Seeking: a Seth Godin Decoder Ring
I've long struggled with the appeal of Seth Godin. He's a successful guy, having built and sold several companies and written several books, but I've found his writing (what little I've read of it) to be lacking practical value. There never really seems to be anything actionable there that will move your life or business forward. But maybe this is just me. I'm not a marketer by trade, or the sharpest marketing knife in the cabinet, and maybe this has something to do with it. He's a crack-shot marketer so maybe only other marketers truly understand him? I'm also not a huge reader of self help books, including those that can be categorized as professional self help. (For my money, Neil Strauss's "The Game" provides excellent insight into this issue, but that's a subject for another post.) Much of Seth's writing seems to fall into this category. Feel-good, but difficult to act on. But many people I like and respect from several different walks of life seem to like him and must find his advice useful. So I figured there must be something wrong with me. Some block I have that prevents me from grasping his gems of wisdom and putting them to use.
The few times I've read his stuff (while scratching my head) he's usually talking about marketing, or business organizations, or personal inspiration, so it's fairly tough for me to really assess if it's just me or his writing. These aren't topics in which I claim much expertise, so it's hard to say. Then he finally wrote about a subject I actually know about and have some personal experience with: the law ("Hard work vs. long work"). Finally, a topic where I could probably relate to his writing, if it was ever possible. I excitedly clicked over to see if I could digest (and hopefully put to use) his latest nuggets of wisdom and to see if they could unlock a whole new universe for me:
I looked to the members of my peer group to see what they were saying about Seth's latest. They all passed it around. The law firm consultants surmised (not surprisingly): "Seth really nailed the legal profession with his latest." The mentors at large excitedly directed their mentees to immediately soak up Seth's wisdom and put it to use. I'm sure the legal marketers gave it the virtual thumbs up ("oh yeah...that's what I'm talkin' about!"). Pretty much everyone was nodding along as if they understood exactly what Seth was talking about. Except for me. I had no clue. It's almost as if Seth's post was written in an ancient forgotten language and everyone else had access to the translator but I didn't.
So...can someone please help me out and explain exactly what Seth was talking about here. Is it some variation of the "work smarter, not harder" rule that your Spicoli-esque co-worker at the pizza place or movie theater probably told you back in the day? Is this just the (similarly wonderful sounding but always elusive in application) so-called 80/20 rule, revisited? Or is there something more there? I understand his concept that in law, there is grunt work and there is more strategic work. That's stating the obvious. Everyone tries to avoid the grunt work as they gain experience and move up the food chain. Once you come to this (glaringly obvious) realization, what is Seth telling you that's putting you on that path? The "long work" will always need to get done. It will not magically disappear. You may be able to chip away at some of it and eliminate some parts of it, but nothing in Godin's post even comes close to helping you in this regard. Either way, there's still plenty of "long work" left to go around.
Maybe I'm missing something? I'm probably just not "thinking outside the box."
The few times I've read his stuff (while scratching my head) he's usually talking about marketing, or business organizations, or personal inspiration, so it's fairly tough for me to really assess if it's just me or his writing. These aren't topics in which I claim much expertise, so it's hard to say. Then he finally wrote about a subject I actually know about and have some personal experience with: the law ("Hard work vs. long work"). Finally, a topic where I could probably relate to his writing, if it was ever possible. I excitedly clicked over to see if I could digest (and hopefully put to use) his latest nuggets of wisdom and to see if they could unlock a whole new universe for me:
Long work is what the lawyer who bills 14 hours a day filling in forms [docs].Unfortunately, I fared no better with this than with the bits of his writing I had previously read.
Hard work is what the insightful litigator does when she synthesizes four disparate ideas and comes up with an argument that wins the case--in less than five minutes.
Long work has a storied history. Farmers, hunters, factory workers... Always there was long work required to succeed. For generations, there was a huge benefit that came to those with the stamina and fortitude to do long work.
Hard work is frightening. We shy away from hard work because inherent in hard work is risk. Hard work is hard because you might fail. You can't fail at long work, you merely show up. You fail at hard work when you don't make an emotional connection, or when you don't solve the problem or when you hesitate.
I looked to the members of my peer group to see what they were saying about Seth's latest. They all passed it around. The law firm consultants surmised (not surprisingly): "Seth really nailed the legal profession with his latest." The mentors at large excitedly directed their mentees to immediately soak up Seth's wisdom and put it to use. I'm sure the legal marketers gave it the virtual thumbs up ("oh yeah...that's what I'm talkin' about!"). Pretty much everyone was nodding along as if they understood exactly what Seth was talking about. Except for me. I had no clue. It's almost as if Seth's post was written in an ancient forgotten language and everyone else had access to the translator but I didn't.
