Triiibes - An Opinion

Paul and I write a lot about Seth Godin. When I first started to get interested in digital advertising and the new world, his blog and books were the best resources I could find. He is, unequivocally, the owner of the top marketing blog in the world and has been a continual source of innovative ideas within business and marketing.

Through reading Godin's blog, I found an interesting post in the spring. If you pre-ordered his new book, you would receive an invitation into an exclusive social network called Triiibes. I wanted to see what it was all about so I pre-ordered and sure enough, received my invitation.

With about 2,500 members, Triiibes (the network) is an interesting place. It's full of marketers, entrepreneurs and people who just want to share ideas. It's also full of people who are trying to spread their own messages - about their consulting businesses, blogs, new marketing theories or books. I spent about 4 weeks on the site and got a bit tired of some of the conversations about how we could change the world by creating this website or that one.

Still, it was an interesting tactic and a great way to sell a book for Godin followers like myself. After reading tribes in an afternoon (it's about 140 pages in a huge font), I have a few thoughts:

- The concept of leading a Tribe is not new. People lead organizations, charity groups, teams everyday. The main idea in this book is that leaders don't have to come from working their way up through a corporate framework, they can come from anywhere as long as they are passionate for their idea and followers.

- A couple of choice quotes:

• "The end result is that many people spend all day trying to defend what they do, trying to sell what they've always sold, and trying to prevent their organizations from being devoured by the forces of the new...Defending mediocrity is exhausting"
• "In unstable times, growth comes from leaders who create change and engage their organizations, instead of from managers who push their employees to do more for less"
• "Life's too short" is repeated often enough to be a cliche but this time it's true. You don't have enough time to be both unhappy and mediocre. It's not just pointless, it's painful. Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, may you ought to set up a life you don't need to escape from"

- Godin does a good job inspiring his readers to feel good about taking risks and making changes. He doesn't provide you with a framework to do so but does cite examples of people who have taken a shot and succeeded (or failed many times and kept trying until they win)

Overall, I'd recommend tribes mainly because every Web 2.0 blogger and ad person will probably read it. It's a good, easy read and although it might not make you write a Jerry Maguire-type memo, it will give you some good things to think about.