Notes of Seth Godin from his presentation "Tribes"
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3 People tell me that they and their organizations want more. More traffic, more sales,
more profits, more applications, more more more.
4 Joel Spolsky runs a small software company in New York City. His real passion,
though, is talking about how to run a small software company. Through blogs and books
and conferences, Joel has completely changed the way many smart people think about
finding, hiring and managing programmers. Along the way, Joel has assembled a large
and influential tribe of people who look to him for leadership.
5 Jacqueline Novogratz doesn‟t run the Acumen Fund. She leads the tribe there. She‟s
challenged the status quo for so long, and so effectively, her movement is gaining
steam, making a difference and establishing new rules.
6 Part 1
7 One way is to interrupt people with ads
8 the younger you start, the better
9 and endorsements don‟t hurt
10 even if sometimes juxtapositions get in the way
11 More used to come from television. Money spent on interrupting people with ads led
to more of what you wanted, and that made you more money, so you could do it again.
12 Like all good things, it spiraled.
13 Which led to ever more opportunities to interrupt
14 and ever more clutter
15 Of course, it‟s not just TV that got cluttered
16 So, the idea was to find people
17 And assault them with messages
18 At which point, you‟d create an irresistible force and close the sale
19 This insatiable thirst by marketers led us through a transformation, because the most
important thing is to find fresh attention, fresh markets, new people to sell stuff to
20 Here‟s the bad news. That doesn‟t work any more. The TV industrial complex is
dead.
21 No need to panic. It turns out that this is being replaced by something far better,
faster, cheaper and more powerful.
22 The past has been replaced by something different, and in many ways, something
more powerful, more organic and more profitable. The connections between people are
far more powerful than the assault of TV ads.
23 The question that people ask has changed. They don‟t worry so much about “what‟s
new” or “what‟s on sale?” They are curious about who else is involved.
24 And ultimately, once they get a sense for who‟s part of this group, they want to know
who the leader is. Where are we going and who is going to take us there.
25 Part 2
26 Hugh Macleod‟s cartoon explains where the real truth lies, where growth occurs
regardless of the state of the economy
27 People connect. They join groups. I call these groups Tribes.
28 Of course, we‟ve always had tribes. Mostly three: a church (one church per town!)
29 a job (one factory per town)
30 And a local tribe.
31 This is the old way. You target people. You hunt them down. You do marketing to
them.
32 This is the new way: Consumers market to each other.
33 Tribes matter. They always have. Now, though, they matter more.We've always had
a work tribe, a community tribe and a religious tribe. People may have opted out of one
or two, but these were the three prevailing modes of grouping up.IBM employees in
their white shirts and blue suits. Bürgermeisters and the king's court. Deacons and
choirboys... it was very natural for groups like this to exist and to connect and to
strengthen their organizations.Marketing was apart from this. It was a separate thing.
You marketed Tide or Frank Sinatra by targeting people, by telling stories, by
advertising. But it certainly was different from, say, a church or a town council
meeting.Mass media started the change and the internet finished it. Beatles fans were a
tribe, certainly, a tribe that mourned at their breakup and at John's death. The Grateful
Dead officially established that touring musicians could have a tribe that numbered in
the millions. And don't forget corporate tribes and international tribes as well.So
what?What does the existence of tribes as a fact of our society change? Deadheads or
juvenile diabetes parents or Nike collectors or civil war buffs... why does it matter that
people are self-organizing?Because most organizations and most marketers are
ignoring what's happening.If this shift is as seismic as I'm arguing, then why isn't it
changing what we make, how we make it, who we make it for, how we talk about it and
what we do all day?Quietly, almost secretly, tribes have been remaking our world.
Harley Davidson and Nike and Apple and yes the Mormon Church are all growing as a
result. Bill Richardson had no tribe, Barack Obama has 2 million paying members.But
before we can start down the path of strategy and tactics and investment, the question
has to be asked, "How important is it to you really?"Because if it's not vital, it's not going
to happen, at least for you. If it were easy and simple and obvious, you'd already be
leading a vibrant tribe. But it's now clear that (except for the random exceptions) tribes
are built, built with leadership and insight and love. We need to start by embracing the
phenomenon and deciding whether it's worth the effort.I think it is.