So...can someone please help me out and explain exactly what Seth was talking about here. Is it some variation of the "work smarter, not harder" rule that your Spicoli-esque co-worker at the pizza place or movie theater probably told you back in the day? Is this just the (similarly wonderful sounding but always elusive in application) so-called 80/20 rule, revisited? Or is there something more there? I understand his concept that in law, there is grunt work and there is more strategic work. That's stating the obvious. Everyone tries to avoid the grunt work as they gain experience and move up the food chain. Once you come to this (glaringly obvious) realization, what is Seth telling you that's putting you on that path? The "long work" will always need to get done. It will not magically disappear. You may be able to chip away at some of it and eliminate some parts of it, but nothing in Godin's post even comes close to helping you in this regard. Either way, there's still plenty of "long work" left to go around.
Maybe I'm missing something? I'm probably just not "thinking outside the box."
Where are the comments? Obviously you don't need a decoder ring. I saw the same twits yesterday, read the post, and yawned. The reason no one is commenting right now is because they can't answer your question, namely, what am I missing here?
The reason this post is significant in our circle is because the Master turned his gaze toward our profession and issued a call to action, namely, "Go do hard work!" So marketers who'd like to be like Godin (and who envy his 1200 tweets on this single post) retweet it immediately, and say (and I'm paraphrasing here), "I've analyzed this post, and approve it for use in your practice." Only those of us who work don't get it, and no one is explaining it. It's probably why Godin doesn't allow comments on his posts because there would be those who say, "huh?"
You accurately summarized the post as follows: "Everyone tries to avoid the grunt work as they gain experience and move up the food chain. Once you come to this (glaringly obvious) realization, what is Seth telling you that's putting you on that path?"
And to answer your question, he does nothing other than to tell you to be brave, and go do hard work. And that should tell your readers something about the people who claim that Godin "nailed" the legal profession.
Reply to this
I just thought it was a big nothingburger. No reason to envy his marketing "success" or reach. Better to be more interesting, deep, useful, than vacuous and vapid. (Or, at least, strive to be.)
I haven't looked at his stuff that much in detail so maybe his other stuff is better, but that thing was pretty pointless.
There are of course many, many people who ride the "I'm a crackerjack Internet Marketing Guru! Heed my farts!" train. I'm not convinced that it leads anywhere I'm interested in going.
Reply to this
I missed this sweet piece in the quick, jangled back-and-forth of a busy few days. I've never really "gotten" him either. My first introduction to Mr. Godin came some time ago when someone linked to a a post or talk about "Tribes." (Or was it "Twibes?") The Twitter comments were practically orgasmic. All I could see was someone who knew nothing about human culture holding forth incorrectly about well-studied concepts of human society while a bunch of starry-eyed goofballs cheered. I'm no expert on anthropology, so I figured that I just didn't get it.
By dint of experience, I actually know a lot about litigation and success. Here is the basis of my knowledge: I handle major injury cases and complex litigation for consumers. I work on a contingent fee basis (For the unintitiated: No advantage to spending needless time; no billable hours), and I've been at it for 25 years, with some success.
One thing I know is that success is built upon hard work that takes a long time. It is preposterous to think--as Mr. Godin apparently does--that simply working smarter for mere minutes gets you to the great revelations and victory. This is not a game of Clue. ("Yes, you see. It was KBR, with the poison, in the Iraqi water treatment plant.") It takes hundreds or thousands of hours to put together a case, prepare it for trial and try it. You can't succeed without putting in that time.
The galling part of all this is that the cheerleaders promote this notion that all you have to do to succeed in the practice of law is, "Work smarter." Or be a "thought leader." This is nothing more than what would have been in 1995-speak, "Thinking outside the box," or "Pushing the envelope."
I'm happy to see this emperor-has-no-clothes post. One less thing for my to-do list. You treat the subject more graciously and charitably than I would, resulting in a nicer piece of work.
Thanks.
D.
Reply to this
Be the ball, Venkat.
Seth Godin's blog is like a sparkler; it draws you in, shows a lot of potential, but isn't as useful as a real fire.
Reply to this
I'm just a lowly fiction writer who is really an office worker, but this reminds me of the book 'Fashionable Nonsense' by Sokal and Bricmont - an interesting non-fiction account of a 'hoax' they performed to test the 'emperor's new clothes' effect that certain social scientists created when they misused physics terms and math terms in their analyses of literature, etc.
Reply to this