seth godin | More Than Dodgeball

Josh GriffinMore Posts Book Review: Outliers

I’m a huge fan of Malcolm Gladwell – I love his style of taking seemingly disconnected stories and random studies that lead you to a dramatic conclusion. How often can you find a book with chapter titles like The 10,000-Hour Rule and The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes?

I’m also a huge fan of reading non-ministry books (perhaps a leftover from my business degree background) from people like Seth Godin and Gladwell. In light of that fact, I was drawn to Outliers from the first moment I heard about it. The book hopes to uncover the truth behind success, to reveal that there is much more behind the story of people becoming overnight success and overcoming overwhelming odds.

Gladwell contends that history, opportunity, community, legacy and practice all massively contribute to success. I found myself throwing my own experience and journey against his ideas, and taking what I know of others successful life paths and seeing if they fit. They totally did. Outliers is an absolute must read – super intriguing look into what happens when people are given a chance. Rank it just under the brilliant Blink and just above the excellent Tipping Point. A+

JG

Add Comment December 21, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts How to Organize a Room

Seth Godin had a great post this week on room organization. Thought that several of the principles hit youth ministry, so here’s a clip to get you started:

Screens: Big screens are a lot more reasonable than they used to be. Get the absolute biggest and brightest you can afford. Bigger! Big screens, near the speaker. Really close to the speaker. That’s a big help for the audience and for your energy.

Aisles: Watch a room fill up. People always sit on the aisle, don’t they? Don’t do rows of 40 or 50 chairs with no aisle. Have lots of aisles. Every ten chairs or so. Why not? Makes it faster to get in and to get out, and doesn’t hurt your density so much.

Lights: Make it dark in the audience. Make it light on stage. This works every time. Practice the lighting in advance, even for a smaller group.

JG

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Add Comment July 2, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Before You Send That Email

Seth Godin had a fantastic mental checklist for sending email. Here’s a couple of the 36 he wrote, these should all be part of your life:

Is it going to just one person? (If yes, jump to #10)
Since it’s going to a group, have I thought about who is on my list?
Are they blind copied?
Did every person on the list really and truly opt in? Not like sort of, but really ask for it?
So that means that if I didn’t send it to them, they’d complain about not getting it?
See #5. If they wouldn’t complain, take them off!
That means, for example, that sending bulk email to a list of bloggers just cause they have blogs is not okay.
Aside: the definition of permission marketing: Anticipated, personal and relevant messages delivered to people who actually want to get them. Nowhere does it say anything about you and your needs as a sender. Probably none of my business, but I’m just letting you know how I feel. (And how your prospects feel).
Is the email from a real person? If it is, will hitting reply get a note back to that person? (if not, change it please).
Have I corresponded with this person before?

JG

seth godin

Add Comment June 5, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Waiting for a Challenge

Thought this post about sitting and waiting vs. doing, risking and leaping was a brilliant one. Here’s a clip:

Many employees do the same thing at work. They wait for a boss (hopefully a great one) to give them responsibility or authority or experiences that add up to a career.

I want to be a leaper … when I meet someone for the first time, this is a quality I’m searching to see if they share.

JG

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Add Comment March 31, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Moving from One Fire to Another

I liked Seth Godin’s post today about managin urgency, how moving from one fire to another can end up being your career instead of something much more meaningful. I think youth ministries get caught in this trap as well, going from parent to volunteer to student to senior pastor and back and forth all inbetween, never ever doing something truly siginificant. Chew on this clip today, I know I am:

You can have grand visions for remodeling your house or getting in shape, but if there’s a fire in the kitchen, you drop everything and put it out. What choice do you have? The problem, of course, is that most organizations are on fire, most of the time.

Add up enough urgencies and you don’t get a fire, you get a career. A career putting out fires never leads to the goal you had in mind all along.

I guess the trick is to make the long term items even more urgent than today’s emergencies. Break them into steps and give them deadlines. Measure your people on what they did today in support of where you need to be next month.

JG

Add Comment March 26, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Why Big Churches Get Stuck

Reading this post from Seth Godin today made me think about how things get bogged down as they grow. As a ministry team grows, as a church grows, as a student ministry staff grows … even as a family grows, things get soggy. What can you do in your world to help things move like a new organization again?

New organizations and new projects are so crisp. Things happen with alacrity. Decisions get made. Stuff gets done. Then, over time, things get soggy. They slow down. Decisions aren’t so black and white any more. Why? Here are some things that happen …

JG

seth godin

Add Comment February 7, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts The Passionate Youth Worker

Thought Seth Godin had a brilliant post about workaholics vs. passionate workers. In my mind, the previous generation of pastors has been characterized to a degree as workaholics, people who sacrificed their families for their ministry. A new generation of pastors has to be careful of those same choices, though the motivation is different in that we serve out of an unbridled passion instead of an out of control work ethic. Here’s a clip:

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

JG

seth godin

5 View Comments January 16, 2008

Josh GriffinMore Posts Book Review: Purple Cow

Just finished up Seth Godin’s Purple Cow – a book centered around one word: remarkable.

You see cows. Lots of cows. And after a while, cows just fade into the background. That is, until you see a purple one. It gets your attention, you want to see it up close, touch it, see what happens when you poke it. And you can’t wait to tell your friends about it.

The book is fantastic, really a quick read that could have lasting implications to your business. Some of it translates well to the church setting, but not as much as some of his other works. Is your service remarkable? What are you communicating to the early adopters, and are they sneezing? Once you have a Purple Cow, what can you do to develop another one before you become one of the crowd.

If you aren’t working on something remarkable, drop everything and head that direction now. Good stuff! A-

JG

1 View Comments September 10, 2007

Josh GriffinMore Posts Book Review: The Dip

Just finished up a new book from Seth Godin – another quick read of less than 100 pages here on vacation. Guys, this is some good stuff – the gist of it being a) motor through the difficulties for the greatest reward, and b) quit all of the stuff that is distracting or average. In terms of youth ministry, I think there’s 2 really significant applications from the book:

1) Short tenure is caused by The Dip – this occurs about 12-16 months into a new church. The honeymoon is over and reality is settling in. A whole bunch of reality hits the fan, not everyone likes you and the change you’ve implemented so far is starting to cause pain. It isn’t quite the place it seemed like when you interviewed. You moved your family halfway across the country for this? The Dip is why youth workers leave after less then 2 years. They are on the cusp of something great, but don’t tough it out.

2) Good Enough is not good enough – some of our encouragement and training has suggested the “good enough” principle is something to live by, or at least live with. And while I’m not totally ready to throw that value away, my thoughts have been challenged here. Are we truly being the best we can be with the most important message of all, or do we regularly slip into mediocrity and good enough and coast on in ministry. Good enough might not be good enough for our calling.

I suppose there’s lots of other possible applications from the book – like when should you stop a particular style of music, an event, what are the right circumstances to leave a church – all that – but the two above were the clearest learnings for me. GREAT book!

JG