We’re pleased and delighted with everyone who has managed to pledge their support for our May 24th even with Seth Godin. We continue to pull away from Phoenix and sincerely thank everyone who has taken the time to sign up.

However, we’ve been hearing that some people have been experiencing trouble with the PledgeBank system. Either:

• They sign up and wait for the confirmation email but it either doesn’t come or is extremely slow in getting to their inbox -or-
• The email does appear but it is routed to their junk email folder and they never see it

We would greatly appreciate patience as we try and work through these issues. Phil has contacted the administrators of PledgeBank to see how we can resolve the problems. In the meantime if you or your associates sign up please be aware that it may take awhile to get the confirmation email - and remember to check your junk mail!

Has anybody experienced this first hand? Are there other issues that we need to be aware of?

I am pleased to announce that the business professionals along the Wasatch have banded together and -as of yesterday- we’ve surpassed Phoenix! Considering the speed at which we’ve been able to mobilize and make people aware of our PledgeBank drive to bring Seth Godin to Utah that’s quite an accomplishment.

Paul, blogging over at MyMarketer.net has an insightful analysis of just how much the buzz is building.

However, we’re not there yet. While a huge thank you goes out to the 80 individuals who were quick to support this great event we certainly don’t want to hog Godin all for ourselves. If you have a friend, coworker, or boss who might benefit from an powerful speaker at the top of his game have them sign the pledge.

Seth will be talking about ‘The Dip’ that we all experience at some point:

The old saying is wrong-winners do quit, and quitters do win.

Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out exciting and fun. Then it gets harder and less fun, until it hits a low point-really hard, and not much fun at all.

And then you find yourself asking if the goal is even worth the hassle. Maybe you’re in a Dip-a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it’s really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.

What really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts.

Winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt-until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons. In fact, winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it.
…
I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I will teach you how to ask the right questions.

If that sounds beneficial pledge to join us May 24th.

We secured a venue today - we’ll be hosting Seth Godin on May 24th, 2007 at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City. We will only have enough room for 700 people, hopefully that will be enough!

Now that we have a venue, I’ll start working on a specific time with Seth. More to come soon.

The Seth Godin Tour seems to be getting a lot of traction/notice all around the country!  In addition to all the buzz, excitement and blog posts we’ve generated here in Utah, several other states are involved in an effort to bring Seth there.  Here’s a quick run-down:

• Salt Lake City, UT - we’re currently at 64  
•  Ann Arbor, Michigan - it appears they’ve closed all the sponsors they need, Congrats Ann-Arbor!!!
• Phoenix AZ - The originator of the Pledgebank method - they currently have 72 people signed up, GO PHOENIX!
• Pittsburgh - not sure if they’ve started or are having problems, only one signup so far.
• Boston - same problem, except they don’t have anyone signed up.
• New York, Chicago and Philadelphia are all confirmed by Seth, no sites that I can find.
• Seth also plugs a potential setup in Silicon Valley on his blog

That’s all I can find as far as cities that are working for or have scheduled Seth on his May tour.  Please let me know if you find somewhere else. 

 We’ve obviously got a lot of work still to do!  If you’ve already signed up, go talk to your co-workers and see if they want to go, otherwise sign up here.

As I mentioned in a previous post those working to bring Seth Godin to the Wasatch Front are doing a tremendous job. We originally intended to set up a separate page to chronicle the seeding of a blog storm. However, a quick search on Technorati shows that manually updating a separate page is becoming impractical. Thank you and kudos to all those who have helped spread the word!

However, it would be a shame to see all this wonderful support fall short. To help continue to spread the word we’ve created a set of blog badges. Hopefully they’re fetching enough to grab some attention and pleasing enough to be placed on your blog/website/MySpace page. Simple copy the provided code and paste it where appropriate and then leave your site in the comments! We’d just love to know where these badges end up next!

