Customer Reviews

We Are All Weird

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've been a follower of Seth Godin for a while now--I read his blog daily, and have read a majority of his books. I think that was actually a bad thing relating to my enjoyment of "We're all Weird". Too many of the ideas were pointlessly longer recapitulations of Godin's previous messages, from both his blog and his books, and the general message about the fall of mass and the rise of individuality (weirdness) seemed trite. Less ardent fans of Godin might find the book refreshingly insightful, but those familiar with his writing likely won't find anything new.

Seth Godin's latest is a little book with big ideas about how to live your life. For marketers and business owners, it is also a wakeup call for how to reach buyers of your products and services.

Seth argues that the one-size-fits-all mass market is dead. But you know that already because you probably don't listen to top 40 radio or watch the evening news. This idea of the end of "normal" is essential to work because if you're selling ads at a top 40 station, work probably isn't much fun these days. Embrace the weird and it can be!

I love this quote from the book: "The epic battle of our generation is between the status quo of mass and the never-ceasing tide of weird."

Weirdness takes many forms. When everyone else is carrying nylon computer bags and sporty backpacks, weird people insist on an "old-fashioned" leather briefcase (guilty). Many people think it is weird to go to over 50 Grateful Dead concerts and own recordings of hundreds of their concerts (also guilty).

Is it weird to spend six hours on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in a dingy rec room playing Dungeons and Dragons? To collect chewing gum wrappers and own over 2,000, with examples from over 50 countries? To read instead of watching television? To ride a bike instead of driving?

The weird is us. And the weird is you. (What would they think if they knew?!).

In other words, weirdness is a huge market. I'd argue that unless you sell a commodity product - like paperclips - that you need to embrace the weird buyer in your marketing efforts. Heck, there are animal shaped paperclips and colored paperclips and huge paperclips so even commodities can be marketed to the weird.

Mass = Normal. Weird = Rich.

You can read "We Are All Weird" in an hour. Or savor the book in small bites over a day (as I did). It is an important book with a very simple idea. Yet so far, only true weirdos really understand the implication of these ideas for life and work.

Now is the time to embrace your weird.

I like most of Seth Godin's ideas, including this one, but to what end is the purpose of this 100 page book that, I believe, would have been suited for a short article or blog post.?

We are all weird, is self-evident in a day when we can choose between a couple of hundred pasta sauces in the supermarket. If you want to buy and learn how to play the ukulele, you will be sure to find like minded people online. The market is no longer of limited choice dictated by others.

Today, you can do, buy, sell, and associate with anyone you want, as long as it is legal, and it's as easy as ever to find it. That pretty much sums it up.

Seth Godin is still an amazing person to listen to and take advice from. I think Seth Godin's book, " Poke the Box" deserves 5 stars.

This is Seth Godin's most powerful work. If you've read his other books you've had the opportunity to follow the impact of technology first on marketing, and then extended to everyone's daily lives. This book delves into the death of the mass market and makes the impact of the web visible not only for business, but for education, religion and politics.

It's a short easy read but it will bang around in your head for weeks. This is the best book I've read this year.

I was disappointed in this work from Seth having read a reasonable amount of his other work and also generally keep up to date with general economic trends.

I didn't really find Seth said anything new. I think the majority of informed people would appreciate the industrial revolution has all been about "mass" production and that the new world is all increasingly about the "outer-lying" ring, which Seth has dubbed the "weird". Funny though that the most valuable company in the world now, Apple, has moved from being the "niche" player to being the "mass" producer enabling easy access to the mass produced and also the "weird". Similarly, Google and Facebook thrive on the "mass" whilst enabling access to the "weird".

I like Seth's definition of the "rich" - "rich means making a choice, choosing an identity and following a path that matters." Yes, agree wholeheartedly.

One of Seth's strengths is the application of his ideas across different industries and, being a parent, was excited when he applied the need to adopt education practices that allowed for multiple layers of "weird". Yes, yes, agree. However, he ended at that. I think many a parent has identified this issue and proposed (or hoped) in their own mind that the education system could be adjusted to allow for their "weird" child. That's easy. The terribly hard bit is being able to propose a solution for the how. Seth doesn't venture anything in this debate.

Look, if you haven't read much of Seth's work, then you'll probably find it useful. It's short and easy to read.

Not one of Seth's best.

This book shows us why being stuck on average is so bad for us, finding and celebrating weird is so darn good for us.

Favorite quotes from Seth Godin's new book, We Are All Weird:

As soon as we remove physical proximity as a gating factor, the only barrier to weirdness is choice.

You can be a TV critic if you want, but the marketer in you needs to acknowledge that fifteen times as many people watched Jed Clampett as watch Don Draper.

On close inspection, just about everybody is weird.

But factories don't like weirdness. The challenge, then, is to figure out which side you're on.

The weird set an example for the rest of us.

Weird is not immoral.

Is there any doubt at all that we're going to get weirder?

(I know, now you really need to read it, no?)

I was so delighted to read this book. I live in Austin, where the motto is "Keep Austin Weird" -- and so I resonate quite powerfully with Seth's message here. It's a celebration of human diversity and a long-overdue rejection of the idea that "normal" or "mainstream" is any kind of ideal. Like a previous reviewer, I had previously integrated the sex-positive message that no one is normal -- and I'm thrilled to see that being spread to more corners of the world via business and marketing. Who cares about normal? Nobody's really as normal as they think (or try to be).

We have the tools now to connect with our dozens of tiny tribes, every one of them strange and new and interesting. It's time to quit hollering at the masses and start pow-wowing with the weird.

