A copy of Tribes by Seth Godin up for grabs

It's been twelve days since my last post; my goal is at least one post every week. Instead of offering a litany of excuses, I'll admit that I'm overwhelmed by social media, and I'll through in a free book for one lucky reader as an apology.

In the last two weeks I've had a handful of people begin following me on Twitter - I haven't updated Twitter in weeks so I don't understand why anyone would want to follow me (but I'll update with this post). I've joined a couple of professional groups on LinkedIn, posted a question to one group and received only one response from a group of 158 (disappointing). In the process of changing jobs I unsubscribed from a lot of RSS feeds and never bothered resubscribing in the effort to reduce the noise (yes, I understand the irony). And I joined Triiibes, Seth Godin's newest social media experiment. I haven't used the site other than posting one event, I don't check in on what's going on and I ignore most of the emails that come to my inbox, it just hasn't proven important enough for me to carve out the time it needs. As a thank you (in my case, thanks for nothing) for participating in Triiibes I received a free copy of the book Tribes, in addition to the one I pre-ordered as the price for admission to the group. And because I have two copies I'm giving one away. The first person to email me their contact info gets my extra copy of Tribes, no strings attached. What are you waiting for? Email me now at vconyngham [at] gmail [dot] com.

In the offline world I started taking a photography class. It's time consuming and takes away from the time I could be spending blogging, twittering, etc., but in opportunity costs it's worth it. And here I said I wouldn't offer excuses.

Update: The book has been claimed.

Download The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II by Dave Balter

In April I wrote about Dave Balter’s creative book promotion for The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II. It’s a follow-up of sorts to Grapevine, his first book on the power of word of mouth (WOM). Today, I’m happy to share with you that you can download the book for free. All you need to do is download the PDF from one of the blogs that Dave has given exclusive rights to. My favorites include:

Brand Autopsy by John Moore who shares his thoughts on Creationalist WOM vs. Evolutionist WOM and why he isn’t a fan of the BzzAgent model.

Seth Godin’s Blog who shares some thoughts on self-publishing.

Chris Brogan who offers his thoughts and reservations on “managed word of mouth.”

Brand Autopsy and Chris Brogan’s blog offer the best conversation on word of mouth as a method. They touch upon the many struggles I myself face with the medium.

Full disclosure – I’m a bzzagent (I’m a big fan of learning about marketing techniques by participating in them) and I’m participating in The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II bzz campaign. I was not participating in it when I first wrote about this book. I don’t believe in using my blog to promote products from bzz campaigns I may be participating in, it feels too fake and too forced (part of my own reservations with the medium). However, I’m making an exception to my rule because of the author, the book and its ties to marketing.

Getting rid of the bad tables

Seth Godin’s The Bad Table post got me thinking about the group insurance industry. The post challenges readers to think differently about their “bad tables” (you know, the ones crammed in the corner near the noisy kitchen or next to the bathrooms). It suggests giving special service at the bad tables to make the entire experience equal with that of the good tables, but equal in a different way. The reason this makes me think of insurance is because the group insurance industry is famous for handing out lots of bad tables, usually to small groups. Insuring small groups can be risky because there isn’t a large pool of people to spread risk across. However, because small groups tend to have higher premiums (to account for the riskier nature of their size) they usually end up funding the discounts that the larger groups enjoy. And for their trouble, they get treated as second-class citizens. Many insurance companies create great new benefits, but usually with the fine print of “not available to groups of 50 or less members.” That leaves small groups paying more in premiums for fewer benefits. While not all insurance companies are guilty of this (Delta Dental extends new benefits to groups of all sizes), many are. Getting rid of the bad tables is something every business should strive to do. It wont be the easiest assignment, but it could be the most creative.