Free Prize Inside

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Seth is the best - Rated
I love Seth Godin. He's a maverick marketer who is always right on the cutting edge of business, forging ahead, doing what other people only think about, and what's more, writing about it in an appealing, accessible and interesting way. His works are short, pithy and packed full of ideas. They're probably not for the faint hearted, but if you're interested in innovation and things that work then Seth is the man for you. This book focuses on teaching what Godin calls; Free Prize Thinking. This is the idea that it is not hte big technological advances that help make the most profit, it is the small value adds that give the customer something they won't get from anyone else. Brilliant.

Highly Recommended! - Rated
If your organization needs to jump-start its creative processes, this accessible book may be helpful. It's broad enough to apply to all industries and has enough examples to provoke some serious thinking. Yet, Seth Godin, also the author of other zippy marketing books, sometimes gets carried away with his own evangelism and coinages (e.g., "edgecraft" for finding innovative product additions at the fringes of your current offerings). Still, Godin's thesis that small improvements and "soft" innovations can reap big benefits rings true, as his many examples make clear. His discussion about why ideas need champions, and how to be one, is also powerful. So if you want your marketing or product development staffers to juice up their creativity, we say this light little book might inspire them to think differently.

Some interesting ideas which reflect our sad times - Rated
I have an interest in innovation and this little book (183 pages) sounded interesting. I wasn't disappointed. Seth Godin always has something interesting to say.

The "free prize" in the title refers to simple ideas which can differentiate a product from the competition. Note the "simple" - he advises against trying to come up with big ideas which are expensive and usually fail. He continues his attacks on traditional marketing and makes a persuasive argument against it. Instead of spending lots of money on mass marketing, he advocates that you concentrate on creating "remarkable" products. Not remarkable in the sense of being brilliant - simply worth talking about. He prefers "soft" innovation (simple, inexpensive) to "hard" innovation (driven by R&D) and argues that anyone can create soft innovations.

The sad bit is that most of the examples he provides are silly. Not silly in the sense that they won't work - they probably would - but silly in the sense that they don't actually add anything useful to the product/service - they simply make it stand-out from the crowd - which is probably what sells. Sad but true.

A good read and one I learnt from.