A very cool friend pointed me to a vivid poem yesterday. I enjoy poetry that uses concise and precise word choice to compose a scene or evoke a complex response.

I thought about the condensed communication of poetry when I read Seth Godin’s
blog post on the future of media. It’s like a mystical parable, maybe even a zen koan, in that grasping all that it teaches will change your outlook on a lot of things.

Seth Godin’s core messages are contained in this post: find what captivates you, explore it and share it with the world, and your tribe of like-minded and like-hearted people will gravitate to you and provide you with opportunities to receive their gratitude as payment.

There’s also this other lesson we solo entrepreneurs need to catch. Print media is withering, especially if it’s not published daily. It will be replaced by timely digital publications sent to smaller, more narrowly targeted audiences. Heard that for a while, right? But read Seth’s post carefully. Then think about what you’ve heard about having an e-mail newsletter or a blog to build your business. I think as this new paradigm of digital media takes over, our blogs and newsletters are likely to wither, too.

Audiences will be getting compelling, detailed information from sources who immerse themselves in exploring, understanding, and explaining a topic. “5 Quick Tips” won’t be compelling to that sort of audience. It will work to capture the attention of the newbies joining the tribe, and they might sign up to learn more. But in order to keep the tribe’s attention we’re going to have to provide much better content. I’m betting the format of a personal note, a soft content article, and two or three sales messages won’t work in the coming years.

How will you adapt?