Seth Godin keynoted the #Inbound13 conference in Boston this morning, serving up his usual bounty of great quotes. Godin’s overarching point: We are moving from the age of mass to the age of connection. Organizations must connect with their constituents individually or they’ll be ignored. A person’s value is defined by his or her platform, which is a function of connections.

Quotes are more or less word-for-word. Unquoted comments are paraphrased.

• “We get so hung up on what we’re good at that we forget to ask what we should do next.”
• “For 100 years our economy has been based on idea that we can swap people out interchangeably.” This promotes mediocrity.
• “More people are listening to music today than ever before but the recording industry is toast. That’s revolution”
• “Mass media appeals to the masses and that means average. TV was invented to sell ads to masses. Products advertised on TV are by definition mediocre.”
• “A typical supermarket has 30,000 items with 17,000 new ones arriving every year. Do consumers want more marketing?”
• The Internet shifts markets from normal to extreme because enthusiasts can find each other and drive each other to greater extremes.
• The great new ideas come from people working at the extreme outer edges, not the normal middle
• We’re leaving the industrial economy and entering the connection economy. Mass won’t work any more.
• “Be careful with a race to the bottom because because you might win.”
• Generosity will be essential to marketing because no one wants to connect with a selfish person.
• “If people aren’t complaining when your e-mail doesn’t show up, you don’t really have their permission to e-mail them.”
• “Be the one people can’t live without, the one that delivers something unique. That’s why TripAdvisor is worth more than American Airlines, which is basically a bus company.”
• “The guy who invented ships also invented shipwrecks.”
• We want to be in synch with our tribe, but our tribe isn’t large any more. It’s others like us.
• Don’t try to invent a tribe. Show up to lead one that already exists.
• “The minute someone gives you instructions, you’re not doing art any more. You’re doing color-by-numbers.”
• “If your value is that you cost a nickel less than the other guys, you’re in a race to the bottom.”
• “If you believe failure is not an option, then neither is success.”
• “A meeting is a group of people waiting to see who foolishly will take responsibility for what happens next.”

Seth Godin on stage at #Inbound13 (photo by Joselin Mane via Twitter @JoselinMane)