IMC Hawks Blog

Tag: Seth Godin

  • “Here comes the… Promotions”

    Tis the season to…get married! As summer is rapidly approaching it seems that more and more couples are tying the knot, and Wilmington, North Carolina is a state ‘hotspot’ for weddings. What does this mean for the vendors? That they could potentially be overflowing with customers if they play their cards right, and by this I mean, promoting their brand. Cape Fear Wedding Show throws an expo every year around October to attract the blushing brides and their beaus to meet with vendors who will potentially make their big day a memorable one. However, we all know that weddings are not cheap, and if you didn’t…. well they aren’t. Therefore, the vendors are competing with each other for business, basically, by who has the most appealing promotion. They have to use a lot of pathos. The event itself is practically one huge promotion, even for the Wilmington area as a prospective location to have a wedding.

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    The Cape Fear Wedding Expo invites photographers, videographers, caterers, cake bakers, event planners, party rentals, DJ’s, bands, etc. all lined up in the Wilmington Convention Center with their ‘pick-me’ face on. Cape Fear Weddings promotes their event opportunity to all vendors, getting paid for the spot they reserve, and the vendors get many potential customers. It is a win- win. They are encouraged “make the best of this great sales opportunity” by promoting the expo to vendors promising them “on-air promotions” for their company. It is huge, and it only happens once a year, making that much more of a big deal. Here is a comical video that local videographers, Life Stage Films, used as a promotion for their company against competitors:

    Essentially brides, and whoever accommodates them, will pay a small fee (like $5) to get in and then it is game time. Let the special offers, discounts and incentives begin!  Lets take a look at what Seth Godin has to say about promotions. In his blog entitled “Promoting the Promotion” he states, “Promotions work when they’re seen as generous or unique or tied into our needs and dreams.” Every bride has their dream wedding, and they have been dreaming it for their entire lives so according to Seth these promotions could potentially be quite effective. Godin goes on to say, “They also work as brand builders when they’re so ubiquitous we associate the brand with the event itself.” This is the incentive for the expo. The event itself is associated as a haven for dreams to come true.

    The goal here is to make everyone feel like one big family, like they are receiving help from experts (help with a price tag of course) to make one of the most memorable days of their life just that… memorable. This ties in to what we know as CMM where meaning is being cultivated within a community. The Cape Fear Wedding Expo serves as a model for a community gathering of all the brides in the area to collaborate. However, by the promotional advertising utilized, brides truly feel as though these vendors want to help make their special day unforgettable by offering even a small discount. So, come October let the promotions begin!

    –Katelyn Alston and Laura Tippett

  • Closing the chapter to start a new one

    Today was my last day of college classes! The text books will get sold back to the bookstore shortly, the notebooks will get tucked away and graduation is so close I can smell the freedom of no more school work or projects. My time at UNCW has been a journey. Like any journey there are ups and downs, triumphs and tribulations, tears of joy and tears of pain but I took them in stride and persevered the toughest circumstances I had faced. There have been moments where I wanted to give up, but that is life. The hard times are exactly what it says HARD, but it is how you venture through those times where you succeed and they can only make you stronger and a better person. Absolutely nothing is going to hit us as hard as life. But is it not about how hard you get hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. But we have to be willing to take the hits, and not point fingers saying you are not where you are because of him, cowards do that and that is now me, that is not those of us who are in this graduating class of 2011.