This was thankfully a short read because there just wasn't much for Seth to talk about. I'm a huge fan of some of his previous works, and I consider 'The Dip' to be one of my favorite business reads, but compare both short books and you'll see what a giant gap it is. If you're interested in this topic, I'd recommend you read the Long Tail by Chris Anderson instead which has a much more insightful and indepth coverage of this subject matter.

Seth Godin became famous as a marketing guru, but I think his real value lies elsewhere. Lots of people say the same stuff he does about marketing. His real talent, IMO, is his ability to distill trends and marketing know-how into inspiring manifestos.

About three years ago, Godin's Linchpin completely changed how I thought about my career and the business I'm in. We Are All Weird takes the core ideas from Linchpin and applies them in a marketing context. However, this is more than a marketing book. It is very purposefully meant to change how the reader looks at the world.

The Good:

-Weird>Normal

Seth Godin's premise is simple. When people have an opportunity to make choices, they tend to want to express themselves. At no other point in history have we had so much opportunity to do both. We have nearly unlimited choices on who we want to be and what we buy. No matter how we may want to express ourselves, there are others like us to whom we can instantly connect. As a result, we are increasingly unsatisfied with one-size-fits-all goods, services, and lifestyles. Companies and organizations that thrive on normal are finding it very difficult to eek out the steady results they used to.

Godin discusses how "normal" mass markets were a creation of mass production and mass communication. Brands profited from defining the normal and making sure everyone wanted that. Governments and religions enforced normal to ensure a well-educated and independent populace was controllable. It came down to efficiency and productivity.

But then, something started to happen. We got so good at normal it allowed us to be weird. Increases in efficiency and productivity lifted everyone's standard of living. We had more time and more money for discretionary purchases. Advances in the technologies of production made it cheaper for companies to offer more choices. Computer technology and the Internet let us reach out to a larger world. We could express our individuality, find other people who were into that, and gather ideas and products from anywhere.

Seth Godin presents several arguments which come together to make a convincing case that weird will prevail. In our desire to express ourselves, we will continue to pursue the weird. Some people will only get a little bit weird. Others will really color outside the lines, and push the envelope within their affinity group.

-The forces of normal fear the weird.

Seth Godin is a pretty provocative guy. He is not afraid to point out the forces allied against our freedom to express ourselves. The forces of normal fear the weird because it disrupts mass control. Weird throws a monkey wrench into their ultra-efficient factories and control mechanisms.

In most cases, market forces have allowed the weird to get more of what they want. In nearly every product and service, there are far more choices available now than in the past. We vote with our wallets, and if companies want our money they have to somehow fulfill our desire for change.

In a few cases, especially those connected with government, we have little power of choice. Americans have become much more diverse and individuated in our political beliefs over the years. In fact, most elections are decided by independent voters. Yet, we are stuck with two political parties, both of which are dominated by centrist power brokers.

So whenever we vote, we're stuck voting between the two candidates deemed acceptable by the privileged folks in the parties. And that candidate, if elected, has huge incentive to avoid rocking the boat. We vote for change, and get very little of it, because the status quo is too beneficial to the privileged.

If you'll allow me to step on the soapbox for a bit, this is why embracing free-market capitalism promotes our right to choose better than pushing centralized bureaucratic control. In a free market, companies and organizations have to serve us if they want to make money. When government bureaucracies rule, they can do whatever they want because they have the authority to take our money with guns.

-Smart companies will embrace the weird.

Seth Godin makes a persuasive case for why brands need to let go of the nostalgia for mass markets. All of the economic forces that made mass markets the most efficient way to make a buck are now helping the weird get weirder. So brands can pursue a shrinking "normal" or get their fingers in a lot of "weird" pies.

Embracing weirdness and niche markets will also help companies resist cost pressures. If a brand delights a dedicated audience, they will be willing to pay for the product or the experience. If a brand is an average commodity, people will just look for the cheapest price from all competitors.

The Not-So-Good:

-The Politically Correct Revolutionary

Seth Godin does an excellent job of pointing out the problems with the status quo, but he seems to have a real aversion to naming names. This is true for a lot of his critiques that involve government and politics. For example, he is highly critical of education in the U.S. He makes all the points of how our educational systems are holding kids back. However, he completely fails to point out the culprits - teacher's unions and sympathetic politicians. There is now a Bipartisan consensus that education needs to be modernized. The ONLY thing standing in the way is the power of the teachers unions. This is demonstrated throughout the country. I think it's really unfortunate that Godin won't say this, as his influence could really help people who want to reform our schools.

-Does not sufficiently warn against "fake weird"

Seth Godin does have a small section of the book where he talks about the pitfalls of faking weird. This is the phenomenon of brands giving some halfhearted lip service to niche marketing without actually changing anything. I would have liked to see more emphasis on this issue in the book. Because I can see a lot of brand managers reading Seth Godin, adding a couple of "edgy" signifiers to their existing offerings, and then patting themselves on the back. That's not enough to genuinely serve the weird. They'll see right through that stuff. I truly believe that even the weirdest subcultures are open to marketing, but brands need to be humble enough to learn from their customers.

Conclusion:

This book is available on Kindle for $3. It took me about two hours to read. I'll be using many of the principles from this book for years. What's not to like?

We are weird. This is a great book about how technology is bringing the world closer and how we will be able to connect with others who share our passions and interests. The most interesting concept was the flattening of the bell shaped curve. It makes a lot of sense and needs to be taken into account when starting or evolving a business.