Passion

“Passion …is always fast-moving, and if you have something extraordinary and there’s a cadre of believers, the passionate will find you.” Written by Seth Godin, I read this just a day after our Multicultural Publishers’ Networking event (see below); passion was certainly a recurring theme this week.

A few days ago, Seth “threw” an interesting curve at his readers … one that has since gained a lot of attention and commentary in the blogosphere. He calls it the Passion/Pop Curve: “niche” markets occupy the “Passion” arena and “mainstream” markets are in the “Pop” arena. So, do you target customers who are passionate about your product, or instead go after a more popular market? Do you choose one curve or target both? (Seth suggests it really should come down to a choice … if you try going after both, it doesn’t really work; and further, if you “obsess about doing the thing you are great at and let the mediocre stuff go, you’ll do far better.”)

Needless to say, Seth’s take on passion resonates all the more in light of our recent Multicultural Publishers’ Networking event on Tuesday evening. A truly wonderful night of community, of warmth and great conversations. The evening’s festivities, terrifically emceed by DMS Director Joe March, afforded the opportunity for many of us to talk a little about our individual roles within DMS. But perhaps more importantly, it allowed us to connect one-on-one with our partner publishers — many who spoke openly and genuinely, sharing their own passion and commitment to our common cause … to the value, viability and importance of Media for the New Mainstream.

The passion of the evening began, in earnest, with the opening address of our President & CEO, Lori Abittan. A genuine and empowering strength in numbers/call to action on how multicultural publishers can reach out to the widest Canadian audience and be recognized as an integral part of Canadian media.

• To download a copy of Lori’s remarks, please click here (Adobe Acrobat required).

Our heartfelt thanks go to the 50 publishers who supported and participated in this event … an empowered group who no longer want the status quo. It’s likely that over the coming weeks in future posts, I will reflect on this evening and provide more commentary… but due to the enthusiastic response to Lori’s remarks, I wanted to post them as soon as I could.

All in all, it was an exhilarating evening for us, full of passion and promise for the journey ahead.