Be careful of who you work for | Hacker News Reader

Be careful of who you work for

sethgodin.typepad.com

76 pointsbdfh4243 comments

How about: Be careful of who you work with

Definitely!

Seth argument makes sense for all these three: who you work for, who you work with and who works for you. It’s more about the work environment.

I have worked in great work environments as well as not so great ones...and I believe it is the single most important factor affecting your productivity and growth.

As usual, Seth has an incredible grasp of the obvious.

The way so many people blindly adhere to him is unbelievable. He's like the Joseph McCarthy or Emperor's New Clothes of marketing.

I've found his posts have been getting better. This one in particular qualifies as the elusive obvious.

Some are gold (the one about his breakfast for instance), but the vast majority are trash.

He isn't always right, but experience has taught me that he is more often right than wrong.

Being right about the obvious most of the time isn't hard. It's like predicting a startup will fail.

It's much more impressive when you're right when everyone else (at the time) thought you were wrong.

In Seth's own words, his job to remind people of what they already know. Even if you don't like it, I don't see why it's so hard to see the value of such a service.

His ego, coining of vapor words and other people's awe of him do not match that description.

Ego is debatable.

'Coining of vapor words' is naming things, renaming things or creating concepts. These are very useful tools for assisting thought processes. We think with language.

That's debatable. Buzzwords or vapor words are usually not useful. Most of the time other legacy words exist to express yourself. Buzzwords (not to be confused with technical terms) are created to sell books or consulting services. It appears to be working.

"clowd", purple cow, meatball sundae, ideavirus, his wrong usage of the word competent (the article I think you submitted), the dip, lens, etc

Just because "we think with language" doesn't mean we should make up superfluous words on the fly. I'll admit, it's necessary sometimes, but certainly not at the rate people do it at. The point of language is to communicate. And like I said, it's not like I hate the guy, some of his stuff is great. The rest... He seems to resonate a lot more with you than me, and if his work has helped you do something better all the power to him (and you).

Actually I think that purple cow, meatball sundae, ideavirus, the dip, sheepwalking, etc. are very important ideas. It's just that the words Seth chooses to represent these ideas kind of suck. What Seth calls an ideavirus is the same thing that Dawkins calls a meme, and that's a word we pretty much use every day. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point in the future someone else coined a word that meant the same thing as sheep walking, but was actually usable without sounding daft.

You can express ideas without creating ridiculous buzz words. And like I said, sometimes the creation of a new word (e.g. meme, kool-aid) is necessary, but not at the rate consultants and marketers do it. They're just marketing.

I agree with you to an extent. Seth tends to irritate me a little personally. But he is good at getting his ideas out there. Not just his name, his ideas & concepts. The tool he uses to achieve this is what you call buzzwords, which by definition are words that resonate to an extent & make it into people's vocabulary & thought processes.

'Meme' vs 'ideavirus' will suffice as an example. 'Meme' will not be used by the same people to have the same thoughts as 'ideavirus'. I hope we can agree on that (the discussion would be cumbersome). It flat wouldn't. The words have different connotations & usages even if they can be defined exactly the same way in a dictionary. Just like your usage of 'buzzword' has a different connotation to 'vogue word' & 'technical term' has a different connotation to 'jargon'. Ergo, it is a powerful tool for communication.

Inserting words into people's vocabulary changes the way they think. It is useful even if there is already an existing word with the same formalised meaning.

As I said I agree with you to an extent. There is nothing worse then watching marketing attempts to create a lexicon flop. It is something that can become polluted very quickly.

true. However the title seems stronger than the post.

It's less obvious to those that don't have an idea of what they want to do, esp straight out of college with no work experience.

I can't tell if that's a compliment or a slam.

Ditto. Maybe that was the point?

I'll give him a compliment, because whilst this advice maybe obvious, it is extremely difficult to follow, and it is useful. IMO that makes it a worthy post.

I have followed this advice once, and it was really tough to do, but ultimately I'm very glad I did.

Actually I think it's the sort of a mark of a good salesman that you see in 'modern' self help from Seth to Robert Kiyosaki.

