It would be easy to dismiss Seth Godin’s latest book as a way for him to cash in on his (hard earned) reputation as the Marketing Genius of our time.

For those that don’t know him – Seth Godin (you can read his frequent updates at Seth’s blog) is an author of many books, including Permission Marketing, Purple Cow and Meatball Sundae.  Not only is he a compelling writer, but he also has a history of illuminating (perhaps leading) changes in the marketplace that we’ve been seeing the last 10 years.

At first glance, Tribes appears to be more of the same – written in a stream of consciousness style almost as a collection of blog posts (which is likely where they started).

However the real value of Tribes is the ideas that get sparked from the conversation it feels like you’re having with Mr. Godin.  Here are a few that came to me when I read it:

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Back in the early 90′s the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) had a difficult problem to solve.  Their goal as an organization was to improve quality of life by communicating proven problems.

One of the problems they discovered was that movie popcorn, although a tasty treat, was bad for you.

Really, really bad. (like 80 grams of saturated fat for a large serving bad!)

However they quickly figured out that just telling people that popcorn was bad didn’t really make much of a splash – in fact it didn’t even make a ripple.

Then they decided they needed to get creative to get the point across.

They called a press conference and presented a large box of popcorn on a table.  Then they added a plate of bacon and eggs to the table.

Then a Big Mac and Fries.

Then a steak dinner.  The popcorn had more fat than all of that other food…COMBINED!!!

As they say – and as you might remember, the rest is history.  The media jumped all over the story and within a few weeks national Movie Chains started changing the way they made the popcorn – they got rid of the coconut oil and came out with healthier alternatives.

The CSPI had made their idea sticky – not only did people get it, they passed it along to friends (and they told two friends and so on and so on).

That’s the essence behind the book Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan Heath.  They analyzed what made some ideas ‘work’ and others just pass by the wayside and developed a set of rules that anyone can use to make their own ideas ‘stickier’.

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Have you ever had the experience of suddenly having a new insight into something? 

It could be during a heated conversation when you suddenly understand where the other person is coming from (and why they’re mad…) or sometimes you can ‘have the lights turned on’ when you’re listening to a particularly talented speaker.

It only took 15 pages into The Big Five for Life by John Strelecky for me to hit on a new way of looking at something.  This is a book that’s billed as a story about the greatest business leader to ever live and the ‘secret’ to his success.  It’s not a typical business book by any stretch, but there are a lot of ideas that a business owner could use to increase their success.

One of the things that I love about what I’m doing now is that I need to read a lot of books, specifically business books. 

• Many of them are extremely insightful and about as much fun to read as a statistics textbook. 
• Many of them are painful to read and not very insightful.
• A very few of them are both enjoyable to read and leave you with great ideas.

The Big Five For Life belongs in that last category – read on to find out why! Read More…