Great vid from the marketing guru, Seth Godin, about surviving and thriving in the down economy. Well worth your attention.

In Seth’s new book, “Tribes,” one of his best excerpts is as follows:

[W]e start formal organizations when it’s cheaper than leading a tribe instead.  Having employees, for example, gives you a tight interaction of communication and output that used to be difficult to accomplish from a less formal tribe.   Having soldiers, for example, is seen as more reliable than earning the trust and support of the entire population.  The Internet changes this becasue you can build a bigger, faster, cheapter tribe than you used to be able to.  The new economy changes this because the transaction costs are falling fast while the costs of formal organizations (offices, benefits, management) keep increasing.

This a fantastic section of the book!  In my last post, I got a few people upset when I commented about the instability of bigness, specifically talking about large law firms. First, I’m not crazy.  There will always be room for large, large companies.  But not as many, for sure.    

Second, Seth’s excerpt is on point.  With the cost of connectivity dramatically dropping, there’s less need to formally associate under one name or one building.  A good friend and former colleague pointed out there’s benefits to large firms i.e. economies of scale.  Again, there will always be room for large companies that consistently provide value for clients.  But, think about it.  Hypothetically, an institutional client (McDonalds, for example) gives law firm C a large book of business and says, “Handle all of our slip and fall cases in the Southeast…”  There would be value to the one-stop shop approach.  There would be multiple opportunities for cost savings i.e. fewer firms to manage, institional knowledge and experience, etc.  But what if solo practioners banded together with an electronic brand…an electronic tribe.  After all, Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe, LLC is just a Tribe with a bunch of last names.  Why not go digital?  Can you imagine…