I am a marketing person and outside of reading about politics I read even more about my industry. This video is everywhere. Everywhere cause it goes to the core of what Seth Godin outlines in his new book, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us. Seth, for those of you not in my field, is like the Markos for us marketing folks. A visionary. Says and writes about things nobody else will even touch. And he is also almost always right.
I beg you to watch this video. It starts slow and then builds. At around the 1:15 point it gets out of control. It is worth your time, trust me.
Now I think it is safe to say I am a huge fan of Seth Godin. As a marketing person I read anything and everything he writes. I wouldn't attempt to explain or say he has a core thesis across his dozen or so books. But his last few have focused (at least to me) on the fact that humans, through thousands of years of evolution, have some things hardwired into our DNA. His last book said that marketers need to tell stories. Not write jargon filled copy.
He argues there is a reason 10,000 years ago when humans were living in caves we felt the need to paint on the walls the story of a successful hunt. It is wired into our DNA. We like to hear and to tell stories. So if you are trying to sell a product telling a story about the product is far better than a list of features and benefits.
In his current book he uses the phrase "tribes" to discuss social networking. Social networks are nothing new he argues, we all want to feel a part of something, technology has just allowed for the first time "tribes" of similar interest to connect across distant space.
This video is from a huge music festival. One guy, maybe a few too many adult beverages dancing by himself. Then around the one minute mark another joins. Then a third. From there you just have to watch for yourself to believe what happens! I will let Seth explain how this relates to the social networking crazy:
That's when guy #3 joins the group. Before him, it was just a crazy dancing guy and then maybe one other crazy guy. But it's guy #3 who made it a movement.
Initiators are rare indeed, but it's scary to be the leader. Guy #3 is rare too, but it's a lot less scary and just as important. Guy #49 is irrelevant. No bravery points for being part of the mob.
We need more guy #3s.
Now you might wonder, how does this relate to Daily Kos. Well ....
I've started a weekly series on marketing and the most often comment I get is "hey, as a marketing person please help educate us on how you influence us." This is how, I play to your base instincts.
Lets use an example here that folks can related to. How many times have you opened a Diary, read it, saw no comments and moved on. Watched it almost scroll off the page. Then maybe somebody with a well known user name leaves a comment. Then a second comment. And a Diary that had been around for 30 minutes and not gotten a single comment, gets a hundreds in a matter of minutes.
That is a tribe in action!