Preface: Linchpin is a new book by Seth Godin the premise is that you must make yourself indispensable to your employer, clients in order to truly have job security. “A linchpin is the essential element, the person who holds part of the operation together. Without the linchpin, the thing falls apart.” quoted from Mashable interview.

For those who attended yesterday’s Seth Godin Linchpin event they received a workbook called ShipIT. It’s a small guidebook to make sure the high you get inside the event doesn’t turn into a reality hangover when you go back to work the next day.

For those that need a frame of reference, Godin is a combination of Dr. Stephen Covey, Tom Peters, and Dr. Wayne Dyer, but truly that’s only for those that need a reference. Godin is uniquely Seth.

Seth Godin is navigating his way in uncharted waters. His brand as I see it is – Marketer for the new century – but his words and passion in the presentation I attended yesterday in Minneapolis (see on Twitter #sethgodinmpls) is one part marketer, two parts motivational speaker, and one part rebel, kind of like Peter Finch rebel in the movie Network.

I’ll cover separate parts of Godin’s message in several blog posts here. Let’s set the stage with these points.

Brilliant Points for Marketers

These are Seth’s ideas filtered through a Maruggi perspective (yes it may be a little twisted but that’s why you return here) : )

1) Figure out the world view of your audience and use it to frame your discussion. Example, say you are trying to sell NBA Timberwolves tickets to a fan upset by the number of blowouts last year. Now it becomes a question of selling the youth, athleticism and hustle (and yes the product actually needs to produce that expectation) as opposed to some notion of playoff contender. Plus I would not make a big deal out of seeing Wade, Bosh, and that other guy.

2) Lizard thinking. The ability of some people in an organization to protect their species called status quo. You run into Lizard think in many larger organization, usually because smaller organizations don’t survive with many Lizard thinkers on board.

I worked as a political appointee in the Federal Government and the agencies are loaded with Lizard thinkers on both sides of the political spectrum. They know their species has lasted a hell of a lot longer than you. The thinking goes like this, “I’ll just bake here in the sun and watch you try to change the world, then your kind will die off and they next generation come in. Democracy is great ain’t it?”

Godin’s guidance about the Lizard thinker – distract them, appease them, remove them. Details of doing this are unique to every situation and past success does not predict future performance with Lizard thinkers, but suffice it to say the world is full of them, don’t let them get you down.

Funny on the topic of people who are protective of the status quo and resist change, I asked Robert Scoble years ago whether they can stop social media from growing and he said no. I asked why and he replied, “they will eventually die off.” As a 51 year old social advocate and believer in the current revolution, this was a bittersweet statement.

Brilliant Personal Note

Godin talks about following your passion, making a difference and creating art. His palette is comprised of words, so it is easy to get caught up in the moment of “Yes this is my destiny.” Godin, more so than others who talk the “follow your passion talk” does include a healthy reality check. Thank God.

He acknowledges the parameters that most people face, family obligations, work constraints, time, money, etc. In fact, when he talked about these he gestured by placing them around his body as if they were walls of a box. And without any sugar coating he said one of these may need to get blown up, he also used the word sacrifice. Yup, that’s it. Sacrifice, and for those in the audience who have built a career, family, obligations, those walls are higher and thicker than for others, that’s just reality. For those individuals, Godin’s words are no less inspiring, but the path to implementing them is more arduous for you and those that depend on you.

Brilliant Perspective

The lens through which the reality check should be seen is Godin’s comment about the revolution now underway. Godin said each of us is both worker and factory owner. The digital factory which each individual now owns is a computer, each enriching asset a person owns is an idea, and the myth many of us need to shed, is the myth of needing to ask permission to succeed.

You don’t need permission to pursue your art. This was the most enlightening, realistic and sad concept of the presentation. Given today’s ability to create and share we don’t need any one’s permission to believe and work towards a dream. The industrial system rewarded conformity, bastards. It’s a yoke the anyone born before 1990 may well be carrying around. I’m not talking rebel with long hair and torn jeans, I’m talking, as I interpret Godin here, the ability to create anything, period. A book, a Tshirt, a store, a widget, anything. I submit to you this mindset is more important to success than talent, an idea, a network, anything. The myth is the first thing to blow up, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Now so I don’t go too far a field from the readers of this blog, this myth of permission is also true for your potential competition and for your customers. They have few if any barriers to implement their ideas about themselves or about you. So if you have linchpins make sure the Lizards don’t get them down or they can become your competition. If you deal with consumers directly, understand their ability to share their perspective, right or wrong. Doctors, are you listening? Hotel front desk people do you get this? Wall Street, your next because the cost for this revolution are magnitudes less than 10 years ago so do you know what that means? Conformity to your short-sighted view of the world may not be in my world view.

Thanks Seth, more in the days ahead as we get deeper into the Linchpin revolution. I recommend you attend a Linchpin event in your area.

