Seth Godin

Biography

Seth Godin is a best-selling author, one of the world’s most popular bloggers, an entrepreneur and a disruptive force. He has sought to radically change conventional notions of marketing, strategy and leadership in order to make businesses stand out and be more competitive.

After working for a software company Seth started his first business from his New York apartment. He sold it to his employees and started the groundbreaking Yoyodyne, a pioneer in internet marketing. The company also saw Seth develop the concept of permission marketing, challenging how business traditionally undertook marketing by asking potential consumers for permission to sell to them. Before selling the company to Yahoo! it was widely praised in the business media and his new vision for marketing also spawned his best-selling book, Permission Marketing.

At Yahoo! Seth became the vice president of direct marketing, having developed online marketing concepts that incorporate quizzes and games. He then started another online business, Squidoo, an early entrant into the user-generated content era of the internet. It became one of the most popular sites on the internet before being overtaken by developments in social media.

Amongst over a dozen books Seth has written are The Big Red Fez, a guide to designing websites that bring in consumers not just viewers, and Survival Is Not Enough, a reflection on how companies and their people can not just deal with but thrive on the chaos of the business world. Other titles have covered practical creative thinking, marketing strategy, how ideas spread, leadership and professional development. In Tribes he looked at how to uncover the potential to lead a like-minded group and in The Dip he looks at how to know when a project is struggling but can be realised, or when it’s in terminal decline.

With examples from all types of businesses Seth draws together his vast array of ideas. He brings energy and practical advice to any organisation seeking to change. Whether that is change to they way they work, they way they think, or the way the deal with customers.