An eternity ago I preordered Seth Godin’s Linchpin and at the same time donated to the Acumen Fund. I received my advance copy of Linchpin as did several of you. Well, I patted myself on the back, am enjoying the book and put that event behind me.

I shouldn’t have.

Surprise, I received a surprise extra copy of Linchpin with a letter from Seth. It reads:

Generosity is a key piece of being an artist. It gives each of us a chance to connect, to make a difference, and to do indispensable work.

You were generous enough to make a donation to Acumen Fund, an organization that focuses on trade, not aid, building communities that work because each member contributes more than they get.

A few weeks ago I sent you a preview copy of Linchpin, as promised. Now, in recognition of your generosity, I’m giving you another. I hope you’ll share this one with someone you care about.

Thanks for the art you bring to your work every day.

Seth

Seth, you’re still a hero. You create; you think; you share.

Seth says share so I’m sharing.

The question for me wasn’t whether to share or not, but how to share it.  So I asked my Twitter buds.

They gave me the answer, MuseCrossing aka Christine Lacombe. Christine is one of my earliest connections on Twitter. Cheering me on, keeping an eye and ear out for me, sharing her joys, including me on her struggles, Christine is a friend.

Borders don’t exist online except in our minds. People like her, Glenda Watson, Liz Strauss, and more, they don’t see us versus them. They pour their energy out to those around them without regard to profit or cost.

Thank you Christine. You are a Linchpin!

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Christine is MuseCrossing on Twitter. She has a personal blog. Be warned; you will feel something when you visit.

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You can buy Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?.

By my definition, most art has nothing to do with oil paint or marble. Art is what we we’re doing when we do our best work.

by Seth Godin. Excerpted from his post Making Art.

Your company claims they can’t innovate. It’s because a) this isn’t that type of business, b) there’s no money, c) time is better spent on marketing via ads etc. That might even be the words coming out of your mouth as you read this.

Seth Godin shares an example to challenge that. Imagine being in airport and hearing music. Normally you’d be listening to canned music of some sort. But imagine now that you’re listening to the music and turn around to see a live band. Yes.Live.Real People.Real Instruments. Seth had that experience.

It leads him to question how your company and mine ‘can’t’ innovate when even an airport can. Did it cost them some money? Yes. Did it return some value? Absolutely. Chance are that Seth wasn’t the only one to notice.

In an age when even busy businesses are struggling, innovation is no longer an option. Even staples can’t count on their customer base for keeping sales up. It’s about the truth of real needs versus a bit of emotion attached to those basic needs. People buy what wins their hearts as much as what’s practical.

Who is your customer? Why do they buy from you? What would increase their interest? How could you spend a thousand dollars to win some hearts? A hundred? How about an intern for a week?

Seth challenges the traditional notice of birthday gifts. Likely when it’s your birthday, you’re expecting cards, gifts, and maybe being taken to dinner. These are all about making you feel good and the person that provides those things for you good as well.

Why not give a donation or do an act of service on your birthday. Seth puts out that your friends and family could buy gifts for themselves or someone else if you’re into shoes. I’m supposing the same would go for books, my favorite right now.

Pointing out examples like the 4th of July, and Martin Luther King Jr day, where folks are supposed to celebrate in certain ways, Seth shows us traditional alternates to gift giving and receiving.

Social networking is all about giving. Causes on Facebook has made giving something besides traditional gifts easy. Causes allows you to recommend your friends and family to donate to your favorite cause in lieu of presents for you.

Visiting the causes page, you’ll find a link to donate your birthday to a cause.

What would you donate your birthday to? I’m following lots of causes and they’re all great. It’ll be hard to chose but I’ll definitely be doing that. Several of my contacts have already selected their favorite causes.

Chip-in is another good tool for something different on your birthday. Charities are starting to get on board with easy donation tools such as Chip-in, but even if they don’t, you can set up your own and donate the proceeds to your favorite cause. Chip-in is flexible for payment options, is easy to install on your blog or website, and easy to share a link for.

Ask folks to donate? Ask them to feed the homeless? Whatever it is, maybe Seth is on the right track. Why be selfish either in receiving or giving.

