Your new BFF just stumbled into the Twittersphere. She's funny, racy, fashionable, quirky and she knows you're a like minded modern feminist. The tagline for LENNY is Feminism, style, health, politics, friendship and everything else. I came across @lennyletter in my Twitterfeed last week. LENNY is an online newsletter that is delivered weekly via email subscription. The newsletter is so new that there are only three issues so far! The first was an interview with Hillary Clinton. How's that for clout? The most recent newsletter contains a scathing essay written by actress Jennifer Lawrence that is receiving a ton of internet buzz - but it is currently being held hostage in newsletter purgatory unless I become a subscriber to LENNY.
After reading Jeff Goins' Three Important Steps to Building a Killer Tribe I noticed that LENNY's creators, Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner (whose names form "LEN-NY"), are following his formula:
Goins describes a tribe as "...a unique group of fans, friends, and followers who resonate with your worldview." The subscribers to Lenny Letter fit this description. This working definition of a tribe has helped me focus my thoughts on my next project, which will be a networked learning space dedicated to curating cooperative living opportunities. The word dedicated is important here. If you want your learning space to be personal, relevant, and anticipated - all the things that Goins suggests - then it must be intentionally focused on reaching specific people. Those people form your tribe. Goins actually directs us to "Exclude all others, focusing on only your tribe, thus making them feel special."
At first that struck me as not being very nice, but then I thought of what I am trying to accomplish. I want my learning space to be productive and solutions-based. I want the members of my community to want to participate and to be called to action. I want participants to own the space and foster a living, breathing movement. The most effective way to achieve these goals is to ensure that my audience feels like this is the space they've been looking for. Casting a wider net than necessary could potentially just create a lot of extra "noise" and disenfranchise those for whom the space is intended.
In finding my tribe and envisioning our learning space, I need to ask myself:
After reading Jeff Goins' Three Important Steps to Building a Killer Tribe I noticed that LENNY's creators, Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner (whose names form "LEN-NY"), are following his formula:
- Be as personal as you can be
- Stay relevant to your audience
- Create mouth-watering anticipation
Goins describes a tribe as "...a unique group of fans, friends, and followers who resonate with your worldview." The subscribers to Lenny Letter fit this description. This working definition of a tribe has helped me focus my thoughts on my next project, which will be a networked learning space dedicated to curating cooperative living opportunities. The word dedicated is important here. If you want your learning space to be personal, relevant, and anticipated - all the things that Goins suggests - then it must be intentionally focused on reaching specific people. Those people form your tribe. Goins actually directs us to "Exclude all others, focusing on only your tribe, thus making them feel special."
At first that struck me as not being very nice, but then I thought of what I am trying to accomplish. I want my learning space to be productive and solutions-based. I want the members of my community to want to participate and to be called to action. I want participants to own the space and foster a living, breathing movement. The most effective way to achieve these goals is to ensure that my audience feels like this is the space they've been looking for. Casting a wider net than necessary could potentially just create a lot of extra "noise" and disenfranchise those for whom the space is intended.
In finding my tribe and envisioning our learning space, I need to ask myself:
What do I believe in enough to talk directly to like minded people about only that?
(And in other tribe news, today I heard the first remix from the forthcoming 25th anniversary edition of A Tribe Called Quest's debut album People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm.)
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