Book Review: Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel

*I should’ve wrote this at the end of last month, but I forgot. So here is the periodic book review of this month’s best-seller:

I don’t know about you, but I feel that in today’s world success is determined largely by your marketing skills. Based on personal development books I’ve read, it seems the techniques written in these books are to help you better sell and promote your products. Either that, or most you learn about growing as a person and achieving happiness is heavily correlated to your success in business and your marketing.

It’s a shame, but I think that’s what our world is currently focused on: success as measured by material wealth. Personal development books are actually business books, only in a watered down and motivational language (even the spiritual ones aim to help you be better at business). So it becomes inevitable that in order to learn about self development, we need to read a business book or two.

Enter Six Pixels of Separation, a best-selling book on digital marketing by Mitch Joel [1]. Mitch is a leading marketing blogger, and you can read the daily version of the book in his blog by the same name. Now you might think “Why buy the book, when I can get the ideas for free in the blog?”, and I’ve thought about this also but I’ve found out the advantage of reading the book: it gives you context for the ideas, not just a semi-random sequence of them.

New media

Mitch talks about the current trends in digital marketing. We’ve heard the term Web 2.0, social media, and other marketing jargons often said, but do we truly know what they mean, what they function, and how we can use these new gadgets to achieve our success (again, measured by material wealth)? The underlying premise in Six Pixels of Separation is that everybody is connected, now that we are active citizens of the online world; therefore we should use the channels to get and stay connected.

The idea that intrigues me the most from all the ideas in his book is about mobile content or marketing. As a musician, I can’t abandon the trends of how the market consumes content, mainly entertainment content. Mitch’s chapter about mobile marketing states that this is still nascent, still a very early stage, and there’s much room for progress and innovation to be made.

Interesting, because in Indonesia, mobile content is a big if not the biggest content business. For music, the sale and purchase of CD’s is not the bread and butter of musicians; instead it’s the sale and purchase of Ring Back Tones (or RBT’s) that are the main meat for musicians seeking a living through their music (and a highly regarded musician friend of mine says that the Indonesian market for RBT’s is the biggest in the world). So, the trend in mobile marketing and mobile content usage is very important for those who plan to make a living being a creative person (one who creates digitize-able content).

Not-so-new media

There are a few ideas that I challenge in the book. One is when Mitch says that things are changing faster than ever before (I’m sure he says this somewhere, but I’m not sure which page – but I remember thinking about it when I was reading it). Why do I challenge the idea? Because, as according to the one universe theory, I believe that the challenges we face are not more difficult or sophisticated or complex than what the communities and societies faced before us. Change has always happened, and it’s always happening fast; it’s always abrupt, yet always needed as part of the natural growth of society. Saying that we have it tougher than they did is an overestimation of our culture and an underestimation of previous cultures.

The market place has always been there since the dawn of man kind. Humans are not stupid, and if we say that the generation before us are stupid for, say, saying the earth is flat or not acknowledging the rights of women, then the generation after us will also say we’re stupid for, say, introducing global warming and the interest-based economy. Yet we think we are part of such a sophisticated people (more on this in next book’s review).

Six Pixels of Separation merely brings again a principle that has always been with us (and as according to the theory of reincarnation, every generation needs to be re-introduced to these same principles): success is helped by being an active member of the community. It is in the community we make a living, and since the community today is a vibrant online mash-up of various cultures and historical backgrounds, having an open mind, big heart, and great sense of humor to explore these waters is a huge huge must if we expect to survive and succeed. Six Pixels of Separation helps us to navigate through these relatively uncharted waters.

—

*Today’s featured music: ethereal female vocals meets steel acoustic rock guitar meets drum and bass beats with a dash of goth: (via @dubber)

[1] Learn more about Mitch Joel and his business, blog, and book in the official SPOS site

Tagged as:  community · creativity · network