Power of Communities: Tribes not Cults

Denis Pombriant, a respected voice in CRM, feels Wisdom of Crowd is over hyped. Crowd wisdom is only as good as the crowd & can only tell what is known, not tell us something new. New information still requires research - experimentation, collecting data & analysing it. Don't miss watching this funny yet poignant Monty Python video clipping on YouTube as pointed by Denis in his blog post.



I agree with him of course. And that is why I ensure that never give up on research and also surround myself with people who are in research or are interested in them. Thats usually my Crowd - a collection of people.

The Crowd when it shares a common interest & communicates forms a Community. And the Community that has at least one passionate person leading it is a Tribe, says Seth Godin, the respected permission marketing guru.

Why the need for a Leader? Godin states that the Leader can help increase the effectiveness of the Tribe and its members by:

1. transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal & desire for change;
2. providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications; and
3. leveraging the Tribe to allow it to grow & gain new members.

Seth Godin further says that a Tribe communicates four ways:

1. Leader to Tribe
2. Tribe to Leader
3. Tribe member to tribe member
4. Tribe member to outsider

One point to ponder is that the 4th type of communication in the Tribe - to the outsider - if absent, it leads to Groupthink, wherein everybody discusses only agreeable stuff that conform to the existing notions of the community, with no differing points of view or debates. The extreme case of such a Community, relying heavily on groupthink, is a Cult.

How do you prevent your Tribe from becoming a Cult or yourself from getting stymied by groupthink?

• Join groups/communities/tribes that are completely different/opposite from what you believe. No need to agree, just understand their PoV.
• Include people in your groups/friends/following list who think differently & will not readily accept your views. The more diverse the people in your network are, the better off you are.
• Get into disagreements & friendly debates by posting opposing views in comments to blogs or responses to tweets. But be sure to remember & practice self-restraint*.

Hope I have been successful in alerting you to the difference between a Tribe & a Cult and you will ensure that your Community & yourself will not fall into the trap of groupthink?

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* The self-restraint manifesto I had written for our organization's internal blogs network (ch1blogs):

This is your blog & I will certainly comply to your requests if I intend to participate in the discussions out here.

If I feel they are not sensible or if I will not be able to comply to your request, I will ofcourse not get involved. And I do understand that if I do get involved & go against the grain, you still have the right to delete the comments, and will not make a hue & cry about your deleting them or hold a grudge against you.

I do not intend to follow / not follow because I see them as a diktat, but because as a civilized netizzen I see the importance of respecting your sensibilities & all the other nettizens.

This is what I try to follow & expect others to give me the same treatment too.

P.S.: The points about Tribes are from the book of the same name by Seth Godin.