npMarketing Blog: Meatball Sundae

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Meatball Sundae

Just finished Seth Godin's latest book "Meatball Sundae" this morning. As are most of Godin's book, it's a fast read - but don't let that fool you. This is an important book for many reasons.

Aside from the fourteen trends that the book explores (everything from The Long Tail to direct communications and commerce between producers and consumers is looked at), I do believe my favorite part was the case studies. Real-life examples of how companies have put these trends and concepts into practice to create movements. Part of what we all have to do as non-profit marketers is in fact, create movement, action and passion for our causes. So often though, we end up doing the opposite by spamming, over-communicating and controlling our communications efforts.

I had a long conversation with a software vendor yesterday. They are trying to re-position themselves in the marketplace. Problem is, they are over-explaining things and making it hard for themselves by not embracing a few of Godin's trends and ideas.

The CEO doesn't have a blog.
There is no user community.
They lack in "big ideas" that can will make them any different than their competitors.

One last thing, in case Seth reads this at some point (the web never forgets)... on page 194 he talks about the March of Dimes Share Your Story site. It's not accurate that it came from a volunteer blogger. It didn't. It came from the a few of us inside the joint who really believed in the idea. We had to cajole and convince upper management to let us do it (it took about 2 years). So Seth is half right, it wasn't started by the CEO, but it wasn't started by a volunteer either.