It’s About Making Babies!

OK, Seth Godin had a profound post a few days ago, about how some people seem to have an issue with being ‘coachable‘. I mentioned that post, which I consider a key to understanding many dating arguments, and many other communication failures. A coachable person would hear advice, consider the advice, and decide whether to act on the advice. A person with issues about coaching will retaliate about the person giving advice, their authority, their fallibility, etc., and never really consider the advice.

So today Seth comments that marketing does affects the marketplace. Which implies that a marketer should take responsibility for what products they work with, to Seth. I agree with Seth. If you believe abortion, hand guns, tobacco, SUV’s, or soft drinks harm the customer or the community, you should be responsible enough to refuse to work the project that promotes those services/products. I think it appropriate for companies to consider ethic issues with regard to products, services, and customers. But I am a weirdo, apparently.

Seth doesn’t allow comments on his site. But if you make a comment and a trackback link to his post, he does list those. And I noticed some name calling. Really.

Mike at Maneuver Marketing Communique posts the lurid headline, “Seth Godin Crosses The Line From Marketer to Social Activist…“. Mike charges that marketers and some others “.. have an obligation to be politically, socially and spiritually agnostic.”

My feeling is that Mike misrepresents Seth’s post. See, as I read it, Seth is not proposing that ‘since Product A is bad, no one should market it’, or even as many protests proclaim, ‘everyone should injure or hamper any attempt to promote Product A’. That is what I would call ‘social activism. Instead of considering Seth’s advice, and deciding whether it makes sense, Mike attacked Seth, using harsh words ‘crosses the line’, ‘social activism’. Things that will prejudice a company’s perception of a potential business consultant. Issues with coachability.

For myself, I see a direct correlation between Seth’s advice to individuals to ‘be responsible, and recent the laws holding tavern keepers responsible for mayhem by drunks that they serve.