34. The red hat ladies have spread around the world, showing up in local cultures andn
places you never would have expected.
35. How do we explain tens of thousands of people doing triathalons every year?
36. Only one person is going to win the race, and the prize is small anyway... but of
course, that‟s not the point. These guys don‟t even LIKE swimming. They like the tribe,
the self-identification, the spirit of shared competition.
37 Some tribes, of course, are more rigid and carefully led than others.
Photo by Steve Webel
38 It‟s not an accident that soldiers wear uniforms.
39 This is a primal human need, but as the internet has joined together previously
fragmented groups, we‟re seeing that everyone from Ukrainian folk dancers to...
40 ...devout fundamentalist Hasidic Jews are sharing their connections more widely.
Ironically, the connections are getting deeper as we integrate across the planet,
because we can find each other.
41 The rodeo is a central gathering for one tribe.
42 While Rodeo (drive) is the gathering point for another.
43 Cars are nothing but badges for tribe members
44 Some of these tribes are based on modern versions of ancient archetypes.
45 Some are just based on ancient archetypes
46 But others can be as recent as a classic movie. Is this valuable to MGM, owner of
the rights to the movie? Does the existence of a tribe around something you own
change things? It‟s more than a chance to sell some cheap costumes.
47 This is a fascinating exercise because every single group figures it out. We like to do
what other people are doing!
48 People express their tribal connections in very public ways when they choose to. It‟s
a way of keeping outsiders out and insiders in (and in growing your tribe by finding the
fellow travelers more easily).
49 In fiction, we seek out tribes of people, and ...
50 In real life we emulate them. It engages us more deeply in our week and gives us a
sense of mission and accomplishment. (photo by interplast).
51 We don‟t actually need the floor of the stock exchange any more (the NASDAQ
doesn‟t even have one). But the place and bustle and the smocks and the nature of the
event... it bonds this tribe to this mission.
52 And chefs don‟t need to wear white.
53 And why, exactly, do sailors need to dress this way?
54 You might wear flowers on your head...
55 Or a mitre... not to keep your head warm, but to speak to your tribe.
56 To show your membership.
57 So, how did this happen? How did a guy end up with a long orange mohawk, and
what will this girl say to her parents when they find out?
58 This is a human need that transcends race or gender or nationality.
59 And yes, there‟s a competitive outdoor ironing tribe.
60 They travel the world, ironing.
61 Though it‟s not clear where they find a wall outlet.
62 It impacts us at work as well as at home. (Just fyi, this is a practice burn, no valuable
property or people were damaged.)
63 Out of nowhere, Roller Derby has become a huge sport... but just for women
64 Non professionals who do it to join a tribe
65 This is important. No, it‟s not important, it‟s urgent. If your goal is more, it‟s essential
to understand that instead of watching TV, these women are choosing to play Roller
Derby.
66 The Shriners are a long-lived tribe, one that combines good deeds with astonishing
gravity-defying bicycling skills.
67 And the internet, of course, has become a hotbed of tribes. Not just offline tribes
connected online, but geek tribes that live and thrive where none used to be previously.
(This is Chris Pirillo‟s tribe: http://chris.pirillo.com/)
68 The important thing to understand is that no new tribe is normal. No one joins a
nascent tribe because it‟s average. Ever. These guys don‟t do this because they want to
fit in. They do it to stand out (together).
69 Sports teams, of course, are not about the players (who change) but about the fans
(who don‟t)
70 It‟s not an accident that taxpayers are spending almost a billion dollars just on
baseball stadiums, just in NY this year alone (photo by John_from_CT)
71 Not all tribes are fun, or games, or even voluntary. We join them to survive. But isn‟t
it interesting that we stick with them longer than we need to.
72 When your work and your family and your community all define you, leaving the tribe
isn‟t an economic decision, it‟s bigger than that.
73 And it has nothing to do with how much money you make.
74 Okay, time for a definition. There‟s a difference between a crowd, a mob and a tribe.
A crowd is a group of people. A mob is an angry crowd. And a tribe is a self-selected
group of people, often with a leader, usually with a purpose, always with a way of
connecting and identifying with each other, a set of norms, insiders and outsiders.
75 Pirates were a tribe. You knew a pirate when you saw him, and you were either a
pirate or not a pirate. They had their own dialect and code and even a flag.
