Free.
Earlier today, Seth Godin wrote a post on the Domino Project's blog about some news surrounding the project's next release. For a limited time (due to sponsorship by GE) the book is going to be available for free. I hope that the Domino Project team releases some numbers about how many people rushed to order the free version of the book... but it will be equally interesting to see how many people order the paid version as well.
If you find something you genuinely love doing, why not turn it into an art and give it away for free? This is what Seth Godin does everyday with his blog. If someone spent some time assembling all Seth's blog posts over just the past year into a single book (categorized by topic)... I would imagine that book would sell for a lot of money; however, if you were already subscribed to his blog... you would have got all of that goodness for free.
If you're a brand manager... think of something that your consumers would be more than willing to pay for... and instead offer it for free. I know it seems to defy probably every sound business principle, especially within a public company but if you can take the risk then why not try it. If you're an entrepreneur trying to make a name of yourself, why not start by offering something of value... for free. I'll leave you with two examples of folks who are heroes of mine and who have built their respective empires by offering value for free: Gary Vaynerchuk and Leo Laporte.
