Morrie the Toupee Salesman

I read a lot of books, and unlike my erstwhile partner, I actually finish them. I’ve recently read Seth Godin’s Tribes (it managed to amuse me for about an hour and a half). The fact that Scott Beale gets mentioned some 20 pages in caught my attention, as I know Scott and consider him a friend.

Like many of the books that get published in the US, the book is kind of bubble gum for the mind – sweet, perhaps even interesting, but thrown away quickly and never seen again. The gist of it is that one person can somehow create “movements” of significance much easier than they could before the internet. And the call to action (“quit your job, start a company”) dominates the last half of the book. The problem is that the call to action (which in 2009 suddenly feels a bit quaint) overwhelms thoughtful debate.

The book almost lost me in the first sentence, which was “Joel Spolsky is changing the world.” Not because I don’t like Joel Spolsky, but someone I know had recently expressed the sentiment that Joel was kind of an idiot. And there, I think, is the flaw that gets hidden under the strident call to action. I realize that Seth is a marketer, and marketing means presenting a relentlessly positive message. But I’m not a big fan of that in books. A book should present thoughtful debate.

Simply put, the word “tribes” oversells the loyalty that we give to the so-called “movements.” Joel Spolsky may be interesting, may even have insights that are valuable, and that may inspire some brief loyalty to him, but it’s brief and fleeting. One of the things that occurred to me about the book, or specifically the book’s cover, is that it reminded me of birds. If you’ve watched birds, they often gather in thousands inexplicably in one tree, hang around for a few minutes, then, boom, they suddenly leave for another tree that can be nearby or miles away. That kind of fleeting, inexplicable behavior seems to be a better metaphor for the world, and especially the online experience, today. But “Birds” isn’t quite as catchy a book title.

Note: I should point out, that also unlike my erstwhile partner, there’s no affiliate links in this post.