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78 This crowd at a Harry Houdini performance was just a crowd. They might all be
wearing hats, but they had little in common and tomorrow they‟d be back to being
strangers.
79 These country music fans, on the other hand, are a tribe. They share insider status,
they are connected by values and clothing and proximity to the stage.
80 Hats and costumes are a giveway that you‟re in the presence of a tribe, but as Apple
has shown us, they‟re not always required. (The shoes are a giveaway).
81 Where you are determines if you‟re an insider or an outsider, of course. In Seattle,
the guy on the right would be giving the look, not getting it.
82 Some tribes are shallow and silly, with weak links and a wry sense of humor.
83 While others run blood deep.
84 Warning to eager beaver marketers everywhere: A traffic jam is not a tribe. You don‟t
DESERVE a tribe and you don‟t BUY a tribe. You earn one.
85 Part 3
86 Unscientific chart with very specific dots on it... showing that as the size and quality
of tribal connection increases, the value of the brand increases dramatically.
87 The reason tribes are interesting: leverage. Tribes give a leader of any kind, in any
situation, the leverage to make change.
88 Take a look at Obama‟s fundraising results to date. This isn‟t big donor money from
working an existing network. This is the direct result of creating a tribe.
89 Forty years ago, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead made some decisions that
changed the music industry forever. You might not be in the music business and you
may never have been to a Dead concert, but the impact the Dead made impacts almost
every industry, including yours.
In addition to grossing more than a few hundred million dollars during their career, the
Dead helped us understand how tribes work. They didn‟t succeed by selling records
(they only had one top 40 album). Instead, they succeeded by attracting and leading a
tribe.
90 Piano World has more than a million posts so far. No one is really in charge, the tribe
patrols, controls and invents. One example: local piano parties.
91 Mich Mathews is the SVP of Microsoft's Central Marketing Group. Bill Gates and
Steve Ballmer have relied on her to market Microsoft for about a decade.You‟ve never
heard of Mich. She‟s not a pundit or a touring personality. Instead, she leads a tribe of
thousands of people inside of Microsoft who create and shape Micosoft‟s marketing.
The tribe listens to Mich, they respect her and they follow her. A hard-earned privilege
and a valuable responsibility.
92 Bo Taylor was a gangbanger for most of his life. He was a leader of the Crips and
destined to follow that tribe to jail and the grave. After the LA riots, he realized that his
tribe was making his world worse, not better.
93 Until his death in 2008, Taylor devoted every waking minute to undoing the tribal
tension between the crips and the bloods, working to help these vibrant and powerful
tribemembers understand that they had a different option.
94 Megan Casey organizes and leads a tribe at squidoo.com. Her day is filled with
nothing but that... creating a platform where people choose to show up, choose to
contribute and choose to connect. Very few organizations have the guts to devote
resources to this sort of work.
95 Gary Vaynerchuk runs Wine Library TV (http://tv.winelibrary.com/), and he has a
tribe. Millions of people around the world (wait, think about that) turn to him to narrate
their passion for wine. He helps them discover new wines and better understand the
wines they love. But Gary doesn‟t market to this audience, and he doesn‟t manage
them, either. He leads a tribe, instead. It‟s an act of generosity and the fuel for a
movement, not a marketing stunt. He doesn‟t push, he leads.
96 Kiva vs. United Way. United Way is a great cause, focused on getting people to send
money to their network of charities. Kiva is a great cause, focused on connecting tribes,
focused on building movements. Which one is likely to grow?
97 Part 4
98 The model (for a million years) was the factory. Factories that churn out stuff that we
need to get people to buy.
99 As we‟ve discussed before, though, the factory model is sort of broken
100 This is difficult for a lot of organizations and marketers. It‟s difficult because it
means it‟s hard to be king.
101 Kings use arrows. They hunt people down in search of control. A king without
control is no king. Photo by etohaholic.
102 Six degrees is real (in fact, recent research says it might be three degrees now) but
it‟s not what a Tribe is. Tribe is not about “friending,” it‟s about something far far deeper
than that.
103 Movements are what happens when a tribe grows, when the idea spreads, when it
engulfs the status quo.
104 You‟re not guaranteed a tribe. Tide laundry detergent doesn‟t have one. Why
should it!
