The Tribes Q&A (by the Triiibe)

Big seekrit project? Done. Man am I tuckered out!

The Tribes Q&A was released today on Seth Godin’s blog, and elsewhere. You’ll remember the last ebook, the Tribes Casebook, that the Triiibe produced; this one was a bit different. (Okay, a lot different.)

This time, Seth announced the idea and its parameters, gave us some time to brainstorm in the comments of his thread, and… released the project into the wild. As in, he stepped back out of the picture, and we self-organized.

Self-organization is a pretty crazy thing, fascinating and often incredibly powerful (as Seth will attest). A lot of people have a lot of ideas and it takes some time for everything to boil down to the plans that will finally function well enough to drive the project forward. I learned a lot of important (and often uncomfortable) lessons about leadership and self-organized projects during the course of this event. I can’t believe how quickly the time passed (I’m sure that just a few minutes ago it was half-October) and how much I feel like I’ve grown in the meantime. I honestly didn’t know I had it in me. (I wish you the same revelation!)

The Tribes Q&A is the second companion ebook to Seth’s release of Tribes, which happened in October. A good 160+ determined Triiibes members contributed to this book, many of them working their asses off and all of them putting in valuable time and effort to successfully accomplish something meaningful.

I still need to make a few more project workshop posts at Triiibes.com—I want to shed some light on the supremely dedicated crew that made this thing happen, and I want to start a post mortem to discuss how it could have been done better, what worked, what didn’t. Three and a half weeks is an absurdly short period of time in which to accomplish what we tried to accomplish. We could have lowered the bar, but I think we may have raised it a little. I’m grateful to Seth for giving us a deadline that challenged us so intensely. I know I’m not the same since, and I bet a lot of people feel similarly.

I’m late to the party again this time—people started talking about the Q&A this morning and by the time I post this many more will have followed suit. Here’s the Google blog search for the Q&A, and you’ll notice that Twitter is all… a-twitter. (Yeah, I know. I’m pretty funny. :})

I would love for you to take some time to read this book, especially if you’ve already read Tribes. I spent an insanely focused month or so helping to make it happen, and the project is very close to my heart. The people who put it together were downright amazing and I’ve never had so much fun doing something so difficult with so many resolute participants. “Wow” is half the words I say these days (and it’s an understatement).

So here’s the low-down (you remember this): Email it, post it, print it! Please don’t sell it or change it. You can download it for free here. It’s definitely worth the read.

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More information on the Tribes Q&A!

Squidoo: The Tribes Casebook (by Triiibes). This is the first companion ebook the Triiibe put together. Feel free to check it out too if you haven’t already!

My favorite Tribes Q&A posts and link fu so far:

Tribes Q&A Twitterstream (developing even still), and two more if you watch “Triiibe” and “Triiibes” on Twitter Search. A-twitter indeed!

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Important Tribes Q&A Corrections

As with any self-organized project with a tight deadline and slightly chaotic beginnings, there are probably a few mistakes in the Tribes Q&A that need to be corrected. I know of one off the bat, and I will list them here as I find out more. Hopefully this will be a good resource for anyone who’s confused or curious about something in particular (and feel free to if you know of something I’ve missed).

Tagged as: ebook, Q&A, Seth Godin, tribes, triiibes