"I see a better alternative, come with me."

Marketing books are awful. I have had an aversion to the self-help business genre since somebody stole someone's cheese and the Pharma company where I was working spun off a series of nauseating workshops with the same title.

But as you likely know--Seth is different. I read his books and have been lucky enough to catch him on stage at a conference or two.

I handed him a gift once and he stared at me momentarily with disbelief and teared up slightly. Oh. And he hugged me. 

Full disclosure it was the On Being Gathering and we were all feeling about as good as you can possibly feel underneath beautiful redwoods being fed impossibly delicious food, drinking wine, and listening to some of the most influential purveyors of intention and goodness ever imagined.

​I needed to read this book. I think there is much you might enjoy as well.

People don't want what you make

If you can bring someone belonging, connection, peace of mind, status, or one of the other most desired emotions, you've done something worthwhile. The things you sell is simply a road to achieve those emotions, and we let everyone down when we focus on the tactics, not the outcomes. Who's it for and what's it for are the two questions that guide all of our decisions.--Seth Godin This is Marketing

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Seth explains that "marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem".

It may sound strange but think about the one thing you are passionate about creating. For me, it really is about the underlying truths that obfuscate better decision making in healthcare. And the strategy--at least for me--is to liberate the data. Not just numbers because they are meaningless without curation and a narrative.

If I was going to hand over a "product" in the way Seth describes, it would be data literacy. Why? Because it is scalable and attainable. Currently it seems to be claimed by those with power and access to proprietary data but what if I could show you where the non-proprietary data lives, teach you how to access it, and empower you individually or enterprise-wide how to curate the data for both empathy, information, and insights?

Seth Godin also differentiates between tactics and strategy. "Tactics are easy to understand because we can list them. You use a tactic or you don't. Strategy is more amorphous. It's the umbrella over your tactics, the work the tactics seek to support."

It is okay to share your strategy. The tactics are specifically how you will execute your strategy--those you need to protect.

I'll go first. There is a problem in healthcare. The problem that everyone wants to solve is never clearly defined. Everyone has the solution. How is that possible?

If everyone wanted to see all of the data--even the data that might oppose a strongly held belief or tension--we would at least be walking in the same direction. I see a better alternative, come with me--Seth Godin.

“The sense of having walked from far inside yourself / out into the revelation, to have risked yourself / for something that seemed to stand both inside you / and far beyond you, that called you back”--David Whyte