I actually got to speak to Seth Godin for 2 minutes earlier today at Google Unbound (I put in a link to a post about Cory Doctorow which he commented on tonight, more for context than anything else) - after he spoke and just before lunch. 

There was a long line of people who want to speak with Seth….and Seth Godin did know who I was when we were introduced since he reads my blog, Webmetricsguru; he said he was expecting me because he read the blog and I mentioned I was coming.  That's an honor! 

Anyway, here's my notes from Seth's talk and then I'm going to go into a subject connected with a former client  because it relates to what Seth Godin said - when I read Seth's blog everything he writes is pretty clear and when he speaks - it's even clearer.

It could now be the sunrise of publishing, not the sunset.  Gutenberg is famous for cutting down trees and printing books.   For 400 years publishers are cutting down trees and selling as many pages as they can.

What business are we really in?  What are we trying to do. What now?

You need to think differently about what you do tomorrow? The enemy is not piracy it's obscurity.  The web is the best distribution channel ever invented.

Scott Adams…Dilbert, is one of the smartest and laziest persons I know, he put his email address in his cartoons and got ideas from his readers. 

Souvenir business; give away your writings and people, if they like it, will buy your ideas in the form of your book as a souvenir - we're not in the book selling business, your in the Souvenir business.

Either your going to be in the center of the universe in 5 years or on Pluto.

Seth came up with an idea around architects…it relates to being a connector rather than trying to sell a product (sell the tools that allow architects to empower themselves).  Seth said architects used to buy a product for 99 dollars that allowed them to perform some task (I don't recall if what he referred to was a drawing program and I forgot who it was company who sold it) - I think it was Adobe, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, the 99 dollar tool did not really empower architects and it took a company called Auto Cad to create a set of tools that connected Architects and empowered them (I don't remember the exact words).   Here are Seth Godin's exact words as he posted a comment about it:

"…..I was answering a question about a $99 architecture book, a standard in the industry, and how the publisher could have turned that one book into Autodesk, a billion dollar company that made software for architects. but they saw themselves as making books, not connecting people or empowering them."

As a result, Auto Cad captured a whole market and created a lot more work for Architects - and forster a community (that now stretches into Second Life, BTW).

Here's where I tie this to one of my former clients, a consortium of House Designers.  When I was doing their SEO - they constantly complained their site was not making enough money and thought that if they got enough traffic via SEO and PPC, that would solve everything. 

I wish it was that simple - it's not.  I saw, and can still see, their lousy conversion rates (although the rest of the industry is just as bad, to tell the truth). 

They did not understand what business they are really in - it's not selling plans, hint.  The Designer's problems are much like the Publisher of the $99 dollar architectual book - they believed the job of their website was to sell house plans to real estate developers and DIY builders - instead of empowering them and other Architects.

One of the things - The Designers thought that if you could buy directly from them, knowing who the Architect was, it would be a competitive advantage for them. But it was not - the customer could not care less - all they wanted was the plan that provided them with a house they wanted to build. They lowered prices (but so did everyone else) and put more photos on each plan page, but nothing much helped. 

As Seth Godin spoke today is became crystal clear why this site failed (they were going after the wrong audience); they should have gone after other Architects, creating a "community" of Architects to exchange ideas and sell their plans together (and use their site as the conduit for that community). 

And the weird thing about it - they'd meet two or three times a year, for a week at a time, to discuss god knows what …and yet, there was absolutely no reflection of anything  useful on their site which could have helped their potential customers.  You'd think that a bunch of architects getting together could have come up with something to give to people (some ebook material, a series of podcasts, a series of books, video - something "remarkable" if not for house plan buyers - for other Architects….that would have profited all of them.

Now, I will say that later on in the afternoon, one publisher spoke, during the last panel of the day, and said that Seth's ideas about publishing were not 100% matching the publisher's reality. 

Point being, everyone sees things their own way. 

Every one is right about how they view the world - up to a point.  Publishers and Authors see things differently, even though they have common interests, not all of those interests match.

When you apply my insight to The Designers, they're right in their own way, to conduct business as they see fit.  But on the other hand, they could have been much better off had they embraced user generated content creating a community of Architects (as Seth Godin put forth today - understanding what your business really is) instead of focusing on selling plans, which is not very profitable in the way they were doing it.

And that's it for the morning session of Google Unbound.