges of your universe, but doing it in a way that you’re proud of, not hiding from.
Everyone is in the world and connected now.
- Radio Show/Podcast (mp3, 51:00)
- Transcript
