Seth Godin is a big fat idiot
Seth Godin
Ok, I don’t really believe that, but I think sometimes Mr. Godin spends way too much time thinking up stuff instead of doing stuff. And, I’m also reasonably sure that Mr. Godin will not ever see this blog post and if he does, he really won’t care what someone thinks of him. I’m too old to be Gen Y, so my feelings will not be hurt if he doesn’t give me feedback on my opinion of his ideas. Really.
As you were.
Seth Godin wrote this blog post about how now is a good time for all these idle real estate brokers to start a newspaper. In his head, the process is easy; take the number of folks in your office, have them call X people a week, interview them and compile this newspaper of their stories and interesting stuff. As someone who has done this as a hyper-local project with a newspaper and been given the freedom to write anything without seeking permission or editorial review, here are the problems Seth just ain’t seeing.
People do not see themselves as interesting
Its true. Very few of us have a CV that they can tell as a refined story. Most of the time, people will not know what you are asking and will view your questions as intrusive. They will also be filtering themselves, based on what they think you want from them and how you will use that information. If you want a good interview from the average Joe, you’d better be one heck of a good story-teller yourself and put them at ease quickly or come up with a 10-question bulletin.
People will dodge you
Again, people do not see themselves as interesting, so their first inclination is to dodge you. What do you want? Why do you want to know? Or, I don’t have time for that. When you interview businesses in the area, you better not plan on getting anything from any of the employees or managers without it going through legal first.
Original content will dry up
Really, it’s true. The good stories will dry up after a few issues, as will the photos that you will need to illustrate the columns of words. And speaking of photos, don’t rely on your interviewees to send them in. If they do, they will be out of focus, pictures of their cats, posed photos and almost nothing illustrating the interview. You had better budget now to get in your car, go to their homes, takes your own photos and process them yourself.
Things will get busy
Business will pick up and all of a sudden the newspaper — not being a product of your core business — will become a thing that causes everyone stress. I know, it should be seen as a marketing tool, but because of all the things you will have to do to ferret out content, schedule interviews, take photos, etc., it will be dropped when business picks up.
People really don’t want to join in the hunt, they want to be fed. They want you to find the interesting news and bring it to them. Only a few will want to help create the content. The myth of “citizen journalism” is just that; a myth. For the few folks who live 24/7 online, they believe that most people create content and if given a chance, will tell their story. They don’t. That is why shows like CNN’s “It’s News to Me.” is a pathetic re-run of YouTube videos everyone has already seen. (Trust me, it will get cancelled soon.)
And just in case you are wondering why I can speak authoritativly on this matter, unlike Seth Godin, I have actually done what he proposes with the soccer community and the Dayton Daily News. You can see some of the stories here. From Aug 2006 through May 2008, we wrote stories of participants attending TourneyCentral soccer tournaments. This community is over 4 million strong, with just a little over 500,000 participants to our events. Emails would go out to coaches and parents of the upcoming events, asking for stories and photos.
On average, we would get one, maybe two interested people per event. Over half of the stories were requests for funds for someone on the team/club/community dying of cancer*. The others were a team photo with almost no copy. In order to get the stories, we had to hire a reporter to go out, talk with teams a full day on Saturday and take our own photos.
And, when we stopped running the stories, nobody noticed, complained or even bothered to ask. We lost a stream of news and the DDN lost about 600,000 ad impressions for their advertisers. Apparently the ad impressions weren’t valuable enough for the DDN to jump in and help out with the reporting.
So, Mr. Godin, I appreciate you are able to sling out ideas like this, but my post takes one of your ideas and puts it in the real world out here. If you want to prove me wrong, I have a job for you. It pays nothing except for the satisfaction of saying, “You were wrong and I was right!” if you can make it work.
* I don’t have anything against supporting people dying of cancer, but run 2-3 stories like this and suddenly your soccer articles that are supposed to highlight the people in the sport gets really depressing.
** I know that Seth Godin will appreciate my Al Franken reference.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 11th, 2009 at 10:51 pm
[...] 12, 2009 Originally published at: GerardMcLean.com Seth [...]
January 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
[...] about this Seth Godin post about dentists which, it seems to me, applies fully to the traditional Seth Godin is a big fat idiot – gerardmclean.com 01/11/2009 Seth Godin is a big fat idiot January 11th, 2009 Gerard Posted in [...]
January 12th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Not enough time actually doing stuff? Sheesh.
I think you need to do a bit more research before you cast aspersions like that one.
But the bigger point is this: most people (in New York, in India, everywhere I’ve been) think they are astonishingly interesting. Example: Ask anyone, “how’d you meet your wife?” or “How did you end up doing this for a living,” and they’ll inevitably say, “well, it’s a funny story…” and then tell you an unfunny story for five minutes.
People love to talk and they love to be listened to. Exhibit A: blogs. Even blogs that get their facts wrong.
January 12th, 2009 at 5:14 pm
@Seth Touche. Perhaps saying “not actually doing stuff” was a bit hyperbolic, but my experience on this one idea in particular tells me that I am more right than you. I agree people will tell you interesting things, but conversation is simply not the same as interviewing for a newspaper article. Ethically, I think you should tell them you are interviewing and not just chatting.
People DO love to talk and love to be listened to. But, when you interview them or put a mic in their face, they clam up and, while they may think they are interesting, they are not interesting enough to be interviewed. Your experience may be different, but then you are Seth Godin, not Jane Broker who got this assignment thrust on her. (And yes, I’ve been to New York and India too, and a few other places in between. Just because I’m stuck in Dayton, Ohio right now doesn’t mean a whole lot.
)
What you cite as my “facts” is in fact, my OPINION that you spend a bit more time thinking stuff up than you spend time doing them. Note the comparative, not an assertion you don’t spend time doing stuff. All the words are put together in a particular order to have a specific meaning, so you may have to slow down to catch the nuance. It might save you some angst.
My “facts” is my experience doing what you suggested a particular industry does. I think it is irresponsible to say things in a “drive-by” manner like “It will cost you nothing” when it clearly will. My case study of an attempt to do what you propose shows that it will cost money, time and energy that will eventually sap from your core product. People need to know this or they will attempt it and when it does cost money, think they are doing it incorrectly. “Seth Godin can’t POSSIBLY be wrong!” Sometimes, he is wrong.
I think people do like to talk, but I also think more that most people really don’t want to join in the hunt, they want to be fed.
However, if YOU would like to start a newspaper at any point your industry is at a lull, I volunteer to be your first interview. And I will be interesting. And, I hope you prove me wrong, but I’m not holding my breath.
Of course, I will admit to being wrong about you never seeing this post. Oops!
And, I do care a little more than I thought I would about feedback.
January 14th, 2009 at 12:38 am
[...] couple days ago, I wrote that Seth Godin is a big fat idiot. I still stand by my opinions for the topic that he flung out there with reckless abandon and a [...]
February 17th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Dearest,How are you i am miss rose i will like to know you please never mind to contact me with my mail id (rosejones01@ymail.com) it will enable me to tell you about myself and also send my pic to you i will be waiting to hear from you have a nice day.
Rose.
This comment was originally posted on http://rufus.posterous.com/)“>rufus’s posterous