Seth Godin on the Tribes We Lead

You may have heard about Seth Godin’s concept of tribes. Well, here is a video from the TED conference that lays it all out:

As we move on from the mass marketing epoch of history, we move into an epoch where there will be many tribes, organized around different interests, that will be looking for leaders and ideas that they believe in and actually want to promote.

When you are looking to affect change – Can you find the heretics? – The people who are not “sheepwalkers” (half asleep and following along) that will help to lead a movement

The flow of the tribe methodology boils down to:

1. Telling a story to people who want to hear it
2. Connecting a tribe
3. Leading a movement
4. Making change

Properly pulled together, you will be left with a product or service that has a story to tell. A story that the consumers of that product or service will love to tell for you.

How to Change Everything

When looking to affect change you must ask these three questions:

1. Who are you upsetting?
   (If you’re not upsetting anyone, you’re not changing the status quo)
2. Who are you connecting?
   (A lot of people are only in it for the connections)
3. Who are you leading?
   (Without a clear focus on this, change won’t come)

Tribal leaders CHALLENGE the status quo, they build a CULTURE (defining who’s in or out), they have CURIOSITY, they CONNECT people, they have CHARISMA (this comes from being a leader), and they COMMIT to the cause.

So, what do you think?

Braden Kelley (@innovate on Twitter)