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 you will overcome if you keep pushing. But maybe it's really a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better, no matter how hard you try.

Stop marketing at people! Turn your ideas into epidemics - ideaviruses - by helping your customers do the marketing for you. So says Info Age marketing guru Seth Godin.

Internet marketing pioneer Seth Godin says he wants to change the way almost everything is marketed today. Will you give him permission to show you the future? Listen to how you can turn strangers into friends and friends into customers with this groundbreaking new approach.

It's come to this. All the confusion and chaos and change and turmoil in our working lives have finally tipped the balance. We now need a new way of doing business. Best selling author Seth Godin leads the way, using Darwin's theory of evolution as a simple yet profound model.

What do Starbucks and JetBlue and KrispyKreme and Apple and DutchBoy and Kensington and Zespri and Hard Candy have that you don't? How do they continue to confound critics and achieve spectacular growth, leaving behind former tried-and true brands to gasp their last? Face it, the checklist of tired P's marketers have used for decades to get their product noticed - Pricing, Promotion, Publicity, to name a few - aren't working anymore.

Purple Cow taught marketers the value of standing out from the herd, which is how companies like Krispy Kreme and JetBlue made it big. But it left readers hungry for more: How do you actually think up new Purple Cows? And how do you get them adopted by risk-averse Brown Cow companies? Free Prize Inside delivers those answers and much more.

This month's edition of Soundview Executive Book Summaries contains condensed versions of two great business books: Hardball by George Stalk and Rob Lachenauer, and Free Prize Inside! by Seth Godin.

This month, we'll hear summaries of two great business books: Meatball Sundae, by Seth Godin, and The Talent Powered Organization, by Peter Cheese, Robert J. Thomas, and Elizabeth Craig.

This edition of Soundview Executive Book Summaries features condensed versions of two great business books: The Headcount Solution by N. Fredric Crandall and Marc J. Wallace Jr.; and Purple Cow by Seth Godin.

This month's lead article is "Betrayed! The Biggest Lie in Business: 'The Customer Is in Charge!'" In reality, customer service has become a tangle of telephones, email, Web sites, and people. Fast Company senior editor Charles Fishman has this eye-opening account of what's gone wrong. Also in this issue, Seth Godin's got the wedding-day blues, a report on Prairie Inet, transforming the entrepreneur's dream into reality, and more.