Seth Godin
Encyclopedia
Seth Godin is an American
entrepreneur, author and public speaker. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing
.
, Seth Godin graduated from Tufts University
in 1979 with a degree in computer science
and philosophy
. Godin earned his MBA
from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software
. For a time Godin commuted every week between California and Boston both to do his new job and to complete his MBA.
After leaving Spinnaker Software in 1986, Godin used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in New York City. It was in the same offices that Godin met Mark Hurst and founded Yoyodyne
. After a few years Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, one of the first online marketing companies. It was with Yoyodyne that Godin came up with the concept of permission marketing
. For a period of time, Godin served as a columnist for Fast Company
Godin and his wife Helene now live in Hastings-on-Hudson
, New York
with their two sons.
, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises. Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as "Sneezers", and to the spreading idea as an "IdeaVirus
." He calls a remarkable product or service a purple cow
.
Advertisements on television and radio are classified as 'interruption marketing' which interrupt the customer while they are doing something of their preference. Godin introduced the concept of "permission marketing
" where the business provides something "anticipated, personal, and relevant".
which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. The site gained significant traction, with over one million viewers visiting the site, and companies like America Online, American Express
, H&R Block
, Microsoft
, Procter & Gamble
, Sony Music, Sprint
, and Volvo
using its services.
At Yoyodyne, Godin developed the principle of permission marketing
and authored Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers.
In 1998, Godin sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo!
for $30 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000.
, a community website allowing users to create pages (called "lenses") for subjects of interest. The site donates 5% of the profits to charity, and 50% to the lensmasters. Godin and Squidoo have been profiled on CNN
and the Washington Post. The site was given top prize in SXSW's community/wiki
category. As of July 2008, Squidoo was one of the 500 most visited sites in the world.
, Chris Anderson, and Guy Kawasaki
all had manifestos featured on ChangeThis. In July 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ, the leading distributor of business literature in the United States.
Business Book of the Year in 2004, in its first two years of release, Purple Cow
sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 printings. The Dip was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller. And Godin has called his free ebook Unleashing the Ideavirus
the most "popular ebook ever written". In the early 1990s he created a ten book series for children titled Worlds of Power
, which was written by various writers. In each the plot of a single video game was told in a novelized form.
Beginning with Permission Marketing, Godin uses the concepts discussed in the books to promote the book. For Permission Marketing, Godin gave 1/3 of the book away for free to anyone who sent an e-mail. For Unleashing the Ideavirus, Godin released the entire eBook on the Internet for free, which led to eventual publishing deals in 41 countries and a public speaking career. For Purple Cow, Godin created a milk carton container for the book which generated attention from work colleagues. For Tribes, Godin launched an exclusive online community
for the first 3000 people who pre-ordered the book. For Linchpin, Godin gave the book away for three weeks before its release for free to anyone willing to give $30 to the Acumen Fund
for the $20 book, and raised $100,000 for the Acumen Fund.
, is ranked in the AdAge
Power 150 as the #1 marketing blog out of 976 tracked.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
entrepreneur, author and public speaker. Godin popularized the topic of permission marketing
Permission marketing
Permission marketing is a term popularized by Seth Godin used in marketing in general and e-marketing specifically. The undesirable opposite of permission marketing is interruption marketing. Marketers obtain permission before advancing to the next step in the purchasing process. For example, they...
.
Background
Born in Mount Vernon, New YorkMount Vernon, New York
Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It lies on the border of the New York City borough of The Bronx.-Overview:...
, Seth Godin graduated from Tufts University
Tufts University
Tufts University is a private research university located in Medford/Somerville, near Boston, Massachusetts. It is organized into ten schools, including two undergraduate programs and eight graduate divisions, on four campuses in Massachusetts and on the eastern border of France...
in 1979 with a degree in computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
. Godin earned his MBA
Master of Business Administration
The Master of Business Administration is a :master's degree in business administration, which attracts people from a wide range of academic disciplines. The MBA designation originated in the United States, emerging from the late 19th century as the country industrialized and companies sought out...
from the Stanford Graduate School of Business
Stanford Graduate School of Business
The Stanford Graduate School of Business is one of the professional schools of Stanford University, in Stanford, California and is broadly regarded as one of the best business schools in the world.The Stanford GSB offers a general management Master of Business Administration degree, the Sloan...
. From 1983 to 1986, he worked as a brand manager at Spinnaker Software
Spinnaker Software
Spinnaker Software was a 1982 founded software company known primarily for its line of non-curriculum based educational software, which was a major seller during the 1980s. It was founded by chairman Bill Bowman and president C. David Seuss....