105 Whole Foods thought they had a tribe, but they didn‟t. They had a market of people
with similar interestes and goals. Instead of connecting them and leading them, all they
did was sell them stuff. And then they grew, grew to the point where it wasn‟t even a
crowd any more. Just customers to make money from.
106 It‟s worth stopping right here and recapping where we are so far. TV is broken.
Interruption is broken. But that‟s okay, because tribes are better anyway. Faster, longer
lasting, bigger, more powerful. BUT they are not free. They do not just happen. They
cannot be taken for granted.
107 Part 5
108 The Mormon church is the fastest growing in our history because they‟re organized
themselves around building their tribe. It turns out, though, that the door to door
prosyletizing isn‟t nearly as effective as creating tribes that grow.
109 Garr Reynolds is an author. He wrote one of the 250,000 books published last year.
So how did his become a bestseller? I‟m a fan and I don‟t even know what Garr looks
like. It‟s not about author as celebrity, it‟s about idea as connector.
110 Or consider the case of Avinash Kaushik. His book on Google Analytics might not
sound scintillating, but it is one of the fastest selling books of the year.
111 Avinash accomplished this by building a tribe, a worldwide tribe of computer geeks
and marketers who connected with him and with each other. His idea, so clearly
presented, stands for something. And his generosity translates into reciprocity and
attention. If an author can do this with no $$ and a simple idea, what can you
accomplish?
112 The “m dot” is the official IronMan triathalon brand. Buying a slot for the Hawaii race
will cost you $40,000 at auction. People get the logo tattooed on their legs. Are people
tattooing your logo on their legs?
113 Remember the famous Groucho Marx line? “I don‟t want to belong to any group
that would have me as a member...” Well, now, many tribes are saying, “I don‟t want to
belong to any group that would have YOU as a member.” There‟s a new kind of tension
going on, as groups simultaneously get bigger and more exclusive. I call it the reverse
groucho.
photo by Christoph Marquardt.
114 One option is to make your tribe tighter.
115The Hare Krishas work hard to tighten the tribe. Defining dress and diet and lifestyle
makes it more likely that the tribe is committed. At the same time, it creates a huge
hurdle for someone to join the tribe.
116 Another option is to make your tribe bigger.
117 Oprah, on the other hand, makes it really easy to join her tribe. Just turn on the TV
or buy a book she recommends.
118 Every tribe leaders has to think about issues of exclusion and inclusion.
119 When you say YOU can‟t join and YOU can‟t join and YOU can‟t join, then...
120 You can delete that member because you don‟t approve of their politics.
121And you can ignore that subgroup because of their background
122 And you can decide that this part of the audience just isn‟t smart enough
123 This gets you a small, tight tribe, homogenous and beyond criticism. But it might not
be what you want.
124 These are questions, not answers. But they are questions you haven‟t been asking
yourself.
125 Duran Duran markets the old way. DOWN. Compare that to the Grateful Dead,
which sells more records, even though they disbanded years ago.
126 Tribes amplify your efforts. The Red Sox can‟t increase profits in the stadium, so
now they spend their time and money increasing loyalty among the Red Sox nation.
127 Would someone tattoo the name of your charity on the back of their head?
128 Of course, not all the dots connect. What‟s actually happening is that the yellow
dots talk to the other dots in the yellow tribe, ignoring the purple tribe altogether. What‟s
happened now is that you can join any tribe, more tribes, bigger tribes and smaller
tribes, and inter-tribal communication is almost instant.
129 Part 6
130 It‟s tempting to talk about the tactics, about the details of how you go about
orchestrating tribal behavior. It‟s also useless.
131 It‟s useless because the tactics that work for one tribe, the software or the posting
speed or the things you talk about--they just don‟t work for a different tribe.
132 Here‟s a wordle word map of my book Tribes. The thing that might surprise you is
that there are almost no copyable tactics in the book.
133 You can, for example, build statues for members of your tribe, celebrate them and
embrace them. But that‟s not really a rule.
134 It‟s not a rule because you could also start a tribe with no obvious public rituals, no
evangelical component and a core belief in sitting quietly and harming no one.
135 Al Gore tried in vain to find a tribe to get himself more than enough votes in 2000,
but failed...
136 But when he shifted gears, he found a natural tribe, a group that was just waiting for
him.