Got Godin? - tea
<a href = “http://www.pledgebank.com/SethGodinUtah” > <img src = “http://wordmob.com/wp-content/gotgodin-tea.jpg” style = “border:0px;” alt = “I helped bring Seth Godin to UT through Wordmob.com. Did you?” title = “I helped bring Seth Godin to UT through Wordmob.com. Did you?” height = “180″ width = “120″ /></a>

Got Godin? - wine
<a href = “http://www.pledgebank.com/SethGodinUtah” > <img src = “http://wordmob.com/wp-content/gotgodin-wine.jpg” style = “border:0px;” alt = “I helped bring Seth Godin to UT through Wordmob.com. Did you?” title = “I helped bring Seth Godin to UT through Wordmob.com. Did you?” height = “180″ width = “120″ /></a>

Got Godin? - newsprint
<a href = “http://www.pledgebank.com/SethGodinUtah” > <img src = “http://wordmob.com/wp-content/gotgodin-newsprint.jpg” style = “border:0px;” alt = “I helped bring Seth Godin to UT through Wordmob.com. Did you?” title = “I helped bring Seth Godin to UT through Wordmob.com. Did you?” height = “180″ width = “120″ /></a>

The WordMob street team has been doing a fantastic job courting some of the finest Utah business for sponsorships. The first sponsor, Twelve Horses, even threw out a bold challenge for their Wasatch Front contemporaries. It’s all tremendous work. But while that continues something just as fascinating is happening with every individual pledging on PledgeBank.com.

The idea for using PledgeBank for the May 24th Seth Godin event came from a Phoenix, AZ effort. Their campaign started on April 4th and has just crossed 70 individuals. In less than two days the Utah metro area has already enlisted 51 people - and we’re just getting started. Can we surpass the Phoenix total? There are more than 2 million possible Wasatch Front reasons why we could.

Places like New York and Silicon Valley are often looked to as standard-bearers for business community. There’s no reason, however, that Utah’s best and brightest don’t deserve the same world class speakers as those on the coasts. You may not be in command of a marketing budget. You may not wield the weight of corporate coffers. But you can still help bring Seth Godin to Utah. Sign the pledge, tell five friends, and lets plant a flag for something great in the Intermountain West.

If he’s willing, and if everything works out, Seth will get to shave at least 3 heads of the members of the street teams.

For a $2,500.00 corporate sponsorship, the Seth or the sponsor will shave a head, adhere their logo on the head and the body will wear the sponsor’s TShirt while on stage for the event!

Read more about it on Ash and Phil’s blog - here and here.

Twelve Horses, an interactive messaging and marketing company, has committed $2,000 to help bring Seth Godin to Utah. Steve Spencer, President of Twelve Horses stated, “I know that Wordmob, and the grass roots technology community here in Utah are making huge efforts to ensure that Utah has all of the exposure and opportunities of any other city. Twelve Horses not only fully supports and applauds this, but puts a call out to the rest of the business community. We cannot be passive in the exciting efforts that are happening right now in the valley. We are standing behind those who selflessly commit so many hours, and so much work to ensure that Utah can be a technology and information growth space. So please, join me in welcoming Seth Godin to Utah, and in helping us all learn from the knowledge and exposure he brings.”

We’re pushing hard to bring Seth Godin out on May 24th, 2007!

Anyone that is interested in attending, please pledge to pay $50.00 if we’re able to meet our goal of 500 people. Some people have asked why we’re doing it that way - the explanation is simple: if we’re unable to get 500 people (we truly believe there are way more people in Utah than that who would be interested in this) we’ll just be sad instead of trying to give 300 people their money back. So the main reason is simply to make it easy for us and you to do the financial side of this.

We’re working on building a blog storm to promote this event and encourage as many people as possible to sign up. It would be a great help if you could join the blog storm and simply write a blog post talking about bringing Seth Godin to Utah and linking them to this site - we’ll have continuous information coming here.

If you don’t know who Seth Godin is, (he’s a major diety among the marketing gods) he is/was:

• VP of Permission Marketing at Yahoo.com
• Founder of one of the first online companies, Yoyodyne (acquired by Yahoo)
• a contributing author to Fast Company
• Founder of squidoo.com (you know, the squidoo lenses)

He is also author of several books, including:

• The Big Red Fez
• eMarketing
• Permission Marketing
• Survival is not Enough
• Unleashing The Ideavirus - Detailing the idea of Viral marketing
• Purple Cow
• Free Prize Inside
• All Marketers Are Liars
• The Big Moo
• Small is the New Big
• The Dip

So, have you heard of Seth’s work?
You can read more about Seth here.