    I can’t think of a more tenacious, more courageous graduating class that the one. It is finally here, all of the hard work has paid off. We all have been prepared on what to expect after graduation, searching aimlessly for jobs hoping to get a bite on the line of resumes we send out. We have compiled our portfolios full of artifacts with our best work, so we should be set right? Well somewhat. We are well prepared an well-rehearsed on how to approach the challenging interview questions, but we are about to enter a new chapter. This new chapter no longer has a safety net or someone to hold our hand, it is the real world where we have a choice to sink or swim. The world is my oyster and is anxiously waiting for me to reveal my talents.
    I am very proud of myself and of my achievements I have had at UNCW. I have had several phenomenal mentors who have provided me with the building blocks of who I evolved into becoming. THANKS MOM, MY #1 FAN!!! It has not been easy being pulled in so many different directions by so many responsibilities. But I muddled through, and I held tightly onto my dream and now that dream is a beautiful reality and a sign of a wonderful tomorrow. The plans of jobs are distant. Applications have been sent and few call backs and interview are in the midst of being scheduled. I know that most of us are concerned about our future, but there’s no need to worry. The economy is booming, the job market is wide open, the planet is just fine. It’s going to be great…… well here is to wishful thinking. But I am hopeful dreamer.
    The torch can now be passed along to others. My work here is now complete. Here are a few tips for those to who are about to embark on their new chapter.
    • Think outside the box to fill the box.
    • Don’t stop learning, keep trying to excel and grow.
    • Don’t miss an opportunity because of a prior commitment or class. (Sorry professors) Take advantage of everything you are given. You may kick yourself later.
    • Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Protect each dream and find the path that will lead you to it. If you want something go get it. PERIOD!
    • There are many roads we can take in life, there are also paths, and some trails, and some paths that turn into roads that then turn into trails. I guess what I’m saying is life is a journey and you can go whichever direction you want.
    • It is easy to slack off, but don’t do it. Taking the extra steps now will make things better in the long run.
    • Don’t say you can’t, because you can. It may be HARD, but deal with it.
    • Don’t be a lizard brain. If you are unfamiliar with any of Seth Godin’s books or blog, a lizard brain is simply saying how you want one thing, but you do something else. That’s a bad characteristic trait to have and does not look well on anyone.
    To conclude live each day by this quote from Ellen DeGeneres it has always put things into perspective for me. “Life is like one big Mardi Gras. But instead of showing your boobs, show people your brain, and if they like what they see, you’ll have more beads than you know what to do with.”

    -Michela Noreski

  • Are you indispensable?

    Are you indispensable?

    Seth Godin asks this question in his new book, Linchpin.  And one response is “no, I’m not indispensable, I’m part of a bigger story that will go on without me.”

    But this is not what Godin is saying. He’s not waiting for you to be deemed indispensable by others. He’s asking you to see how acting as a linchpin makes you inherently indispensable, not because of who you are but what you do.

    Full disclosure: I require my Intro to IMC class to follow Seth’s Blog. I don’t do this because I’m a blind Seth Godin parroter who thinks every word he utters is chocolate-covered goodness.  I require my IMC class to follow him so that they are introduced to a new way of thinking, to see the possibilities of a productive, virtue-driven life. Agreeing or disagreeing with Seth is not the issue. What is the issue is that he makes plain what he believes, and he tries to deliver on that every day. This coherence between word and deed is what makes him worth following and reading. Of course you should question what Seth says. I would think he’d be disappointed if you didn’t.

    Back to Linchpin. Reading it is like reading his blog; it’s brimming with short, manageable bites of observation.  He observes that being a cog in a machine is what we’ve been trained to do through school society, culture – what he calls “the industrial machine” (6). Being a linchpin, however, is a process through which we can break free from mediocrity.

    The most applicable parts of this book for undergraduate students are when he talks about how to become a linchpin while in college.  Getting passing grades, finding the easy way through school, and partying all the time are not – surprise!- the ways through which you become a linchpin.

    However, Godin gets a little heavy-handed when he talks about teachers who do nothing more than keep students quiet and unquestioning. I’m sure there are teachers who fit this profile, but I personally don’t know any. I’d like to offer a different perspective – and students, take note: most of the teachers and professors I know are trying to stimulate their students’ intellectual curiosity in every way possible.

    Every academic conference I attend offers formal and informal spaces for sharing teaching ideas that encourage active and engaged learning. We are officially assessed by our institutions in performance reviews for teaching capability, and we are unofficially assessed by students every day, online and off.  We have Centers for Teaching Excellence on campus whose staff offer us training, inspiration, and encouragement to teach, delight, and move our students. I have met faculty at other universities who promote the theory and practice of our field through their online presence. My colleagues in my department and my professors in my graduate program model this commitment to helping students become linchpins. Godin got it almost right in Linchpin; I thought I’d offer a more textured account of what is going on in the academy from a front-row seat.

    To conclude IMC-Hawks Book Week, I’d like to recommend everyone – especially students – read Linchpin and the other four books we’ve reviewed this week. Keep demonstrating the intellectual curiosity that will help you become a linchpin in a productive life.

    –Jeanne Persuit, Ph.D.