Last week one of the folks, Matthew Fairtlough, I have been working and collaborating with on something really cool, that involves as well the talented and natural storyteller Jemima Gibbons, and which I am sure I would be able to talk about very very soon, since it is just starting to come to life, shared with me one of those video clips that can certainly change your perspective in multiple ways and without remedy. For the better.
It’s an interview. A delightful short interview of a bit over 8 minutes done by Melissa Pierce with one of those guests you know you need to be ready with something to write down in fear you may lose it along the way. You can sense all of those golden nuggets you are about to witness, learn and enlighten yourself with. Yes, of course, never a disappointment, I am talking about the one and only: Seth Godin.
Like I said, it is a video interview, and an old one since it was first published in December 2008, yet, nearly a year later, it’s just as fresh and relevant as ever! Check out an have a look into "Seth Godin Wants to Know What You Are Doing With That Duck". It will be worth while every second of it, and I am sure it will not leave you standstill. Quite the opposite!
Oh my, I bet you may be wondering what the video is all about and whether it would be worth while for you to go through or not, right? Well, let me help you with a couple of teasers and see if they would help change your mind and watch through it…
The video starts with an introduction from Seth himself on what he does, what he has been up to and what he thinks are some really good principles to operate in this world… To name:
- Treat people with respect
- Customers have more power than ever
- Great ideas spread
From there onwards, and based on those principles, he comes to state how Leadership is the new marketing; how leading people, connecting people, mixing all those three elements will get us all a new kind of leadership, that one of the 21st century leaders, where we no longer take or accept average products from average ideas. Quite the opposite!
Right afterwards he shares some wonderful stories as references to the concept of the Long Tail by Chris Anderson, where the main message from this excerpt that wasn’t there before in past years is one of my favourite ones: choices.
Choices that will help continue provoking that revolution with lots and lots of components, one of them connecting people with each other, where the cost of transfer of an idea is nearly down to zero; pay attention to this part of the video where Seth gets to share a story that is very descriptive of the whole movement and which has got to deal with something as relatively simple as a T-shirt and how to sell it. Just brilliant!
Not bad so far, eh? Well, it gets better. Way better! I know that plenty of people out there don’t buy into the generations argument within the workplace, but I would encourage you to check out this video with Seth, because in it he reflects on some beautiful insights on that very same generational divide, specially, on how basically the different generations see each other. Striking would be a mild word to describe how powerful these messages are, mainly because of their accuracy. And not just the youngest generations, but all of them in equal terms. I tell you, you would need to watch it…
Finally, I thought I would move on from there into another one of my favourite parts from the video interview, which I am sure you are going to enjoy quite a bit, specially this particular quote that I feel is rather descriptive of who we are as social beings trying to conduct Social Business:
"Life becomes a series of interactions to get you better at creating ideas, spreading ideas, engaging with people with respect, so they wanna help you next time; understanding how to use new tools, so that when further new tools come along they would not be afraid of them […]"
Whoahhh, indeed! It’s all about building a set of experiences that could help you advance further; that could help you build up that brick wall that will become your life… And what a brilliant way of ending up the video other than asking you what you are doing with that duck?
(I will stop here now, hoping those very few insights will give you a better chance to judge whether you would be spending those 8 minutes of your time going through it and see whether you could answer the question to that last comment from Seth himself… )
Here is the embedded version of the video:
Tags: Matthew Fairlough, Jemima Gibbons, Monkeys with Typewriters, Books, Melissa Pierce, Seth Godin, Duck, Respect, Trust, Customers, Ideas, Great Ideas, Leadership, Leaders, Management, Managers, Management 2.0, Managers 2.0, Leaders 2.0, Chris Anderson, Long Tail, Stories, Anecdotes, Choices, Revolution, Social Business, Life, Interactions, Innovation, Pushing the Limits, Enterprise 2.0, Social Software, Social Networking, Social Computing, Social Media, Collaboration, Communities, Learning, Knowledge Sharing, KM, Knowledge Management, Networking, Social Networks, Conversations, Dialogue, Communication, Connections, Relationships, Productivity
Looking at jobs as an on-going education process vs and end in itself.