. For a time Godin commuted every week between California and Boston both to do his new job and to complete his MBA.
After leaving Spinnaker Software in 1986, Godin used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in New York City. It was in the same offices that Godin met Mark Hurst and founded Yoyodyne
Yoyodyne
__notoc__Yoyodyne is the name of several companies in fiction and real life.Yoyodyne is a fictional defense contractor introduced in Thomas Pynchon's V. and featured prominently in his novel The Crying of Lot 49 . Described in the latter book as "a giant of the aerospace industry", Yoyodyne was...
. After a few years Godin sold the book packaging business to his employees and focused his efforts on Yoyodyne, one of the first online marketing companies. It was with Yoyodyne that Godin came up with the concept of permission marketing
Permission marketing
Permission marketing is a term popularized by Seth Godin used in marketing in general and e-marketing specifically. The undesirable opposite of permission marketing is interruption marketing. Marketers obtain permission before advancing to the next step in the purchasing process. For example, they...
. For a period of time, Godin served as a columnist for Fast Company
Fast Company (magazine)
Fast Company is a full-color business magazine that releases 10 issues per year and reports on topics including innovation, digital media, technology, change management, leadership, design, and social responsibility...
Godin and his wife Helene now live in Hastings-on-Hudson
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York
Hastings-on-Hudson is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is located in the southwest part of the town of Greenburgh. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 7,849. It lies on U.S. Route 9, "Broadway" in Hastings...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
with their two sons.
Viewpoints
Godin believes that the end of the "TV-Industrial complex" means that marketers no longer have the power to command the attention of anyone they choose, whenever they choose. Second, in a marketplace in which consumers have more power, he thinks marketers must show more respect; this means no spamSpam (electronic)
Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately...
, no deceit and a bias for keeping promises. Finally, Godin asserts that the only way to spread the word about an idea is for that idea to earn the buzz by being remarkable. Godin refers to those who spread these ideas as "Sneezers", and to the spreading idea as an "IdeaVirus
Unleashing the Ideavirus
Unleashing the Ideavirus is claimed to be the most downloaded eBook of all time. The book was written by marketing author Seth Godin and released for free on the internet in 2000...
." He calls a remarkable product or service a purple cow
Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable is a book by Seth Godin. The book presents Godin's personal belief that creative advertising is less effective today because of clutter and advertising avoidance. The book advocates that companies produce remarkable products and target people...
.
Advertisements on television and radio are classified as 'interruption marketing' which interrupt the customer while they are doing something of their preference. Godin introduced the concept of "permission marketing
Permission marketing
Permission marketing is a term popularized by Seth Godin used in marketing in general and e-marketing specifically. The undesirable opposite of permission marketing is interruption marketing. Marketers obtain permission before advancing to the next step in the purchasing process. For example, they...
" where the business provides something "anticipated, personal, and relevant".
Yoyodyne
In 1995, Godin launched YoyodyneYoyodyne
__notoc__Yoyodyne is the name of several companies in fiction and real life.Yoyodyne is a fictional defense contractor introduced in Thomas Pynchon's V. and featured prominently in his novel The Crying of Lot 49 . Described in the latter book as "a giant of the aerospace industry", Yoyodyne was...
which used contests, online games, and scavenger hunts to market companies to participating users. In August, 1996, venture-capital firm Flatiron Partners invested $4 million in Yoyodyne in return for a 20% stake. The site gained significant traction, with over one million viewers visiting the site, and companies like America Online, American Express
American Express
American Express Company or AmEx, is an American multinational financial services corporation headquartered in Three World Financial Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, United States. Founded in 1850, it is one of the 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is best...
, H&R Block
H&R Block
H&R Block is a tax preparation company in the United States, claiming more than 22 million customers worldwide, with offices in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The Kansas City-based company also offers banking, personal finance and business consulting services.Founded in 1955 by brothers...
, Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble is a Fortune 500 American multinational corporation headquartered in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and manufactures a wide range of consumer goods....
, Sony Music, Sprint
Sprint Nextel
Sprint Nextel Corporation is an American telecommunications company based in Overland Park, Kansas. The company owns and operates Sprint, the third largest wireless telecommunications network in the United States, with 53.4 million customers, behind Verizon Wireless and AT&T Mobility...
, and Volvo
Volvo
AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...
using its services.
At Yoyodyne, Godin developed the principle of permission marketing
Permission marketing
Permission marketing is a term popularized by Seth Godin used in marketing in general and e-marketing specifically. The undesirable opposite of permission marketing is interruption marketing. Marketers obtain permission before advancing to the next step in the purchasing process. For example, they...
and authored Permission Marketing: Turning strangers into friends and friends into customers.
