Connection Economy – Seth Godin on Stealing Dreams (Free PDF)
Connection Economy – Seth Godin on Stealing Dreams (Free PDF)
It used to be most businesses, bloggers, social-entrepreneurs had the same bottom-line question: How can I monetize this?
If an organization was going to hold an event, they would ask, what corporations can we get to sponsor us? Or, how much can we get away with charging for admission?
If an entrepreneur was going to start a website, he or she might ask, what companies can I get to buy sidebar ads? Could I offer a subscription to exclusive content?
But now, in what Seth Godin has termed “the connection economy,” I’d hypothesize the important question might be shifting.
When an idea is on the table, our filter may no longer be direct monetization. Instead, we might ask of each idea, how can this connect us to others?
- Will this move increase our face to face time with consumers?
- Will it draw more social network followers?
- Will it attract people to get in touch more often or to go deeper in relationship to us and what we offer?
Free PDF from Seth Godin (Stop Stealing Dreams)
As Seth notes in “Stop Stealing Dreams”:
[In a connection economy], value is created by connecting buyers to sellers, producers to consumers, and the passionate to each other.
This meta-level of value creation is hard to embrace if you’re used to measuring sales per square foot or units produced per hour. In fact, though, connection leads to an extraordinary boost in productivity, efficiency, and impact. [Download the rest of Seth’s pdf on dream-stealing here.]
The landscape of consumerism is changing. And fair warning, in a culture that is increasingly leery of corporate messaging and public relations polish, we can only make money if someone is connected to us long enough to know and understand what it is you sell.
In other worlds, what the wise have always said is true. People are more important than money.