Marketing geekiness

Seth Godin's blog entry today is particularly good. It hits a chord in my geeky marketing soul.

Pundits are (nearly) always wrong
Here's why: Because we measure the wrong thing... We measure whether or not it agrees with our worldview and our sense of the way the world is.

The problem is that hits change worldviews. Hits change our senses. Hits appeal to people other than the gatekeepers and then the word spreads...

No one 'pre-predicted' the astonishing success of Flickr or Google or Twitter or Bill Clinton's first run for President. Sure, it was easy to connect the dots after the fact, but that doesn't count.

Of course, there are plenty of failures to go around (I know that I've got more than plenty). Just because everyone hates it doesn't mean it's good. Execution is everything. Execution and persistence and the ability to respond to the market far outweigh a pundit's gut instinct. But, the thing to remember is this: if everyone loves it, it is almost certain to have troubles.

In fact, my rule of thumb is this: if the right people like it, I'm not trying hard enough.

On a related note -- I was in a meeting last week with a couple of marketing/business case consultants. I mentioned the book Differentiate or Die, by Jack Trout, 'the world's foremost marketing strategist.' They hadn't heard of Trout. My perception of their work went immediately in the toilet.