FC Now highlighted the Guru Red Manifesto today.

To go along with the Customer Evangelism/Cluetrain conversations we have been having, take a look at Point #13 – Lemmings. Respect the Tribe:

Whether it’s clothes, computers or food, most people emulate and copy other members of their tribe or social group. Children learn behavior by copying those around them. Adults do much the same. People mimic the behavior of their peers whether they are choosing an investment or a restaurant – even if their own judgment would direct them elsewhere. As people observe and follow each other, they contribute additional momentum to the vortex, in turn drawing in more people. In a modern market driven economy it produces a unique result – a compulsion to copy the purchasing behavior of others, and the willingness to pay a premium to do this. The foundation of our remarkable success as a species has been our instinctive inclination to accept, mimic and propagate the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors of others in our tribe. Ignore this aspect of human decision at your peril.

They use natural instinct to explain trends and fads. I wanted to draw out that its word of mouth and conversations which create ‘the vortex’.