I just picked up a book from Seth Godin. If you haven’t heard of him, then you are really missing out. He has published quite a few bestselling books and is quite the knowledgeable fellow. His site is www.SethGodin.com and he has some great marketing and business ideas. I haven’t finished the book ‘Free Prize Inside’ yet, but I have made it through the first section. It has a lot of really great ideas about ‘soft innovations’ which are inventions and add-ons to products. An example is the free prize in cereal that makes the kids want Fruit loops over Captain Crunch. Things that aren’t exactly world changing, but product pushing.

I am going to share a clip from the book that I found interesting.

My argument so far:

1. Advertising doesn’t work so well, because you can’t buy attention.
2. Big R&D hardware innovations don’t work because they’re so risky and ever more expensive.
3. Soft innovations are the sweet spot, the free prize, the means that will allow your organization to grow and thrive.
4. Anyone, including you, can create a successful soft innovation, even (and especially) if you’re not in the marketing department.
5. Not only is it profitable, but it’s empowering, engaging and fun.

So, you may be wondering, if this is so effective and so productive and requires so little training, why doesn’t everyone do it?

Exactly.

The Reasons Everyone Doesn’t Do It

They’re scared.
They’re organized to resist change of any kind.
They don’t understand that soft innovation isn’t risky, it’s free and important.
They don’t realize how much their bosses want them to pursue soft innovations.
They’ve never been sold on doing it, and they’ve never been taught how to do it well.

This Means There’s Huge Opportunity

Everywhere that you go, when you start to, you can come up with ways to make products better. Or perhaps a more attractive way of displaying them. Once you get your mind exercising, the ideas just begin to flow.

Not only have I enjoyed this book so far, but I went to Amazon to see what else he has available I ran into “The Bootstrapper’s Bible” which is available as a PDF. I just purchased and downloaded that for less than three bucks, and I’ll let you know how it is.

I should also include a link to his blog here, Seth Godin provides a wealth of information here as well.