Seth Godin did a blogging seminar a few days ago. Zen Copy posted a series of tweets about it. Ryan Healy tweeted about the tweets. And now I'm going to blog about a few of them. Credit where credit is due.

The first tweet that caught my eye:

Coin a term or two - be the first so you can become known for it.

That's part of what I was aiming for when I posted about "Blog Riffing" a few weeks ago.

But there's another important reason for coining new terms--even new terms to describe old ideas (Blog Riffing isn't new, though the deliberate approach I described may be): they help the ideas spread. They give people a simple phrase that encapsulates a more complex idea. They keep discussion focused on an idea without the need to constantly remind people what's being discussed or keep them from drifting off to related topics.

In the last three weeks, that post has gotten more traffic than any other post on that blog in the last three months. If I'd written a post describing Blog Riffing, but hadn't given it a name, do you think the idea would have gotten as much attention? Not likely.

While we're on the subject of Blog Riffing, here are a few more things Seth spoke about:

Digest the good ideas of other people-all day, every day.

Yep, that's how you find good things to Riff on.

...give credit to those who inspired you.

That's a core tenet of Blog Riffing. There's a term for Blog Riffing without giving credit where credit is due -- it's called plagiarism.

Why people spread ideas: they feel smart when they alert people to new news
...
People spread ideas because their tribe needs to know about it.

Good reasons to Blog Riff.

Reader Comment:
Ryan Healy said:
Thanks for the link, Antone. I also plan to write a blog post about Seth Godin's tips. I thought a few of them were especially good.
(join the conversation below)

Ideas come from: lectures, books, bad ideas
...
Useful ideas come from being aware and alert enough to notice

When you read with the intention of finding things to Riff of, you tend to notice useful ideas more easily. Even bad ideas can inspire good ones, and incredibly bad ideas are often even better than mildly bad ideas.

But would Seth really approve of Blog Riffing? What about this?

Don't churn same stuff out - there is no cookie cutter here!

When you Riff on somebody else's post, aren't you just stamping their cookie cutter on your site?

Not if you're doing it right. A real Blog Riff always adds something to the discussion.

There's a lot more in Zen Copy's series of tweets, so I'll end by quoting Ryan Healy's tweet that pointed me there:

If you want notes from Seth Godin's blogging presentation, go to @zencopy and read her tweets from the bottom up. Awesome!