In 1998, Godin sold Yoyodyne to Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
for $30 million and became Yahoo's vice president of direct marketing, a position he held until 2000.
Squidoo
In March 2006, Godin launched SquidooSquidoo
Squidoo is a community website that allows users to create pages for subjects of interest. Squidoo had 1.5 million hand-built lenses .-History:Development on Squidoo started in 2005, launching a beta testing period in October of that year...
, a community website allowing users to create pages (called "lenses") for subjects of interest. The site donates 5% of the profits to charity, and 50% to the lensmasters. Godin and Squidoo have been profiled on CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
and the Washington Post. The site was given top prize in SXSW's community/wiki
Wiki
A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...
category. As of July 2008, Squidoo was one of the 500 most visited sites in the world.
ChangeThis
Godin developed the idea for ChangeThis, a website aimed at spreading ideas through PDF files. In the summer of 2004, Godin hired five interns—Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu and Michelle Sriwongtong—to build and develop the website. The website went live on August 14, 2004. Tom PetersTom Peters
Thomas J. "Tom" Peters is an American writer on business management practices, best-known for In Search of Excellence .-Life and career:Peters was born in Baltimore, Maryland...
, Chris Anderson, and Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, bestselling author, and Apple Fellow. He was one of the Apple employees originally responsible for marketing the Macintosh in 1984. He is currently a Managing Director of Garage Technology Ventures, and has been involved in the rumor reporting...
all had manifestos featured on ChangeThis. In July 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ, the leading distributor of business literature in the United States.
Six month alternative MBA program
In December 2008, Godin announced in a blog post that he would be offering a six month alternative MBA program at his office in Hastings on Hudson, NY. 48,000 people looked at the post and 340 applied. He invited 27 applicants to his office for a group interview. They spent two hours interviewing one another. After co-mingling, they and Godin together wrote down the names of their favorite candidates. Three weeks later the chosen 9 showed up at Godin's office. This group graduated in July 2009.The Domino Project
In December 2010, Godin announced on his blog that he would be working directly with Amazon on a venture called The Domino Project.Books
Godin is the author of 11 books; his Free Prize Inside was a ForbesForbes
Forbes is an American publishing and media company. Its flagship publication, the Forbes magazine, is published biweekly. Its primary competitors in the national business magazine category are Fortune, which is also published biweekly, and Business Week...
Business Book of the Year in 2004, in its first two years of release, Purple Cow
Purple cow
The purple cow initially became famous as a chimerical referent in a short humorous verse, but has since come to refer to a diverse range of other things, including sports teams, food, wine, and tobacco products, as well as marketing practices in general...
sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 printings. The Dip was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller. And Godin has called his free ebook Unleashing the Ideavirus
Unleashing the Ideavirus
Unleashing the Ideavirus is claimed to be the most downloaded eBook of all time. The book was written by marketing author Seth Godin and released for free on the internet in 2000...
the most "popular ebook ever written". In the early 1990s he created a ten book series for children titled Worlds of Power
Worlds of Power
The Worlds of Power books are a series of novelizations of video games for the Nintendo Entertainment System released in the early 1990s. The series was created by Seth Godin and is characterized by the fact that they are mostly "male-oriented titles," that take creative liberties with their source...
, which was written by various writers. In each the plot of a single video game was told in a novelized form.
Beginning with Permission Marketing, Godin uses the concepts discussed in the books to promote the book. For Permission Marketing, Godin gave 1/3 of the book away for free to anyone who sent an e-mail. For Unleashing the Ideavirus, Godin released the entire eBook on the Internet for free, which led to eventual publishing deals in 41 countries and a public speaking career. For Purple Cow, Godin created a milk carton container for the book which generated attention from work colleagues. For Tribes, Godin launched an exclusive online community
Online community
An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. An online community can take the form of an information system where anyone can post content, such as a Bulletin board system or one where only a restricted...
for the first 3000 people who pre-ordered the book. For Linchpin, Godin gave the book away for three weeks before its release for free to anyone willing to give $30 to the Acumen Fund
Acumen Fund
Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Its aim is to help build financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver affordable critical goods and services that improve the lives of the poor...
for the $20 book, and raised $100,000 for the Acumen Fund.
Blog
Godin's blogBlog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
, is ranked in the AdAge
Advertising Age
Advertising Age is a magazine, delivering news, analysis and data on marketing and media. The magazine was started as a broadsheet newspaper in Chicago in 1930...
Power 150 as the #1 marketing blog out of 976 tracked.
External links
- Official site
- Great New Interview with Seth Godin
- Seth Godin on TED
- An interview with Seth Godin on The Marketplace of Ideas