Linchpin, by Seth Godin

Seth Godin truly believes in what he espouses. The passion for his beliefs is evident in nearly every word; this makes Linchpin an entertaining read even if you don’t share the same ideas or aren’t convinced of the value of Godin’s. The basic thought here is that the key to job security is making yourself indispensable, a linchpin. This means that uniqueness and originality are more valuable traits than predictability and rule-following. That meeting goals is more important than how they are met. That the end justifies the means. An interesting and admirable point-of-view, but I don’t think as many corporations in our CYA, SLA, Sarbanes-Oxley world will reward these behaviors as Godin seems to believe. Or I’m not picking the right employers, anyway...

Godin writes, “Shipping something out the door, doing it regularly, without hassle, emergency, or fear—this is a rare skill, something that makes you indispensable.” I am a firm believer of a regular (and short) release cycle, but was asked to leave one job in part because I was doing this; ironically, I was told later that having regular releases wasn’t considered agile enough! It was obvious at this point that I wasn’t going to be successful in that company anyway, but according to Godin I should have been lauded, not let go. I don’t think this obviates the linchpin theory, but it does at least add a corollary about organizational acceptance of such methods. If you are in a conservative, hide-bound chain-of-command, getting labeled as a rebel rather than a rule-follower isn’t necessarily a key to job security.

Whether you drink Godin’s Kool-Aid or not, this is an enjoyable book. His sense of humor is sly and pervasive and he is unapologetic for his personal beliefs. In a discussion about business revolutions, Godin says shopping at Wal-Mart is okay because “you can get a jar of pickles the size of a Volkswagen for three dollars.” Pundits who try and convince people that shopping at Wal-Mart is somehow wrong “have been brainwashed into believing that the old version of the American Dream was a right.” I like both the humor and his political viewpoint here!

His personality is also on display in one of the passages towards the close of the book. The style of Linchpin is chapters, divided into smaller titled sections. One of these sections is composed of a single word, “Yes.” Of course, the title of this section is, “Wait! Are You Saying That I Have to Stop Following Instructions and Start Being an Artist? Someone Who Dreams Up New Ideas and Makes Them Real? Someone Who Finds New Ways to Interact, New Pathways to Deliver Emotion, New Ways to Connect? Someone Who Acts Like a Human, Not a Cog? Me?” Considering the titles are all in a heavy bold typeface, his point is well made.

The last bit of whimsy I’ll leave you with is the following diagram:

First Sentence:

The problem is that the bureaucrats, note takes, literalists, manual readers, TGIF laborers, map followers, and fearful employees are in pain.

Permission Marketing, by Seth Godin

The basic premise of this book is that as Americans become increasingly inured to advertising, companies are going to be forced to changed their marketing tactics to get our attention. Godin calls the techniques that are commonly used today (telemarketing, commercials, ...) Interruption Marketing and holds that it is ineffective. Permission Marketing is the answer: offering incentives to get customers to voluntarily accept advertising. Not being a huge fan of advertising myself, I found the idea on its face to be nonintuitive. Godin does a good job of explaining the benefits, though, and by the end I was persuaded to his view of the world.

As with most business books today, this one is filled with illustrative examples. Most of these are used to great effect, such as Amazon.com tracking customer visits and purchases in order to provide ads and suggestions that are targeted at the individual and thus more likely to result in additional sales. Some of the examples, though, are dated enough to jar the reader out of the flow. It has been a long time since Alta Vista was the most visited search engine on the Internet, and a personal services company named Streamline is touted as being on the verge of huge success due to its marketing strategy although they shut their doors about a year after the book was published. Not hugely distracting, but it did clearly illustrate that the book is nearly a decade old.

First Sentence:

It’s not your fault.