Seth Godin at Digital Summit Detroit 2016

Time for a new habit

Generally, when I attend conferences, I learn nothing new. Part of this is me being a seasoned professional nearing 25 years in digital, part is the enormous number of books I read, and part is due to me being a conference speaker as well. I’ve been fortunate enough to see so many other speakers that I usually know what they will talk about.

My dear friend Sola Obayan got me VIP tickets to the Digital Summit Detroit this week. I went, expecting to learn nothing but at least getting to see old friends and catch up. Boy was I wrong. Seth Godin, the keynote blew me away. Several points he mentioned were old hat, but he managed to put them in a way that I hadn’t considered and other points were entirely new.

One point he made, I have heard Chris Brogan hammer home for years. That of persistence and not waiting for the perfect moment or perfect thought to appear. To paraphrase Seth, he said that the esteemed science fiction author, Isaac Asimov penned over 400 books. Such a feat seems impossible to most and indeed is.

When asked how he accomplished this, he said that he types 20 pages out every morning and stops by noon for lunch. Then he spends the afternoon looking over what he’s typed, saving what is usable and throwing out what isn’t. The point is, he does this every day. No matter what. He doesn’t wait for the right inspiration or the perfect plot. He just does what he was paid to do: author novels and books.

Seth then said, “All of us. We are in the marketing business. It is our job to come up with ideas. Not wait for the perfect idea, but to continually generate new ideas. This is what we are getting paid for.”

I do have one good habit along this line. Every idea, no matter how big, small or weird, goes into Evernote. Period.

Coming up with ideas has never been an issue for me. I have a habit for culling those ideas and doing something with them.


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