Poke the Box

We send our kids to school and obsess about their test scores, their behavior and theirability to fit in.We post a help wanted ad and look for experience, famous colleges and a history of avoiding failure.We invest in companies based on how they did last quarter, not on what they-re going to do tomorrow.So why are we surprised when it all falls apart-Our economy is not static, but we act as if it is. Your position in the world is defined by whatyou instigate, how you provoke, and what you learn from the events you cause. In a worldfilled with change, that's what matters - yourability to create and learn from change.Poke the Box is a manifesto about producingsomething that's scarce, and thus valuable. Itdemands that you stop waiting for a road mapand start drawing one instead. You know howto do this, you-ve done it before, but along theway, someone talked you out of it.We need your insight and your dreams and your contributions. Hurry.

Excerpt. © All rights reserved.

"When my cousin was born, my MIT educated uncle built a buzzer box with two switches, some lights and a few other controls on it. It looked like something from a nuclear power plant, not a kid’s toy, but he tossed it into the crib anyway. Terrifying or mysterious, it depends on your perspective. It presented two options: poke to see what happens or do nothing. How do computer programmers learn their art- Is there a step-by-step process that guarantees you'll get good- All great programmers learn the same way. They poke the box. They code something and see what the computer does. They change it and see what happens. They repeat the process until they figure out what works. That's what happens when you poke -whether it's the market or your customer or what you think about yourself - you solve the puzzle by poking.

This is manifesto is about starting to poke. Starting a project, making a ruckus, taking what feels like a risk.

Poke the Box reminds us that life is a buzzer box. If we want to make things happen, we need to remember to poke."

Reviews


“Seth Godin may be the ultimate entrepreneur for the information age.” --Business Week

“It’s easy to see why people pay to hear what he has to say.” --Time Magazine

“Embarkable.” --Annie Duke, world poker champion, author and talk show host

“Rut-reversing.” --Sarah Jones, playwright

“Essential.” --Jill Greenberg, photographer, manipulator.org