The Comcast Dip...

Thanks to a free offer by Seth Godin and some quick typing by yours truly, I received a copy of Seth's soon-to-be published next book, The Dip.

The basic idea...it's ok (even great) to quit. You just have to know when it's strategic quitting and when it's not.

His argument, your time is your most valuable resource and you need to apply it to the area where you can be "the best in the world." Otherwise, you are wasting your time and burning cycles.

It was a quick read (under an hour) and my wife is now in the middle of it. Best off, I consciously applied "the dip" to a situation I faced over the weekend.

Comcast had sent me a free digital converter box (they want me on the platform-paranoid of Verizon FIOS). I'm fairly technical. Set it up, called the activation number, was told to wait 45 minutes and I'd be good.

Went to bed. Next morning...no picture.

That evening, I tried again. Called tech support 3 times. No good.

Finally, I said, I've spent 59 minutes too long on this. I'm quitting. The tech is coming by to pick it up tomorrow.

Bottom line...I'm not that big of a TV watcher, a few extra channels won't do much for me. It wasn't as easy as it should be (nice to see that Microsoft isn't the only one with this problem), so I quit. My time is better spent on other pursuits (like blogging!) then messing around with TV.

The concept that Seth describes is not rocket science, but as usual, he frames it in a digestible way...and my favorite part, get his most rabid fans (those who read his blog) to be his evangelists to encourage others to buy.