137 The climate project ran a school that trained thousands of people to give his
presentation around the country. People traveled thousands of miles to meet each other
and to be trained and certified, and now, years after the movie, continue to teach his
message everywhere. From Bob in Utah to Cameron Diaz...
138 Steve Jobs leads a tribe. Bill Gates just made software. Making software can make
you big, but it doesn‟t last--the market is ruthless. Tribes, on the other hand, push you
and stick with you and hate you and then forgive you.
139 And your tribe doesn‟t have to be about technology. Let‟s talk for a minute about
Crossfit.com and „coach‟ and the hundreds of thousands of tribemembers he leads
around the world.
140 Men and women of all ages follow these ridiculous workouts
141 Not in fancy gyms, but in garages or wherever they can gather.
142 Day and night
143 Until their hands bleed
144 And then they connect online, for reinforcement and bragging rights
145 Laura Fitton has built a profitable consulting company, while working from home
with her two kids. She did using nothing but Twitter. Now she has thousands of people
following her on Twitter, connecting to each other and building businesses around her
insights into social media. Think that makes it easier for her to find paying clients?
146 Jerry Sternin leveraged the work of Marian Zeitlin and saved tens of thousands of
children in Vietnam with a simple discovery. Amplify the natural leaders and tribes will
form. (photo: http://flickr.com/photos/dibdabdebi/354985778/sizes/o/in/photostream/)
147 Etsy has assembled a tribe. The people who buy and sell at Etsy don‟t do it
because they need another necklace. They do it because they belong to the tribe. Etsy
leads, Etsy establishes the platform, Etsy connects, Etsy then smartly gets out of the
way. Interesting note: lots of Etsy buyers are also Etsy sellers.
148 And you don‟t have to be online, of course. The Longaberger basket company (this
is actually their headquarters building) is organized around building and sustaining the
tribe. (photo by sleepingbear)
149 Kevin Kelly‟s concept of 1000 true fans is at the essence of what it means to build a
tribe. 1000 fans, people who will pay money, spread the word, show up when you need
them... that‟s all you need to be elected mayor, have a hit record or change the future of
your synagogue or restaurant.
150 Now, right now, I‟m going to start telling what actually works. How you can actually
build and grow a tribe. It‟s deceptively simple, but not easy.
151 Consider the Kindle, for example. It‟s just a product. It could have been far more,
because it has the power to connect tribes of readers, to build connections where none
used to be. Reading a book is primarily a solo activity, but the Kindle could have
transformed that into something done by a group.
152 of course it‟s horrible to be criticized, to be vilified, to have someone hate your
work. But if you‟re not worth criticizing, you‟re not worth paying attention to. No one joins
a tribe with a leader beloved by all, no one spends time on a movement that has nothing
to prove and nowhere to go.
153 Do you work in an organization bigger or more bureaucratic than the Defense
Department? Are you lower on the hierarchy than Thomas Barnett was? And yet, one
individual, at the bottom of the totem pole, hundreds of miles from the Pentagon, armed
only with a powerpoint, changed the entire organization.
154 Many marketers want everyone to be in their tribe. but you don‟t need everyone.
you don‟t even need most people.
155 Harry Chapin played the music business game very well. It was radio that made his
career. Songs that worked on radio spread on radio and reached people who had few
choices in what to listen to. When those songs resonated, he had a hit.
156 Harry‟s daughter, Jen Chapin, represents an entirely different way of thinking about
the music business. Today, music isn‟t about a top down, hit driven marketing effort.
Instead, great musicians lead tribes, connecting fans to one another and giving those
fans ideas or souvenirs or events that improve their lives.
157 What does Jimmy Buffett actually do for a living? He organizes a rolling party of
Parrotheads. The radio doesn‟t really care about Jimmy, and Jimmy doesn‟t care about
the radio.
158 Kristen Hersh offered $50 custom CDs to her tribe. No stores, no “marketing” no
hype. Just a $50 hand recorded and hand burned CD. She sold more than 100 (in
twenty minutes). Here‟s a riff from Kristen, “... For so many years, I begged
people in the music business to measure emotional impact rather than units sold. For
the most part, my argument fell on deaf ears, as that didn‟t appear to be a way to make
money. What they didn‟t appreciate was the potential revenue stream of an untapped
audience. Not just the music connoisseur who rejects trends, but regular people who
haven‟t been told that they won‟t “get” it. People like music...” It‟s worth noting that her
site also sells 6-pack bundles of her CDs. No better way to help tribemembers spread
the word. (Photo by jamesjosephimages.com).
