I really tried to get into Seth Godin's work, blogs, books, video, the altmba. I just find there is no substance beyond wishy washy ideas and turns of phrase. I just read his latest blog where he tells us to look inside a box of infinity and 'dance with it'. What am I missing here? Isn't this nonsense?
I can speak to the blog. First, the daily posting rigor is inspiring. It makes you want to do something useful every day.
Second, many of his blog posts prompt you to ask questions of the work you are doing. They are not always the questions you expect and sometimes the pairing of your current situation and the current blog post are fortuitous.
Third, he has strong, uncommonly held about how to start, continue and finish, and find an audience for meaningful work. Unless you are particularly prolific, his writing should help you raise your expectations for yourself.
Fourth, he’s an executive and product creator and sometimes it’s worth understanding how those people think, whether to emulate them or just to sell to them.
That said, at this point I would start with his books because he’s had so much time to distill his blog ideas into longer writing and it’s better to catch up with a book than to read a lot of old posts.
For me, Seth Godin is about defining a vocabulary around being a productive and decent human-being and thinking about your approach and psychology. I think the ideas help the reader to navigate in this complex world without having a cynical worldview.
I have just read the last blog post and I believe it is about the amygdala and creative process.
"Dance with it." is probably a reference to a topic he has written in several blog posts and books. He just plants some ideas here and there. As an example, yesterday, I watched MIT OCW video "How To Speak by Patrick Winston" where he tells to repeat the subject at least 3 times. I immediately remembered this blog post: https://seths.blog/2010/12/you-will-be-misunderstood/
I agree with 1123581321's points. In addition, he always narrates his own audiobooks. The Dip is one of the first audiobooks I have listened to. He has a clear easy to understand voice.
While I can understand Seth's content may not work for everyone. It works for me. I like the man enough to regard him as a role-model so my channels are open for him(permission marketing maybe?). I also find his writing fun.
Look at the fruitful discussion his short blog post has created on HN. I found many comments to be very valuable here. I think that’s how his value is showing.
Comments
I really tried to get into Seth Godin's work, blogs, books, video, the altmba. I just find there is no substance beyond wishy washy ideas and turns of phrase. I just read his latest blog where he tells us to look inside a box of infinity and 'dance with it'. What am I missing here? Isn't this nonsense?
I can speak to the blog. First, the daily posting rigor is inspiring. It makes you want to do something useful every day.
Second, many of his blog posts prompt you to ask questions of the work you are doing. They are not always the questions you expect and sometimes the pairing of your current situation and the current blog post are fortuitous.
Third, he has strong, uncommonly held about how to start, continue and finish, and find an audience for meaningful work. Unless you are particularly prolific, his writing should help you raise your expectations for yourself.
Fourth, he’s an executive and product creator and sometimes it’s worth understanding how those people think, whether to emulate them or just to sell to them.
That said, at this point I would start with his books because he’s had so much time to distill his blog ideas into longer writing and it’s better to catch up with a book than to read a lot of old posts.
For me, Seth Godin is about defining a vocabulary around being a productive and decent human-being and thinking about your approach and psychology. I think the ideas help the reader to navigate in this complex world without having a cynical worldview.
I have just read the last blog post and I believe it is about the amygdala and creative process.
"Dance with it." is probably a reference to a topic he has written in several blog posts and books. He just plants some ideas here and there. As an example, yesterday, I watched MIT OCW video "How To Speak by Patrick Winston" where he tells to repeat the subject at least 3 times. I immediately remembered this blog post: https://seths.blog/2010/12/you-will-be-misunderstood/
I agree with 1123581321's points. In addition, he always narrates his own audiobooks. The Dip is one of the first audiobooks I have listened to. He has a clear easy to understand voice.
While I can understand Seth's content may not work for everyone. It works for me. I like the man enough to regard him as a role-model so my channels are open for him(permission marketing maybe?). I also find his writing fun.
HT to Seth :)
I was into his work at some point but got to the same point. I actually even had a little post myself, saying bye to Seth:
http://web.archive.org/web/20160818152109/http://rimantas.co...
Look at the fruitful discussion his short blog post has created on HN. I found many comments to be very valuable here. I think that’s how his value is showing.
I think the exercise of {clarifying why it is nonsense} has value.