What the tribes say (part 1 of many)

At the beginning of this year, or even earlier than that, I had come across Tribes, the popular book by Seth Godin. I have not commited myself to get the book as yet because a long list of titles awaits my attention near my bedside table, my virtual desk and at the office. But with Tribes, comes The Tribes Casebook, which is a free ebook written by the tribe at Triibes.com. Before leaving this page to read more about Triibes.com, you may want to to know that this community is currently by invite only. If on the other hand you are smiling simply because you are one of the Triibes clan, then please be kind and send us at BLAB an invite. We're really delighted to know more!

Well in brief, the Tribes Casebook is a book written by a community which started off as part of the actual book project. The book is some 250 pages long and says a lot about small/big communities in society. I would like to commit to share some of them. This should help me to write and read regularly about different communities, which are key in the 2.0 world!

So the first tribe falls in the category of Tribes you don't want to belong to, one of which is 'The tribe of the Disabled'. Jon Morrow, the author of this section of the book, starts off by explaining how people may join this tribe, sometimes by accident, sometimes involuntary from birth. Jon states:

"Some people take it hard. They feel like they’ve been kidnapped from another tribe, the Tribe of Normal People. They feel like everything they were and everything they knew was taken away.

Eventually though, most of us realize that the Tribe of Normal People doesn’t actually exist. There’s no bond between the nondisabled. There are no leaders among them. There are no rules. It doesn’t exist."

And from a tribe which no one wants to belong to, many realize this tribe is about courage. "It takes courage to look at yourself and accept your imperfections. It takes courage to love yourself anyway. It takes courage to go beyond merely trying to survive your life and start trying to actually enjoy it."

This is the first tribe the Casebook speaks about, but i think it sets the parameters for most of the other tribes, what's common within and what's alien to the ones outside.

The above discussion is drawn from The Tribes Casebook. Get the Casebook here: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/10/free-tribes-ebo.html