Are You Boring?

[Updated 24 February 2009: Jeremiah Owyang in 2007 on the irrelevance of traditional corporate web sites.]

In past postings I have quoted Seth Godin and I do so again here. He has a knack for expressing simple ideas that are broadly relevant.

In January Godin told me I was boring. Well, not me. Us. He wrote:

If people aren't discussing your products, your services, your cause, your movement or your career, there's a reason. The reason is that you're boring...You have boring pricing...a boring location...boring products....That boring staff?...

Published during the week of President Obama's inauguration, a week of the remarkable, Godin's call is for organizations and institutions to strive to be remarkable as well. But he cautions:

You don't get unboring for free. Remarkable costs time and money and effort, but most of all, remarkable costs a willingness to be wrong.

In other words, you can try to ensure moderate success and good-enough performance, by doing what you know you need to do to get by. But to excel you need to risk messing up and trying things that may well fail – but that, if they succeed, will propel you further than you've gone before.

Does your audience honestly think you're interesting? Relevant? Are you willing to be wrong? Is it worth risking a "mistake," in order to achieve something remarkable?

Leave a comment and tell others what you're doing (or what you see others doing, inside higher ed or in other sectors) to avoid boring the customers and to achieve the remarkable in this challenging, remarkable year.