159 Three ways to build a tribe: Find the lonely, connect the seekers or create a new
one where none existed.
160 One way to build a tribe is to connect people who think they are alone,
disconnected. Del Martin, a leading lesbian activist (that‟s her on the left) thought she
was the “only one”, the only person who felt the way she did. It wasn‟t until her twenties
that she even discovered that the word lesbian existed.
161 Fast Company grew like a rocket... not because they CREATED a tribe, but
because they gave a label and connection to a disconnected group that was eager to
find others.
162 It‟s important to understand that most tribes aren‟t CREATED by those that lead
them, they are merely organized around common threads that were already there.
When you lead people who want to be led, and connect people who want to be
connected, you win by serving.
163 However, sometimes you can invent a tribe. People who thought they had nothing
in common, but discover that they do share a connection (this is from an Obama rally).
164 Nike built a new tribe. Before Nike, there weren‟t millions of runners just waiting for
someone to raise a flag. No, Nike built it.
165 The Beatles didn‟t invent teenagers, they led them.
166 Hugo Chavez didn‟t invent the disaffected majority in Venezuela. He merely led
them.
167 Bob Marley didn‟t invent rastafarianism, but he gave the idea a face, he gave the
tribe someone to follow.
168 It‟s tempting to grow your tribe by making it open and welcoming
169 but in fact, making it difficult to get in (and easy to get thrown out) is often more
effective.
170 Leadership vs ControlThe statue of liberty isn‟t able to get off her pedestal and
make us do stuff. Yet the idea leads a tribe.
171 Nobody forms a tribe around mediocre. No one aligns themselves with others in
celebration of the ordinary. People who want to settle for good enough do it by
themselves, not in a group.
172 Tribes never (NEVER) organize around the center of the bell curve. If you go with
average, with the masses, with the typical, you don‟t earn a tribe.
173 Part 7
174 Martin Luther gave being a heretic a good name. All he wanted was Bibles for
everyone, in a language they could understand. He pushed for a faith he believed in,
and was punished by religious leaders in search of control.
175 The reason any of us have a chance to lead a tribe is that most everyone else is
sheepwalking
176 This is what a heretic looks like. Faith in the future of his country, contempt for the
organized “religion” of the government that gets in the way of that future.
177 Robyn Waters was a heretic with a vision, and an organization (Target) willing to
listen, at least for a while.
178 Jim Morrison was also a heretic.
179 They don‟t leave flowers at the graves of boring people. Jim Morrison didn‟t fit in.
He was arrested and criticized and ignored and eventually became a hero. Not to
everyone, but to his tribe, especially to his tribe.
180 The intersection of heretical thought, deep faith and obstruction from the status quo
(which is often called religion) is where tribes are built
181 I have no doubt that we share the same faith. We believe the world will get better,
that people deserve respect, that we are capable of great work, that hugging people
who dislike you is a terrific strategy. And I believe that we should challenge each other,
not settle, and leave the world a better place than we found it. On the other hand, it‟s
quite possible we have different religions.
182 When your dogma gets in the way of someone‟s karma, religion no long serves its
purpose. Photo by smeallum.
183 Your dogma ran over my karma
184 It‟s about control (photo by Chad Davis).
185 McDonald‟s has a religion, so does recreational boating. Religions are rules
invented by people to amplify faith. But somewhere along the way, most religions turns
into ways some people invent to gain power over others, primarily by enforcing the
status quo. McDonald‟s controls every element of their environment. That‟s the religion
of who they are and what you get.
186 The Amish are people of great faith. But they reinforce that faith with a large body
of rules, strictly enforced (their religion). Photo by Trey Ratcliff.
187 But the rules and the religion can be just as strict at a disco.
188 Consider the case of the music business. Their faith is that people love music, that
musicians need support and that smart producing and management can make a
difference. The religion was that all the money had to come from record sales and all
the attention from the radio. When the world changed, they clung to their religion
instead of embracing a new opportunity to amplify what they really believed in. Instead
of supporting the tribe, they sued the tribe.
