Purple Cow Transforming Your Business By Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Purple Cow Transforming Your Business By Being Remarkable by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a motivational speaker about business. His focus is on marketing goods and services. He does not just talk about marketing; he also has created a social network, Squidoo http://www.squidoo.com as well as a very popular blog http://www.sethgodin.com . His focus is on being exceptional and different. He is the most popular marketing blogger on the internet.

In his words, a "purple cow" is a remarkable thing to see. Of course, it is also a Mother Goose nursery rhyme which many people remember as well from their childhood, "I never saw a purple cow, I hope, I never see one, but I'd rather see than be one."

Mr. Godin combines an ethic of showmanship with a very straightforward style. The message is easy to follow in this book; produce a remarkable unique product, find the early adopters who will sell your product by word of mouth, and try and create a strategy that others have a hard time following.

He urges people to take risks, because people are no longer paying attention to the tried and true methods of advertising. Television and radio do not catch peoples attention as easily. Most everyones basic wants and needs have been met. You must create a unique message with strong knowledge of what you are selling. His statements are quite compelling. They sound like common sense.

Seth Godin's examples are of newer companies; Starbucks, Krispy Kreme, Jet Blue, Ben and Jerry's, Apple Computer, Google, and Yahoo. His pitch seems to come right out of new media.

He consistently combines design with marketing. If you look at the cover of the book, Purple Cow, it is bright purple with white splotches and a picture of a cow on the front of the book. The book itself is well laid out with black and white pictures and very simple charts. There is a list of very prominent companies in the back of the book which would appeal to most business people.

This book is entertaining, focused, well designed, full of snappy writing, and not boring.

Daily Thoughts 4/29/2010

"The Library Automobile Truck in Washington County, Maryland". 1916.
Intermediate commentator notes "the truck appears to be an electric and has solid tires."

Daily Thoughts 4/29/2010

I am looking at two books, What To Do When The Economy Sucks by Peter Sander and Bill McKibben Eaarth. This is about some changes which may be coming in how we live because of global warming. He is talking about how disasters like Katrina, rising oceans, and other things will effect us economically in our every day lives.

2010 Best Crime Novels from Booklist http://www.booklistonline.com/default.aspx?page=show_product&pid=4145591

I am reading Purple Cow by Seth Godin which is a book about marketing. Seth Godin is a very popular business writer. He is making the argument that to succeed in marketing a product these days you need to have a very unique product which will be taken up by early adopters and spread quickly. He is arguing that television does not work that well. I kind of agree with this, I rarely read television, and untargeted newspaper and magazine advertising are not read that much. It is surprisingly entertaining for a business book.

I also took some time to look through library recommendation lists for websites. Most of the ones I looked at have very few review sites for films, audiobooks, and games for libraries. They still are very book oriented. They even miss some of the genres completely like media tie ins or inspirational fiction.