From a book review at Amazon on Seth Godin‘s new book The Dip:
“Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all.

And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip-a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.

According to bestselling author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts.

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt-until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can become number one in your niche, you’ll get more than your fair share of profits, glory, and long-term security.

Losers, on the other hand, fall into two basic traps. Either they fail to stick out the Dip-they get to the moment of truth and then give up-or they never even find the right Dip to conquer.”

“If I don’t know I know, I think I don’t know” R.D.Laing

This book is fantastic. I have always loved catalogues, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and this book with over 500 pages of ideas, quotes and drawings has the non-linearity of an encyclopedia. Not that you could not read it from cover to cover reading all the 533 pages, but I guess that is not how it was intended. Fletcher: “this book is no thesis…has no beginning, middle or end. It’s a journey without a destination”

And what a journey, the book is organized around the 72 chapters and is an amazing mix of art, mathematics, economics, philosophy, anecdotes, drift wood. In music there is a term for this: plunderphonics. Even though the book itself is structured around chapters, the texts are all organized on a single page or sometimes the graphics spill over to the other side. There is a page that explains about collage, montage, frottage and other painterly techniques used in the art of chance. Another page in the chapter on Skill has quotes from John Wayne, Lee Trevino, Vivienne Westwood and George Burns next to a drawing on how to tie an bow tie. There is a page on the Turin Shroud, another on Fractals, one on dowsers, on Feng-Shui and one on an abstract Botswana pattern called “urine trail of the bull”.

Favourite quote: “If your mind is too open people can throw all sort of rubbish into.”

The follow-up of Funky Business by maverick Swedish business gurus Jonas Ridderstrale and Kjell Nordstrom. The publication itself is a bit confusing as the hard cover and soft cover (the one I read) have the same title but different subtitels, it is not clear whether both books are the same or not.

Anyway, fantastic reading. Walter Benjamin once wrote that he wanted to create a book created entirely out of quotations. Karaoke Capitalism does just that as “an attempt of making a horizontal analysis – linking changes in many different areas and walks of life together so that they form a tapestry of our topsy times”.  In music this approach would be called “plunderphonics”, the writers mention that they used over 5000 post-its in creating this book-puzzle.
Takeshi Miura and I tried something similar when we created the online book made out of quotations and collage for the Miami Bienale: the future of the office.
Karaoke Capitalism summarizes what WorkVitamins is all about: due to increasing individualization companies need to create an emotional experience not only for our customers but also to attract and retain staff.
Favourite quote: Just like firms can grow the business model, companies can leverage the business mood.