189 Heretics are where movements come from. Heretics are the leaders who stand up
against the status quo and create change... which attracts followers.
190 in a balloon factory. Unicorns make the other workers nervous, because they sort of
like the quiet, steady, soft nature of work in the factory...
191 A heretic is like a unicorn...
192 When all you do is say no, establish boundaries and enforce the rules, you don‟t
leave any room for faith or passion or heretics.
193 So we make lots of rules, hopefully to keep people from doing stupid things
194 but heretics figure out which rules are worth ignoring
195
196 the easiest thing, by far, is the little no. The little no that tells you what not to try or
what‟s impossible or what‟s not worth it. Leaders understand that with not much more
effort than a hundred little no‟s, they can embrace a big yes instead.
197 Red Maxwell is a talented graphic designer, but he‟s also a parent concerned about
curing Juvenile Diabetes. He leads a vibrant and growing tribe of other parents,
spreading the word, giving support, raising money and helping people focus on a cure.
198 Jackson Pollock was a heretic. He broke rules, and did it with passion and with
faith. Faith in art, faith in creativity, faith in the people who would see his work.
199 Rob Bell is a heretic as well. He doesn‟t get 10,000 people to a church service
because he‟s a great marketer or has a cool sign or a clever newsletter. He does it
because there‟s a tribe of people he connects, who want to be connected, who want to
feel their faith and who won‟t let the status quo of that religion get in the way.
200 Meghan McDonald leads a tribe, but without yelling or giving big speeches or
intimidating anyone.
201 Martin Luther King was a community organizer. A heretic. A leader. And a brilliant
marketer.
202 The founding fathers were community organizers as well. They had no ability to
control, only to inspire.
203
204 Part 8
205 Here are seven characteristics that many leaders share.
206 These are my business cards. The back of each card has a picture on it... a picture
of a different member of my tribe. I don‟t sell books and then find new readers. What I
do is find new words for my existing readers. Who inspires you? Melanie Richeson
inspires me. She‟s a reader, a member of the triiibes forum and a wedding
photographer. When I write, I write for her (though we‟ve never met). A tighter tribe
teachers you how to market to individuals, not to the world.
207 And here are six things that the members of a tribe desperately want
208 Tribes make you smarter. They also help you do better work. A heretic with a tribe
accomplishes so much because the tribe keeps pushing her.
209 So, Starbucks blew it. They magically found a tribe, a previously disconnected tribe,
a tribe that was looking for a place and an identity. And instead of nurturing and
connecting this tribe, they merely chose to sell more coffee. What a shame. What could
Starbucks have done? They could have said, “How would 2 million people, well off
people, traveling people, connecting people, idea merchants... how could these 2 million
people benefit from 7,000 remote gathering places? How do we create a place that they
seek out, spend time and money and attention in?”
210 Twitter and Facebook and group meetings and newsletters are all TOOLS. Tools
matter, because tools impact the way you interact. You don‟t need to use every tool, but
every tool you use you must use well.
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212 Little Missmatch started as a goofy idea for mismatched socks, but transformed into
the uniform for a tribe.
213 Some twelve year olds love this stuff. And they quickly discover each other, and
when they do, they discover that they like each other. Another tribe is born.
214 “for” vs. “to”. Are you marketing things TO people, at them, are you targeting
markets and focusing on churn and product sales? Or do you spend your time doing
things FOR the tribe?
215 Nathan Winograd found a tribe of pet lovers just waiting to be organized, eager to
be connected. Year after year, millions of dogs and cats are murdered. But not by
Nathan. Not by his tribe. One city at a time, a movement is taking hold, and it‟s
changing a hundred-year old tradition that needed changing.
216 We have plenty of people on Earth. And lots of them are disconnected, or isolated,
or wanting more. We‟re all waiting to join another tribe, a better tribe, a tribe that will
make a difference. All that‟s missing is a heretic to lead that tribe. All that‟s missing, of
course, is... you.
217 The punchline is that the only way to lead a tribe is to lead it. And that means that
marketing is now about leadership, about challenging the status quo and about
connecting people who can actually make a difference. If you can't do that, don't launch
your site, your product, your non-profit or your career.
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