Seth Godin's Tribes

Shelley Mon, 10/27/2008 - 20:15

I hesitated before downloading the Kindle sample for Seth Godin's Tribes, because Godin's market-speak, manifesto-laden punditry doesn't have a lot of appeal to me. More than that, I wondered what Godin could say that wouldn't end up being a re-hash of the now dusty all is good in the commons genre that marked weblogging's earlier years—a philosophy challenged by the harsh reality of today's economy, when most of the commons is facing foreclosure.

Still, the point to trying a sample before buying the book isn't so that you can try a book by a favorite author. No, samples give us a chance to try out an unfamiliar author, or an author we may not have liked in the past—all in the hope of finding unexpected gold among the dross.

The samples experience for Tribes does not begin well. The cover material for the book and the publisher, including copyright information, and a two item TOC, takes almost half the sample. What this tells us is that the book is going to be very small for the sample to encompass so little. In addition, so much extraneous material puts that much more pressure on the author's writing, which now has to to sell the book in just a few pages.

Having waded through the preliminary, I reach the first sentence in the book:

JOEL SPOLSKY IS CHANGING THE WORLD.

Joel Spolsky is a well known author in the technology world, but if you had asked me to list all of the people in technology who I thought were changing the world, Spolsky would not be one of them. However, to Godin, Spolsky has changed the world because he has become a leader to people who hire and manage programmers— a tribe of people, to tie into Godin's book title.

What do tribes need, Godin asks? Leadership. He writes, You can't have a tribe without a leader—and you can't be a leader without a tribe. This seemingly circular thought then leads into the next chapter section, featuring none other than the Grateful Dead.

What, you might ask, do Joel Spolsky and the Grateful Dead have in common? According to Godin, they both attracted groups of like people, or the tribes that are the focus of the book. Tribes make our lives better. And leading a tribe is the best life of all. I imagine that Jerry would agree, but I'm not sure that the world of Dead heads can easily transition into other walks of life. Perhaps the key to the combined power of Spolsky and the Grateful Dead will be made apparent in the next section.

No such luck. The next extremely short section, following the proceeding two short sections, begins to detail yet another example of tribe leadership, but at that point, the sample ended. I was then left with one of life's greatest mysteries: Do I want to know more about why Joel Spolsky is like the Grateful Dead? More importantly, will my life be richer with this knowledge? My buy, not buy decision, after the fold.

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Shelley Sun, 10/26/2008 - 18:54

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Cages

Shelley Tue, 10/21/2008 - 21:47 
A free bird leaps on the back of the wind
and floats downstream till the current ends
and dips his wing in the orange suns rays and dares to 
claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage
can seldom see through his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his 
throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and 
he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so 
he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
of things unknown but longed for still
and his tune is heard on the distant hill
for the caged bird sings of freedom.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou