Seth Godin on curiosity

A few days ago, I finished reading Seth Godin’s (his blog, his bio) latest book, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us. Godin is probably best known as a technology entrepreneur and marketing guru (e.g. his 1999 book Permission Marketing is considered a must read) who has created several companies over the years but he now writes, blogs and speaks full time. Tribes is a book about leadership, a quick if very thought provoking book. The writing has something of a proverb quality to it, with short observations on business, marketing and related subjects. At times, I was skeptical about certain parts of it but I did find it interesting.

To my delight, I found that there was a whole passage of the book dedicated to the importance of curiosity:

Curious is the key word…. It has to do with a desire to understand, a desire to try, a desire to push whatever envelope is interesting. Leaders are curious because they can’t wait to find out what the group is going to do next. The changes in the tribe are what are interesting, and curiousity drives them.

Curious people count. Not because there are a lot of them, but because they’re the ones who talk to people who are in a stupor. They’re the ones who lead the masses in the middle who are stuck. The masses in the middle have brainwashed themselves into thinking it’s safe to do nothing, which the curious can’t abide….

It is a book of 147 pages, with no chapter divisions or footnotes. I would rather describe it as an extended essay than a book. If you prefer video to reading a book or blog, you’re in luck. Seth Godin gave a presentation at the TED conference in 2007 where he provides a general overview of his ideas. Apart from the content, I think that TED presentation is a good model on how to create and deliver an engaging PowerPoint presentation. There is also an interview with Seth Godin on WIRED explaining Tribes (Feb. 2009).

Related posts:

1. Reinventing the Book: Seth Godin & Cory Doctorow
2. An Introduction to Marketing
3. The Web2.You Conference at McGill University