Seth's Blog : The marketing we deserve



The marketing we deserve

We say we want sustainable packaging...   

    but end up buying the one in fancy packaging instead.

We say we want handmade, local goods...

    but end up buying the cheap one, because it's 'just as good.'

We say we want the truth...

    but end up buying hype.

We say we want to hire for diversity (of thought, culture and background)...

    but end up hiring people who share our point of view in most things.

We say we want to be treated with respect...

    but end up buying from manipulative, selfish, short-term profit-seekers instead.

We say we don't want to be hustled...

    but we wait for the last-minute, the going-out-of-business rush or the high pressure push.

It actually starts with us. 

Here's the thing. It also starts with anyone with the leverage and power and authority to make something.

    Because even if it's the marketing we deserve, it's also the marketing they create.

       

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More Recent Articles

• Your job vs. your project
• "Um" and "like" and being heard
• Try better
• On knowing it can be done
• A ten-year plan is absurd

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Seth's Blog : Your job vs. your project



Your job vs. your project

Jobs are finite, specified and something we 'get'. Doing a job makes us defensive, it limits our thinking. The goal is to do just enough, not get in trouble, meet spec. When in doubt, seek deniability.

Projects are open-ended, chosen and ours. Working on a project opens the door to possibility. Projects are about better, about new frontiers, about making change happen. When in doubt, dare.

Jobs demand meetings and the key word is 'later'. Projects encourage 'now.'

You can get paid for a job (or a project). Or not. The pay isn't the point, the approach is.

Some people don't have a project, only a job. That's a choice, and it's a shame. Some people work to turn their project into a job, getting them the worst of both. If all you've ever had is jobs (a habit that's encouraged starting in first grade), it's difficult to see just how easy it is to transform your work into a project.

Welcome to projectworld.

       

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More Recent Articles

• "Um" and "like" and being heard
• Try better
• On knowing it can be done
• A ten-year plan is absurd
• Neophilia and ennui

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Seth's Blog : "Um" and "like" and being heard



"Um" and "like" and being heard

You can fix your "um" and you probably should.

Each of us now owns a media channel and a brand, and sooner or later, as your work gains traction, we'll hear your voice. Either in a job interview or on a podcast or in a video.

For a million years, people have been judging each other based on voice. Not just on what we say, but on how we say it.

I heard a Pulitzer-prize winning author interviewed on a local radio show. The tension of the interview caused an "um" eruption—your words and your approach sell your ideas, and at least on this interview, nothing much got sold.

Or consider the recent college grad who uses thirty or forty "likes" a minute. Hard to see through to the real you when it's so hard to hear you.

Alas, you can't remove this verbal tic merely by willing it away.

Here's what you can do: Persuade yourself that the person you're talking to will give you the floor, that he won't jump in the moment you hesitate. You actually don't have to keep making sounds in order to keep your turn as the speaker. The fastest speaker is not the speaker who is heard best or even most.

Next step: First on your own, eventually practicing with friends, replace the "um" with nothing. With silence.

Talk as slowly as you need to. Every time you want to insert a podium-holding stall-for-time word, say nothing instead. Merely pause.

You can do this into a tape recorder, you can try it in a meeting. It works. 

You're not teaching yourself to get rid of "um." You're replacing the um with silence. You're going slow enough that this isn't an issue.

Then you can slowly speed up.

The best part: Our default assumption is that people who choose their words carefully are quite smart. Like you.

       

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More Recent Articles

• Try better
• On knowing it can be done
• A ten-year plan is absurd
• Neophilia and ennui
• Add engines until airborne

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