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My Seth Godin decline letter. Thoughts?

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Re: My Seth Godin decline letter. Thoughts?

#12

Post by pxlpshr »

I had a friend who applied, it's not something I'd ever want to do. I think Seth is a great motivational speaker and writer, but there are far more people I'd want to give up 6 months with no pay to be mentored by from an entrepreneurial standpoint.

Not to mention, I was pretty turned off from the whole thing the moment I read the internship he was offering. It all seemed a little self-serving (with kool-aid), and I get a little sick of MBA guys knocking MBA programs. Seems like a shallow self-marketing gimmick...

(His blog is on my reader)

Re: My Seth Godin decline letter. Thoughts?

#13

Post by brk »

pclark wrote: post #4

what MBA program?

Seth has made the generous offer of allowing a select few people to work for him. For free. In exchange, you get to be surrounded by His Greatness every day. If you get accepted, don't forget to bring your lunch money and cab fare as well.

While this sounds like a revolutionary idea, if you're willing to work for free, and can sell yourself well (the two basic acceptance criteria for this program), there is a high probably you can weasel yourself into some simialr position a number of different places.

Re: My Seth Godin decline letter. Thoughts?

#14

Post by Harkins »

brk wrote: post #3

I'd actually be a little bit insulted to get that as a response. It reads like a load of over-dramatized crap. Part of what's wrong with so many of these internet-marketers is that everything seems to be positioned as various degrees of "super rockstar ninja greatness". There is never any bad, unmarketable, stupid ideas. IE: no one wants to put their reputation on the line by making a potentially bad call. So, he won…

I've read a couple of Godin's book recently, this is pretty much just his tone. It sounds silly in a single example like this, but it works OK as he builds it up over a book. I suppose anyone applying to a position is pretty familiar with his works.

Oh, and Tribes needed way more than one sentence in the acknowledgements mentioning Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. I'd just reread HCE before I picked up Tribes and I kept waiting to see something like "So, every example in the last three chapters and next two chapters came from this excellent book... "

Re: My Seth Godin decline letter. Thoughts?

#18

Post by Arubis »

Harkins wrote: post #14
brk wrote: post #3

I'd actually be a little bit insulted to get that as a response. It reads like a load of over-dramatized crap. Part of what's wrong with so many of these internet-marketers is that everything seems to be positioned as various degrees of "super rockstar ninja greatness". There is never any bad, unmarketable, stupid ideas. IE: no one wants to put their reputation on the line by making a potentially bad call. So, he won…

I've read a couple of Godin's book recently, this is pretty much just his tone. It sounds silly in a single example like this, but it works OK as he builds it up over a book. I suppose anyone applying to a position is pretty familiar with his works. Oh, and Tribes needed way more than one sentence in the acknowledgements mentioning Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky. I'd just reread HCE before I picked up Tribes and…

Despite familiarity with Godin's work, I'm still unsure how I feel about this particular response. It'd be great as an individual rejection (we love you, but just don't have the space!), but as a boilerplate reply requires a little suspension of disbelief.

Or maybe that's just because I got this reply not half an hour after sending in my app. :) Zing!

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