[FM Discuss] Are we a tribe?

[Andy Oram]

I don't know whether I'm being serious or silly here, but I saw a book review and decided to point to the book as a little thought-provoker:

http://www.squidoo.com/tribesbook

Godin defines a tribe as a group of people connected to one another,
connected to a leader, and connected to an idea that inspires their
passion. He argues that human beings have a need to belong, "to be
part of a tribe, to contribute to (and take from) a group of
like-minded people. We are drawn to leaders and to their ideas, and we
can't resist the rush of belonging and the thrill of the new," he
writes.

....

Thanks to the Web, the barriers to leadership have fallen. There are
tribes everywhere, millions in search of leaders, waiting to connect
to create change. And people yearn to belong to more than one tribe,
according to Godin.

And therein lies the opening door for Net-savvy leader
wannabes. Because the Internet eliminates geography, existing tribes
are bigger and there are smaller tribes, too - tribes you work with,
tribes you travel with, tribes that ride motorcycles, and more. There
are "literally thousands of ways to coordinate and connect groups of
people that didn't exist a generation ago," he writes.