Product Description

As one of today's most influential business thinkers, Seth Godin has now collected the most provocative short pieces from his pioneering blog. This book also includes his most popular columns from Fast Company magazine and several of the short e-books he has written in the last few years. Includes:Clinging to Your Job Title?The Persistence of Really Bad IdeasThe Seduction of 'Good Enough'Judging a Book by its CoverDo Less Small is the New Big is packed with inspiring ideas: as Godin says in his introduction, 'I'm certain that you're smart enough to see the stuff you've always wanted to do buried deep inside one of these riffs. And I'm betting that once inspired, you'll actually make something happen.'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21747 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-28
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From the Back Cover
"WARNING: If you want a narrative and lots of research, you're in the wrong place. But I'm betting you don't need another dense business book. What you need is a small prod or perhaps a friendly whack. And maybe a few ideas you can really run with. Have fun."
Seth Godin, one of today's most influential business thinkers, writes bestselling books like 'Purple Cow' and 'All Marketers Are Liars'. And in between he delivers a daily stream of ideas on one of the world's most popular blogs. Collected here for the first time are eight years of his very best blog posts, magazine columns and e-books. On literally every page, 'Small is the New Big' offers ideas, stories and trends that can change how you work, what you buy, and how you see the world. As Godin writes, "I dare you to read any ten of these essays and still be comfortable settling with what you've got. You don't have to settle for the status quo, for being good enough, for getting by, for working all night."

About the Author
Seth Godin is the author of seven books that have been bestsellers around the world and have been translated into more than fifteen languages. He's been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Fast Company and Business Week. Godin was singled out by Successful Meetings Magazine as one of twenty-one top speakers for the twenty-first century. Before Small is the New Big, The Big Moo and All Marketers Are Liars, Godin wrote Free Prize Inside!, which Forbes picked as one of its books of the year (as did Fast Company). He is also the author of Purple Cow, the bestselling marketing book of the decade, and Permission Marketing.

Customer Reviews

Tidbits and insights from best-selling author Seth Godin
These collected entries that best-selling marketing author Seth Godin gleaned from his blog offer a variety of world-of-work musings, from the reasons benchmarking can boost employee performance to the nature of hard work and the challenge of change. Godin himself warns that this is not a dense, researched report, but a compilation of bright ideas, inspirations and tales from the work of business. His fairly random assortment of observations includes some that are interesting, clever and useful, though perhaps not independently book-worthy (or they would be books), and others that are a bit breezy and insubstantial. He suggests reading a few pages until you find a juicy segment and coming back another day for a new sip. getAbstract thinks that's just the right recommendation.

An abundance of "acorns" and "mustard seeds"

Those who now struggle to create or increase demand for whatever they offer (products, services, or a combination of both) must be able to answer three basic questions. All are important but the first two are much less important than is the third:

1. Who are you?
2. What do you do?
3. Why should I care?

As my reviews of Seth Godin's earlier published works indicate, I think he is one of the most thought-provoking business authors whose insights (especially those provided in Small Is the New Big) can provide substantial assistance to answering the aforementioned questions.

Whenever I read or re-read any of Godin's books, I view his insights as "acorns" or "mustard seeds," any of which - with proper nourishment - can be developed into substantial results such as increased recognition and a higher level of awareness, a better understanding of a given market segment, a clearer sense of how to position and then promote one's offering more effectively, or perhaps overcoming what James O'Toole has aptly characterized (in Leading Change) as "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom."

Godin encourages those who read Small Is the New Big not to read it all at once. "It took eight years to write, and if you read it in one sitting, it'll give you a headache." Contrary to my normal approach, that is what I did, after checking out the table of contents. I skimmed through the first 276 pages and as I did so, ideas seemed to "fly off the page" and demand my attention. I immediately highlighted them for future reference and then continued on until arriving at "Special Bonus!! $243 Worth of Free E-Books, Reprinted Here at No Extra Charge to You, My Faithful Reader." I then carefully read each word until the narrative's conclusion on Page 310. One man's opinion, the "Special Bonus!" section provides the most valuable material in the book as Godin shares his thoughts about Web site design, generating traffic, the importance of "telling a story," the three components of "your best audience," why a home page is unnecessary (indeed counter-productive), three questions that must be answered when building each Web site page, how to overcome clutter, and three basic "truths" and four "laws" that defy conventional wisdom.

With regard to "acorns" and "mustard seeds," here are a few representative examples:

"If your target audience isn't listening, it's not their fault, it's yours." (Page 14)

"What makes you remarkable is being amazing, outstanding, surprising, elegant and noteworthy."
(Page 112)

People who think like a pigeon "assume a cause-and-effect relationship that doesn't really exist. That's what a superstition is: a compulsion to take an action that has no actual influence on the desired outcome." (Page 163)

"No one 'gets' an idea unless: the first impression demands further investigation, they already understand the foundation ideas necessary to get the new idea, [and] they trust and respect the sender enough to invest the time." (Pages 249-250)

"In a world where things are viral, you're more likely to succeed with passive networking (strangers recommending you) than the old-school, active kind. In other words, make great stuff, do your homework, build your audience, and when you've got something worth talking about, people will talk about it." (Page 263)

Seth Godin constantly generates ideas of his own and has an insatiable curiosity about breakthrough ideas from others, all of whom he duly acknowledges as their source. As he would be the first to point out, however, it would be a fool's errand to attempt to take direct action on all of the insights in any of his books, especially this one. "I guarantee you'll find something that won't work for you. But I'm certain you're smart enough to recognize the stuff you've always wanted to do buried deep inside one of these riffs. And I'm betting that once you're inspired you'll actually make something happen."

Break Out of Your Stalled Thinking with Godin's Challenging Ideas!
Small Is the New BIG is Seth Godin's attempt to translate blogging and brief magazine essays into a book without losing the immediacy of the original contexts. Unlike most books that bore you would pages of uninterrupted type that say very little, this book is broken up into 184 brief segments that challenge the world as it is . . . to become like the world as it should be: Full of respect, common sense, helpfulness, thinking responses, and meaningful work. Unlike a blog which is in reverse chronological order, these materials are alphabetical by subject -- But drat . . . I would have liked to read in reverse chronological order.

The writing is at its best in pointing out today's nonsense in word pictures, much as Scott Adams does with cartoons. Less often does Mr. Godin move onto suggesting what to do . . . other than to suggest you DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT! I was most impressed with his thoughts that making experiments and changes should have the presumption of going forward, rather than the status quo.

I'm not sure everyone is going to be persuaded that being a free agent is going to be a better life . . . until they learn how to prosper in that unaccustomed role.

For those who are less familiar with the Internet, his suggestions about which Web sites he uses . . . and for what . . . will be welcome. You cannot help but dig deeper into the blogger world after reading his enthusiasm for blogging's potential to spread ideas and make connections as a conversation.

If you're already a free agent, are prospering, and can navigate your way around the Internet, blogs and obnoxious service providers, you'll get chuckles . . . but not much practical advice.

This book is for those who are nameless cogs in large organizations and haven't broken out yet. Be Free!