Disclaimer – this is not a shot at the USA on its birthday. This is not a political commentary because this is the Marketing Edge podcast and Blog. I hope it will be a quick eye opener to acknowledge that the citizens of America and the world, live in an interdependent world.

Let’s separate Independence the apple pie, flag waving idea from independent growth.

Independence is the beautiful way Americans have been able to worship as they choose, to roam our vast land without “papers” (with some exceptions over our very short history), to assemble, start a business, build an idea into reality, have children etc. etc. etc. That’s our society, warts and all that we choose to celebrate today. I’m in favor of it. Happy Birthday.

Now let’s look at independent growth. This is the notion that we glamorize for individuals who achieve certain levels of accomplishment. You know top ten lists, richest people, All-Star teams, A, B, C, and D Listers. We love to refine things and people to lists, without appreciating how those on the list came to be, how they were impacted by other people and events.

The social web has put a spotlight on the amazing gifts we give to each other, some of which contribute to personal gain and recognition. The concept that we learn from others in this or past generations is not new. One that comes to mind today is the electrical engineer Nikola Tesla whose work was trumped by Thomas Edison in his day, is the foundation for today’s energy saving light bulbs.

Let’s apply that interdependent concept in the area of social media authors. For example. today’s social media thinking by Charlene Li of Altimeter Group on Open Leadership, a wonderful book about the new participating consumer and how companies can embrace them. It’s a premise based on the work of Shel Israel and Robert Scoble in Naked Conversations or the Cluetrain Manifesto Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, and McKee Jake. Can we trace some of this thinking to Ralph Nader and his early consumer empowerment? On the marketing side do we owe some recognition to Neil McElroy the Procter and Gamble marketing executive who advocated the concept of brand managers, market segmentation, and several brands under the same parent company?

How about that patio furniture, your sitting on or the grill, or lawn chair at today’s Bar-b-que. My bet is one of them was made by a worker earning $5 a day instead of $10 or more an hour. (Not a political statement just an economic fact of life) What about the house, car, boat for today’s activities, likely owned by a bank now or at some point in the past. This consumerism and ownership is based on the interdependence of individuals and institutions.

America is a nation built on economic and intellectual interdependence. Our roots grew on blood and sweat of willing and unwilling Europeans, Africans, and native Americans (for the most part). Independence – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

In pursuit of these rights we are an interdependent people of the world. Social media brings this to light with each minute on twitter, each shared cause on Facebook, each entry in Wikipedia, and on and on. It has never be clearer to me that our Independence is based on our interdependence which is now expanding beyond our nation as the social web grows. Our fast-paced society likes to pedal short lists of everything, from recipes to
people. I hope that with every list read today, there is a mental asterisk with the caption *this list compliments of the contributions of many other individuals.

A number of posts recently about privacy has prompted me to write this post.

Can you trust Facebook? really, no more than you can trust any one organization with many investors. One person is easiser to trust or at least determine if they are worthy of your trust, with larger institutions it gets a little harder in a capitalistic economy.

Second – Privacy on the web is a facade, gone with the credit card, internet, mobile phones, terrorists, ATMs, and our unquenchable thirst for deals, reward zones, frequent flyers, buyers, stayers and everything elsers.

Consumers have opened the door to their own behaviors. We then swarm onto free platforms, Facebook is the 4th largest country. We complain about the ads that subsidize those free platforms, essentially biting the very hand that feeds our free desires to post about private lives then cry foul when those at risk, those being Facebook management and investors, dare to figure a way to pay for the servers in which our data is stored. That’s rich.

Be forewarned, if you jump my case about Facebook not telling us, changing the rules of the game, etc show me your copy of the Terms and Conditions that you read thoroughly. Yes, I’m being snarky to highlight how we have created our own cycle of addiction.

A society so consumed by consumption and connection, so impatient to get to the next thing, through our actions we have relinquished our privacy and attention to details. Oh yes I’m sure there are 100 of you that read T&Cs etc, and can argue the point. It’s a false argument because it’s not the way the majority of people engage with the social web.

Many marketers know this and act accordingly. This leaves a void for government to “save” us from our own impatience and irresponsibility.

I say the system works. You’ll never have true privacy again, and when the social mob screams loud enough, those dependent upon us to actually exist will listen. Facebook is no more if there is a mass exodus of Israelite proportion from the fourth largest country. The plans for this exodus are being developed by the Diaspora great name BTW. I’ll join Diaspora, but I won’t leave Facebook, competition is good – Hey My Space where are you in this!

No worries Facebook lovers, Facebook is circling the wagons they will repsond to the latest political bandwagon. The yelling pendulum will swing back to Facebook investors and the general crowd of those who want to boost revenues. Then Facebook management will come up with another way to minimize their screaming. Look at it this way, through privacy, advertising, or fees, the residents of the fourth largest country will need some taxation. Through it all, the happy middle will include a a degree of suspension of privacy, willingly or unwillingly to feed our addiction.

This is the conundrum of a socialist information society in a capitalist economy.