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Seth Godin on books and publishing today.

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Part of a series on "The $300 House," this piece is by Seth Godin, addressing the problem of marketing to the world's poor. Don't scoff - Godin's piece is a real eye-opener. If we agree that innovation (and innovative approaches & thinking) is (are) critical in solving poverty, then we have to realize that it's those in poverty who have to be convinced to *adopt* innovation. Godin shows why this is difficult, and offers suggestions for overcoming the problem. Excerpt:
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If you're a tenth-generation subsistence farmer, your point of view, about risk, about life, is different from someone working in an R&D lab in Palo Alto. The Moral Economy of the Peasant makes this argument clearly: Imagine standing in water up to your chin. The only thing you're prepared to focus on is whether or not the water is going to rise four more inches. Your penchant for risk is close to zero. One mistake and the game is over.

As a result, it's extremely difficult to sell innovation to this consumer. The line around the block to get into the Apple store for a gadget is an insane concept in this community. A promise from a marketer is meaningless, because the marketer isn't part of the town, the marketer will move away, the marketer is, of course, a liar.

Let me add one more easily overlooked point: Western-style consumers have been taught from birth the power of the package. We see the new Nano or the new Porsche or the new convertible note on a venture deal and we can easily do the math: [new thing] + [me] = [happier]. We've been taught that an object can make our lives better, that a purchase can make us happier, that the color of the Tiffany's box or the ringing of a phone might/will bring us joy.

That's just not true for someone who hasn't bought a new kind consumer good in a year or two or three or maybe ever. As a result, stores in the developing world tend to be stocked with the classic, the tried and true, because people buy refills of previous purchases, not the new. You can't simply put something new in front of a person

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Seth Godin delivers a well-deserved kick to traditional college education's kneecaps.
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Why do colleges send millions (!) of undifferentiated pieces of junk mail to high school students now? We will waive the admission fee! We have a one page application! Apply! This is some of the most amateur and bland direct mail I've ever seen. Why do it?

Biggest reason: So the schools can reject more applicants. The more applicants they reject, the higher they rank in US News and other rankings. And thus the rush to game the rankings continues, which is a sign that the marketers in question (the colleges) are getting desperate for more than their fair share. Why bother making your education more useful if you can more easily make it appear to be more useful?
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One of the better definitions of "brand" that I've read in a while:
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"You can build a brand (shorthand for relationships, beliefs, trust, permission and word of mouth)."
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Love the last sentence, too:
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The reason the internet is such a home to wow business models is that it's easier to create a network here than any other time in history.
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So true.

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Still one of the best talks on ...well, sliced bread and all it has spawned.

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PDF companion to the book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us (http://tinyurl.com/6fklwd), by Seth Godin: a booklet of Q&As around growing one's tribe (eg. "Is it possible to influence a tribe without being the leader?"). The questions are at the beginning (six pages), and after each there's a clickable "answer" button - very convenient.

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