WIF2010 Day 2 Begins with Seth Godin--Artists Shall Inherit the Earth #WIF10

Creation as problem solving is the key to innovation: A writer writes; a painter paints; comics write jokes, Warren Buffet buys companies, and for him it's an art. Artists do what they do because they are driven to their art--they can't live without it. They are also the people who are not afraid to live without a safety net. They feel the fear and do it anyway.  Artists are the modern innovators, and that's why they are the most valuable people in today's world.

Populate your business with "artists"...the future will be yours.

Seth Godin, marketing guru and author or too many books to even begin to mention here, opens Day 2, and the WIF audience is rapt for 90 minutes. The organization has to change its very approach to marketing and innovation. What marketing has been about for a really long time is talking at people. The basic idea is to get people to buy more. And until recently that has meant making average stuff for average people because the "mass" in mass marketing is average. TV was the perfect medium for this method of marketing. That model of marketing, "interruption to success" is flawed. The revolution has arrived. There are too many products and choices and brands for that to work. Marketing innovation has become an oxymoron because it requires you to bother and spam people to buy. That era is giving way--doing the best ad doesn't work anymore.

New rules of marketing:

1. Ideas that spread win
2. The market for ideas is infinite
3. People are tribal; like doing what other people are doing. If there is a product in the middle of that, people will buy it.
4. What we do now is create a uniform. Instead of finding customers for your products, find products for your customers. See Apple.

Today, businesses lead tribes. CMO should stand for Chief Movement Officer. Exciting companies that are having an impact are creating movements. This is new outside politics, religion and sports. It's also difficult because nobody wants to join a boring movement. Making average stuff for average people won't win in this environment. We need to market for genius, and it will take geniuses to design for them.

In the new environment, a genius is someone who brings their real self to the task of making life better for others. Marketing today is not about "one more inch of shelf space" and "grinding it out" on spreadsheets, but the acts of a genius.

"The reason they want you to fit in is that once you do then they can ignore you."

The new "genius paradigm," is the result of how we have developed: from hunter/gatherer to being a cog in the system. Now, all the value goes to the artist, the geniuses. Art is not just painting. Art is whatever breaks the mold. We buy things because of the way a human being has addressed a problem and solved it for you.

"If you make something that someone else can make, someone else can do it cheaper."

So how do you innovate in an environment like this? You have to do what hasn't been done before--something that might not work. Innovation is therefore risky. It can't be achieved through obedient employees and cookie-cutter companies. But most employees are cookie cutter. They show up and fit in--they are no different from the average cafeteria server. But we raise people to be that way. It's people who break that mold who are innovators. There is no map to innovation anymore. Value adding has transformed from lifting to hunting to growing to producing to selling to connecting to creating and inventing, and that last one is innovation. It's all that's left. And the most valuable people, those who get paid the most, spend the least time actually working. They are paid for innovation, everyone else is paid to follow instructions, which is not that valuable anymore.

So companies have to do something that might seem counter-intuitive--they have to learn to put themselves in the hands of artists--those who have the instinct to create and share and can't help themselves. They'll give it away if nobody is buying it. The act of generosity is in their nature. If they don't create and give, they rot. Most people do not have that. Most people cannot do that. When you engage in this art, this leadership, you win, over and over and over.

An attendee asks, "Can a corporation be an artist?" Seth's simple answer? "To the extent that people work there. Once you try to institutionalize it, it ceases to be art."