I read Seth Godin’s definition of “tribe” a long time ago, but didn’t have anything to relate it to. At that time, I remember wishing I had a tribe, something I felt so strongly about, something that I felt connected to. I was sitting in San Francisco the other day, reading Eric Schmidt’s book on Google, when I realized that NextDrop had become my tribe. I belonged to a set of like minded individuals who were intent on using startup frameworks to hack real world problems dealing with governments and citizens. Most importantly, we are a group of people who believe that the why is just as important as the what and the how, and at the end of the day, company culture trumps all.
So my biggest challenge: How do I get a like minded group of individuals together to hack problems in this space, but more importantly, how do we create that environment for them to thrive? Those Smart Creatives? And most importantly for the discussion, how do we do that in emerging markets across the world? How do we do that in India? Kenya? Indonesia? Given the education systems, and the parental structures, and the cultural barriers, how do we a) find those smart creatives and b) create a space for them to..have fun? Feel like they are doing things that actually matter? Feel like they are expanding their minds, (and very selfishly, expanding my own realm of possibilities) to move this tribe to really change the face of government and citizen interaction as we know it?
That seems to be top of mind for me right about now. It’s a very interesting problem to have. But I think if we can solve this problem and have NextDrop become the haven for smart creatives around the world, the rest will take care of itself.
Any inputs welcome.
I’m trying to create this community with Hive! You should come hang out with us in January :)