Survival is Not Enough: Zooming, Evolution, and the Future of Your Company [Hardcover]

I'm pretty sure that Seth Godin has never read any of the excellent essays or books by Stephen Jay Gould whose words have helped educate me about evolution. Godin seems to have learned about evolution not from scientists, but from Star Trek (which assumes that 'evolution' has a fixed agenda, and that 'evolution' is the term used for a single-generation transformation of a species from humanoid to transcendant being).

Even when Godin has the right ideas about evolution, his analogy of "genes" and "DNA" to "memes" and "mDNA" often fails through carelessness: he often confuses his own terms and concepts.

The real thesis of "Survival is Not Enough" is that companies need to "zoom" by trying new ideas, by experimenting, by accepting that when their business environment changes, they must transform themselves or fail.

Godin is certainly not wrong: every business needs to adapt and experiment. No company can survive the transformation of its environment unless the company transforms itself. Every company should try new things, different things, even bizarre "gonzo" ideas, in order to learn what works and what does not. Yes, "zooming" is a good idea, but Godin doesn't seem to accept that there are limits: company staff, budgets, and attention.

Godin's notion of launching many experiments, including launching multiple projects that bet against each other, is intriguing but clearly unaffordable to most companies. Yes, companies must experiment, and try new ideas and new projects, and we must accept that failing is better than not trying -- but Godin provides no guidance on how to choose which experiments to try, which risks to accept, and which to reject.

There are some good ideas in Godin's book, but I think most of them could have been captured in a dozen pages.

I warn folks that don't like buzzwords that this book has TONS of them. Frankly, there were more than I care for and I normally don't mind them!

Mr. Godin consistently picks a topic of business conversation/interest and then provides readers with his insights. In Permission Marketing he spoke about the rampant increase in e-mail marketing campaigns and what made them effective vs. ineffective and the impact it would have on consumer/business relations. In Unleashing the Ideavirus Mr. Godin spoke about the power of word of mouth advertising and how companies could utilize the Internet as an enabling device to cost effectively communicate with customers and generate excitement in a product/service.

Survival is Not Enough, by Seth Godin, is another bestseller in the works. For some reason Mr. Godin seems to get the "big picture" better than most. More importantly, the manner in which he conveys the information / subject manner is normally easier to understand than other books on comparable subject matter. With his new book Mr. Godin tackles the subject of rapid change and its impact on business. Using the metaphor of Darwin's Law of Evolution Mr. Godin compares a corporation's evolution to any animal.

The entire book can be summed up in a very simple manner. Evolve (change) or die. The fittest company will win at the end of the day such as the fiercest Lion will end up passing on his genes to other lions.

Rather than spell out each chapter I would say that Mr. Godin hits on several key things within the book that really make it worth reading

1) Why it is better to make small changes than big changes to survive (EVOLVE vs. massive restructuring).

2) How can a company accelerate changes so it doesn't become static and die?

3) Why you need to make sure you have the right people on board.

4) How do people deal with fear and change? What are some of the artificial barriers we as humans put up to avoid change? I found some of the insights to be interesting.

5) Are all companies capable of change? Obviously a lot don't (they become extinct via bankruptcy) but did they miss along the way which hurt the company (examples are provided.)

Mr. Godin's last chapter gives a long list of important questions that deal with change. Through asking them and honestly answering them you may find some insightful things about your companies' culture and the implications for your career development, as well as their future success. In general I found the book to be very insightful but much tougher than his previous books to read. This is heady stuff, relative to his prior books, especially when you have to compare the entire book to Darwin and Evolution!

Fine. So if ideas like this are interesting to you, you shouldn't be reading this book. You should get Richard Dawkins _The Selfish Gene_, Matt Ridley's _Genome_, Daniel Dennett's _Darwin's Dangerous Idea_, or even Mark Ridley's compilation _Evolution_. These and many other books make the central ideas of evolutionary theory available and engaging to a lay audience. No specialist background required. Don't think Seth Godin is doing you much of a favor by 'summarizing tons of technical work' for you--hardly! He appears to have read a few of these same 'populare interest' science books and given it all his own spin.

This book really isn't worth the money. It would be better off as a 2-3 page magazine article; the other 250 pages are just fluff. It's so amateurish and undisciplined that it might as well be the author's precious journal of private thoughts and ideas.

Reviews like this are rarely very helpful, I realize. You heard about this book and wanted to check it out. Well, I did. It was awful. Check into the books I mention above. They are brilliant works written by very smart, well-respected people. You won't be disappointed.