How to Make Ideas Borderless

The last week was hectic for me. Between trying to complete and deliver on a project and building the website for Flip the Switch, Africa. More on these later.

Today, I want to talk about ideas and how people can propagate them faster. We all know for a fact that ideas rule the world and every day we are caught in some ideological warfare of some sort. For a vast majority of us, the ideas we interact with and accept need to align with our values, and for others, they need to hold a stake or find benefits before they decide to conform. While I do not want to dwell on the philosophical aspect of this conversation, I am more concerned with how ideas evolve from a little scribble on our slate to becoming a complete movement. How do ideas become contagious?

Introduction

We live in a borderless world today, where ideas can be propelled by the media to become invisible monsters. Revolts in recent history like the Arab Spring and the toppling of some major governments often begin as harmless ideologies. Once fed and given wings it inspires a movement.

In business today, the distraction is on the high side. The era of mailing lists while still being effective is not converting as much as a decade earlier. Companies have to do more and spend more to be seen, without a guarantee of doing that. All these has fueled an Ad culture where users are the products and influencing is now seen as a viable business.

In an avalanche of all these, how can your business and the idea it represents get seen and heard?

While there are many things that can be said one thing that could mean the difference between spending millions on Ads or simply becoming contagious is a new form of leadership called "Tribal Leadership".

Tribal Leadership

We can agree that in such a distracted world, people are now attention routers. The vast majority of internet users are not necessarily looking for new stories but they want to follow leaders - influencers who can disseminate these stories and include them in their experiences.

In a bid to propagate ideas beyond borders, you must be ready to start building a community that believes in the authenticity of your ideas. Focus on that community, share values, nurture people, inspire them, and finally empower them to replicate your values and excellence. The more you focus on this tribe or community the more it takes on a domino effect and grows fast.

Assuming you have a community of 5000 people. Every member of your community surely has some influence on two other people somewhere in the world. This means the more value you add to the community the easier you extend that same value to the people within the radar of the influence of your tribe - meaning you easily have a reach of 15,000 people.

For ideas to cross borders, it needs a substantial number of believers (a tribe), a vision, and a mission. But what do all these entail?

I will talk more about Tribal leadership in the coming week. Have a blessed week.