Continuing with Godin:
“What we have to think about is: Is it your opportunity?”
Slide of Adam Smith up there now. Talking about the pin factory. I don’t think Godin likes Adam Smith (standardization).
“The person who owns the factory makes the decisions. But now, the means of production is no longer a factory, but a laptop. The thing that lets you connect with anyone in the world. The thing that gives you what every ad agency has. And guess who owns it? The worker. Anyone who has a white collar job has their hands on the world. And you can chose to do something with it if you want to.”
“Is this the end of the job? There is something after the job: being an artist.”
“Don’t just do your job. Make a comment.”
“The receptionist — the one you fired to replace with a voicemail system — she was an artist, because she responded like a human.”
Talks about these artists that create paintings in a village in Europe. That’s art. The people who mass produce a painting by Picasso or such, not artists. Just reproducing, copying.
Culture of compliance: doing something just because boss tells you. In these cases, most people just do the minimum.
Henry Ford: Changed everything in the 20th century because figured out that mass production created productivity. But it was a culture of just having to do what you were told. Faster you went, more money made. Factory mindset is just keep the line moving. Managers and leaders are different. Mangers: Do what they did yesterday, and try to get their people doing it a bit faster. This system of “following the rules” has infected our spiritual organizations as well. The notion of interchangable parts leads to a culture of interchangable people. We create a culture of fitting in, because that’s what makes the factory work. And then you are ignored. Leaders are different.
You have a chance in this post-industrial age to do it differently.
We tend to say to this: “OK, what’s the map.” Wrong question. There isn’t one. “If I could tell you how to do it, it wouldn’t be art anymore.”
Competence is no longer scarce. It is thus no longer sufficient to get a job. You need to be an artist: take initiative. Don’t just comply. Be engaged. Do what matters to you, and be remarkable in it.