Poke the Box [Hardcover]

Book Description: If you're stuck at the starting line, you don't need more time or permission. You don’t need to wait for a boss’s okay or to be told to push the button; you just need to poke.

Poke the Box is a manifesto by bestselling author Seth Godin that just might make you uncomfortable. It’s a call to action about the initiative you’re taking-– in your job or in your life. Godin knows that one of our scarcest resources is the spark of initiative in most organizations (and most careers)-– the person with the guts to say, “I want to start stuff.”

Poke the Box just may be the kick in the pants you need to shake up your life.

Love the ideas in Poke the Box? Be sure to visit TheDominoProject.com for the latest news and special offers.

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A Q&A with Seth Godin

Question: What does it mean to Poke the Box?

Seth Godin: Conformity used to be crucial--fitting in, not standing out. Compliance used to be the heart of every successful organization, every successful career. The reason? We all worked for the system, in the factory, doing what we were told. Now, though, compliance is no longer a competitive advantage.

Poke the Box is about the spark that brings things to life. We need to be nudged away from conformity and toward ingenuity, toward answering unknown questions for ourselves. Even if we fail, as I have done many times in my life, we learn what not to do by experience and doing the new.

This isn’t the same thing as taking a risk. In fact, the riskiest thing we can do right now is nothing.

I’ve had an extraordinary run, creating a dozen nationwide bestsellers, starting Internet companies and giving speeches around the world. The key thing I bring to the projects I take on is not more talent than most (I don’t) or even more hours than most (hardly). My contribution is a willingness to poke, to start, to lean into the project and to get it out the door.

Question: What will I learn from reading Poke the Box?

Seth Godin: Hopefully you will learn lots but do more. Start thinking about when you’ve taken initiative in a way that really meant something to you and your team, your family. When was the last time you did something for the first time? How did it feel?

There are no step-by-step how-to instructions in Poke the Box. Instead, you’ll find a series of layers, a foundation for taking a different approach to your work. Instead of learning to be more compliant, I want to push you to be the one who takes initiative.

Question: Why did you write this book?

Seth Godin: I’ve been fortunate enough to hear from almost a million people over the years, to talk with CEOs and bosses and customers around the world. And they all tell me precisely the same thing: it’s the motive force they demand, the person who will shake things up and move them forward.

Static is not an acceptable state. The status quo is no longer something we want at work or in politics or in any organization we care about.

The market is just waiting for people to step forward. I wrote the book for those people, the ones who’ve been hesitating to take the leap.

Question: Why did you start The Domino Project?

Seth Godin: The Domino Project is my latest attempt at "poking." It’s an independent publishing imprint founded by me and powered by Amazon. This is an opportunity to publish "idea manifestos" committed to readers, rather than being bookstore friendly. It’s named after the domino effect--where one powerful idea spreads down the line, pushing from person to person.

I have two audacious goals: I want to change the people who read (not enough do) and I want to change the way books are published (they’re too hard to find and spread). I honestly believe that a book can change a mind like nothing else, and that’s our focus. To help anyone to do work they’re proud of and to make a difference.

Question: Why Amazon?

Seth Godin: I partnered with Amazon so we could leverage what we both do best--Amazon is the leader in global distribution, multiple format production capabilities, and reaching people in the right way, and I want to spread powerful ideas to the people who want to read them.

For 15 years, Amazon has been building an audience and gaining our trust. Many surveys identify them as the most-trusted new brand in the world. Now that Amazon is interacting with more people more often, they have a chance to bring those customers new ideas in innovative ways. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to bring ideas worth spreading to a huge and eager audience.

Question: Who is Seth Godin?

Seth Godin: I’m an author, entrepreneur, and a person who starts things.

“Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the information age.” --Business Week

“It’s easy to see why people pay to hear what he has to say.” --Time Magazine

One word reviews for Poke the Box

“Embarkable.” --Annie Duke, world poker champion, author and talk show host

“Rut-reversing.” --Sarah Jones, playwright

“Essential.” --Jill Greenberg, photographer, manipulator.org

Seth Godin has written 12 books – all bestsellers – that have been translated into more than 30 languages. He has long been a provocative proponent of changing the way books are created and marketed. Godin writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything. American Way Magazine calls him, “America's Greatest Marketer,” and his blog is among the most popular in the world written by a single individual. An entrepreneur since the age of 16, he founded Yoyodyne, his first internet company, which was acquired by Yahoo! in 1998. It pioneered the use of ethical direct mail online, something Seth calls Permission Marketing. He was VP of Direct Marketing at Yahoo! for a year. His latest company, Squidoo.com, is ranked among the top 90 sites in the U.S. (by traffic) by Quantcast. It allows anyone to build a page about any topic you’re passionate about. The site raises money for charity and pays royalties to its million plus members.

When my cousin was born, my MIT educated uncle built a buzzer box with two switches, some lights and a few other controls on it. It looked like something from a nuclear power plant, not a kid’s toy, but he tossed it into the crib anyway. Terrifying or mysterious, it depends on your perspective. It presented two options: poke to see what happens or do nothing. How do computer programmers learn their art? Is there a step-by-step process that guarantees you'll get good? All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what happens. They repeat the process until they figure out what works. That's what happens when you poke -whether it's the market or your customer or what you think about yourself - you solve the puzzle by poking.

This is manifesto is about starting to poke. Starting a project, making a ruckus, taking what feels like a risk.

Poke the Box reminds us that life is a buzzer box. If we want to make things happen, we need to remember to poke.

The Seven Imperatives that all Successful Organizations are Built On

The first imperative is to be aware. Aware of the market, of opportunities, of who you are.
The second imperative is to be educated, so you can understand what’s around you.
The third imperative is to be connected, so you can be trusted as you engage.
The fourth imperative is to be consistent, so the system knows what to expect.
The fifth imperative is to build an asset, so you have something to sell.
The sixth imperative is to be productive, so you can be well priced. But it's still possible to do all of these things and still fail.

A job is not enough; a factory is not enough; a trade is not enough. It used to be, but no longer. The world is changing too fast. Without the spark of initiative, you have no choice but to simply react to the world. Without the ability to instigate and experiment, you are stuck, adrift, waiting to be shoved.

Quotes from Poke the Box

We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.

Poking doesn’t mean right. It means action.

“This might not work” isn’t merely something to be tolerated; it’s something you should seek out.

If you don’t finish, it doesn’t really count as starting, and if you don’t start, you’re not poking.

If you never fail, either you’re really lucky or you haven’t shipped anything.

Risk is avoided because we’ve been trained to avoid failure.

Reject the tyranny of picked. Pick yourself.

Why not sell your boss or your colleagues on being the initiator? It’s your job. You start things. Ask once, do many.

Where did curiosity go? Initiative is a little like creativity in that both require curiosity. The difference is that the creative person is satisfied once he sees how it’s done. The initiator won’t rest until he does it.

Please stop waiting for a map. We reward those who draw maps, not those who follow them.

The people arguing on behalf of accepting the status quo are the ones who, years ago, set out to change it. As disillusionment sets in, people stop poking. The irony is that the act of creating and shipping remarkable ideas is the very thing that can change the status quo.

Aimless is where we end up when we don’t care so much about where we’re going, or we try to hide and limit our contributions. I’m pushing for the opposite of that—for “aimful,” if you want to coin a phrase.