rePost:Fashionably Skeptical:Seth's Blog: Poisoning the well

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I couldn’t agree more.  People are just so fucking annoyed with two bit, multi faced interactions that it is personally dragging to interact with people. I remember this scene from “The Office” probably season4. Where Kelly kapoor and Darryl from the warehouse fights and kelly says. “I don’t understand him who says exactly what he means!” can’t help but feel this when talking to people I interact with hesistantly. What I mean is I tend to hang with simple people , people like darryl.  Call shit on me when I am shitting them, tear me a new one when I am getting too arrogant and all in all telling me when; Incidentally If i had only listened to them a couple of weeks ago, I probably would not be depressed and extremely fragile right now. I am like a tinderbox ready to explode any second.  Well to sum up, try to minimize the fog, speak simply and clearly, tell it to me straight and we will get along fine! In some ways I don’t like erecting walls that separate , but this is very important to me. Enough of the lies, enough of the deception tell it straight!

Which means that even if you have a really good reason, no, you can’t call me on the phone. Which means that even if it’s really important, no, I’m not going to read the instructions. Which means that god forbid you try to email me something I didn’t ask for… you’re trashed. It’s so fashionable to be skeptical now that no one believes you if you attempt to do something for the right reasons.
Selfish short-sighted marketers ruined it for all of us. The only way out, I think, is for a few marketers to so overwhelm the market with long-term, generous marketing that we have no choice but to start paying attention again.
via Seth’s Blog: Poisoning the well.

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Learned Today:What I Want For A Business:Seth's Blog: Where have all the agents gone?

A long conversation about two weeks ago with Chuck and Vince was about finding something to do to earn money in our free time.  Suffice to say one of my lamer ideas that night was to sell something in sites like multiply and ebay. Just realize that that is not what I want for a business, in fact I realize that even if we did something like that I would not really be satisfied with it.
See, I think I try to find my own way on most things. The paths I take may have been walked by other people but I try to be aware whenever I walk a certain path, its not about originality but about walking the path that is for you.
What irked me about my idea is that I was unwittingly selling out. I wanted to create, I wanted to walk a path for me and I’ve had this long irritation with middle men.
Why? It seems that most middle men/women I encounter can be said to bring little to no value the connection.  Let’s take the lot of  computer sellers in a mall floor. To protect myself from litigation lets call this mall SharonMall and the mall floor/part as CyberFloor. Using my totally unscientific and totally biased observations and my talent for overhearing a lot of things.
I observed that:

  • The sellers were basically just a little knowledgeable with their products than the people they are selling to.
  • The sellers who were really knowledgeable were somewhat aloof, they gave of this vibe that you were stupid trust them.
  • The best sellers were basically honest and didn’t talk down to their possible customers. (If you’ve watched 40 year old virgin, I believe).
  • A lot of people valued time and in a way this is logical, but it also meant that a lot of sellers survive on being available for the sale when the more efficient sellers are swamped.

Basically people who are not the best sellers tend to be snakes oil salespeople. I don’t want to be a snake’s oil sales men. I would like something that brings value to this world in a real sense not a rearranging the chairs. I want to create more chairs! I almost forgot that. I am glad even if I forgot about it , my friends have a higher standard than what I have. Cheers!

Middlemen add value when they bring taste or judgment or trust to bear on a transaction that isn’t transparent. Literary agents are crucial when publishers believe that their choice of content is essential but have too many choices and too little time. But publishers don’t trust every literary agent. They trust agents they believe in. Key point: anonymous agents are interchangeable and virtually worthless. Agents that don’t do anything but help one side find the other side in a human approximation of Google aren’t so helpful any more.
Think about how anonymous the typical real estate broker is. He will sell almost any house or represent almost any buyer. When selling a house, he has a fiduciary responsibility to represent that house to the best of his ability. Just like every other broker. The great real estate brokers do far more than this.
via Seth’s Blog: Where have all the agents gone?.

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-rePost–Seth's Blog: How big is your world?

I’ll pretend I have readers!hehe!
Guys let’s all try to help Jacqueline Novogratz and Acumen Fund in thier work!

My friend Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund, is at the forefront of making the world smaller. She has the unique ability to combine the financial and the spiritual in a way that does justice to both.
Her new book, The Blue Sweater, publishes in the United States this week. It’s the work of a passionate amateur, an honest memoir of someone who has lived a life most of us can only dream of. When you read of Jacqueline’s experiences as a naive banker newly arrived in Africa, or her extraordinary efforts to connect people of similar spirit but different cultures, you can’t help but become emotionally involved in the positive energy that’s spreading everywhere.
It may seem like this book has little to do with what I write about all day, or what you focus on in your work, but nothing could be further from the truth. No matter what you do, the smaller world is coming to your doorstep. No matter how you spend your day, the living, breathing, interacting big world is going to touch your private one.
An anonymous donor has put up $75,000 in a matching grant–if you buy the book this week, $15 will be donated to Acumen (for each of the first 5,000 copies sold). I hope you’ll take advantage and order a copy today. Thanks.
Seth’s Blog: How big is your world?.

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