Question is what will I choose on my upcoming birthday, July 16.

Seth Godin introduces the concept of the third guy with the video above.

To quote from his blog:

My favorite part happens just before the first minute mark. That’s when guy #3 joins the group. Before him, it was just a crazy dancing guy and then maybe one other crazy guy. But it’s guy #3 who made it a movement.

Initiators are rare indeed, but it’s scary to be the leader. Guy #3 is rare too, but it’s a lot less scary and just as important. Guy #49 is irrelevant. No bravery points for being part of the mob.

We need more guy #3s.

I’m in total agreement about the folks beyond guy #3; they were just along for the ride. So the question is how to be guy #3.

I’m not sure I have a tried and true answer to that question, but I do have some tell tail behaviors.

The third guy is…

• the guy that after the two wiz kids in the class get their answers out, raises his hand and asks the dumb question.
• the guy that after the two tennis pros take up a game at the local court, grabs his Walmart racket and some random stranger and starts up game on the next court over.
• the guy that after the first two order fancy scotch and no on else can decide, jumps in and orders a light beer.

If I had to say there is one common characteristic, it’s that the third guy is not afraid to take part but also not afraid to not be the best/perfect/leader and just have fun with it.

Those types serve the purpose of bridging the gap between the early adopters or pack leaders and the rest of the crowd. It’s their initiative that really breaks the ice on an event or a new tool or technique. They aren’t afraid to be imperfect and laugh at themselves.

How can we take that and walk away with something useful? We can be that third guy (or gal) every day with the huge amount of web 2.0 tools coming out.

One guy that gets this is Robert Scoble. He took up blogging without worrying about getting it right; he just blogged what came out. When video tools go started, he didn’t wait for the book or the guide lines from the inventors or early adopters, he dove in and started recording low quality, fun and spontaneous videos.

His behaviors enabled us less than cutting edge folks to look at those tools with a wink and a nod instead of fear and frustration. We no longer cared so much if our blog posts didn’t follow the rules of grammar, talk about starlets, or ran way to short for a ‘real article’. It made me realize that recording 12 second snippets can not only be fun but rewarding, and that wearing a strange hat can be just as valuable as HD video.

So keep in mind, you aren’t always going to be the cutting edge person, the one who uses a tool first, but you can be the one that jumps in and makes it less scary, lowering the barrier for the rest of us.

Notes:
Read Seth Godin’s full post, #3.
Robert Scoble’s latest project

Seth says in The Dip that what he’s sharing isn’t anything but the simple and obvious truth. There’s no pretense to a miracle answer, insider secrets, or get success tips. Seth just tells us how come it matters when you are in the dip and when to know you’re not.

Lots of reviewers are critical of this book for the very reason that it’s simple and general in nature. I believe some of them are missing the point.

It’s not about hard work paying off. it’s about giving up bad tactics, bad strategies and bad beliefs. Quitting them in essence. Giving up the things that don’t work and won’t work for you. Give up old and ingrained habits. Give up being part of 25 hobbies or scattering yourself over dozens of attempts at things.

For me this book really describes the last year of my life at work. I’ve been in the dip again and didn’t even realize it had a name. For me it was about not just putting in my time, which is never that simple to get ahead, but deciding to ‘lean into the dip’. While others were choosing to resign themselves to misery and drudgery, I chose to do some of my best work ever as a programmer and analyst. Now while others have come through, still miserable and nothing changed for them, I’m taking over planning their work and managing contractors. Oh well for them.

I’m endorsing this book because I’ve lived it several times in my life already. It’s really simple. Like Yodda, ‘do or do not’. Buy The Dip.

Use Mail.app or Outlook to get your Gmail? Well you’ve probably experienced the message saying Gmail didn’t recognize the password. Seth Godin has a quick tip for us on his blog.

It turns out that there’s a hidden link Google provides that lets you do a Captcha test to prove that you’re a human. It doesn’t change your password, it just resets the flag that Google was using to block remote access.

He swears it works for him. I’ve never tried it but will next time.
Thanks Seth.
Todd

Another great Seth Godin blog post.

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