Take some things that are trivial, true, powerful & seldom put into practice. Take the reader through the logical process of what can/will happen & sprinkle generously with motivational story telling. I think the secret sauce is in the chasm between trivial & seldom put into practice. You can say 'that's obvious' to which you/I can answer 'why haven't you done it.'

'Rich Dad Poor Dad' is the perfect example. Everything is either trivial or rubbish. Definitions & numbers are fuzzy & the writing feels like it was plagiarised from real estate flipping sales letters. The core 'message' is trivial, true, powerful & seldom put into practice. He delivers it by using accounting terms with his own definitions (I'm sure accountants like that) over several books, tapes, lectures board games & infomercials (coming soon I hope) but the ida can be represented in a sentence:

"Spend your time & money accumulating revenue generating assets."

You can probably apply that kind of formula to many a self help book dealing with marriage, self esteem, sexor any other popular topic.

Sometimes people take bad jobs out of blinding need and over promising executives. At least that is what happened in my case.

It is my fault for staying for so long though. At least I have something to blog about now.

I'm not entirely sure why everyone is always hating on Seth. His blog posts are hit or miss, but that doesn't mean he's an arsehole.

Whilst I agree with your point, I am shocked at your courage to attempt to use the English spelling of "arsehole" in the internet. Haven't seen it written that way for too long a time !

I find myself giving up and using American spelling and terms.

Even Firefox doesn't know how to spell, despite me telling my OS many times my locale to an alarming level of detail.

I think you're right, that it's simply US vs. British spelling, but I've always felt that the usage is slightly different (and that therefore maybe they are actually different words...).

An asshole seems to be someone you are angry with (legitimately or not). It's about behaviour (or perception thereof); but to call someone an arsehole is a darker, earthier insult, and is closer to what they intrinsically are. It seems more literal to me.

Maybe this is because I've mostly heard "asshole" on sanitized TV; but I've heard "arsehole" in uncensored RL.

PS: Firefox then spellchecked in a way that was almost but not quite entirely unlike British English.

That sounds reasonable to me, it does seem darker in the British usage.

Also - in US English, you could call someone an "ass" - its not really that bad an insult, like you said, more about their behaviour at a point in time. There is also the donkey meaning (ass) which makes it less insulting then it would otherwise be.

Yes - the donkey meaning. I think actual donkeys might also have been more common in the USA.

The entire time I read this, all I could think about was "squidoo".

Another important question to ask yourself - Who does number two work for?

I found this article thought-provoking (which is the best kind): it's about how we see.

Our point of view is affected by where we are; and the lens through which we see is affected by the people around us, what aspect they pay attention to, and their values. Because the way we see is so fundamental to verification, changes in it can be insidious - and changes to values are often virtually undetectable.

Vault, Wetfeet, Glassdoor, etc. If he doesn't think there are sites with company reviews he hasn't been looking.

Or just work for yourself? I guess that kind of requires the whole knowing what's best for you mentality as well, though.

OK, it's not "who you work for" it's "WHOM you work for". Pet peeve of mine, people saying "who" when they mean "whom" - if the "who" is the object of the action "work for" then it is "whom", like "To whom are you speaking?" NOT "Who are you speaking to?" Irks me no end.

Hey to whomever down voted this comment: down voting it doesn't make "who" right when it should be "whom". Down vote this all you want, it does not change the Queen's english darling.

True, but it does keep the irrelevant conversation out of the way of discussion of the actual news item.

I'm not sure it's hers anymore.

You should learn American. Dynamic typing makes it much easier to use.

Whoever? :)

I believe it's neither. Both end the sentence in a preposition, 'for'. If you want to be accurate (which I guess you do, since you posted) then it is "for whom you work".

Touche! :-)

It's "touché," jerk.

http://www.askoxford.com/betterwriting/plainenglish/writingm...

"Here are seven non-rules imposed on writers that can be safely discarded...

(3) You must not end a sentence with a preposition."

I wish that had said:

"Prepositions are okay to end sentences with."

That is advice up with which I will not put.

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