Seth Godin: The World Has Completely Changed in the Past Five Years

Seth Godin, author of The Purple Cow, and the new book Poke the Box, spoke on the first afternoon of the Global Leadership Summit. Seth always has a visually captivating talk, so it's hard to stop looking to take notes. But these are some of my takeaways...

• We've branded ourselves to death.
• We are seeing the death of the industrial age. It's being replaced by a new age...an age of weird, of edge, a tribe.
• A tribe is a group of people who share a culture, an idea, a goal.
• We used to have just 3 tribes: Work tribe, cultural tribe, a religious tribe.
• Now there are a billion different tribes.
• Deep in our DNA, we want to do what others are doing, we need to be in sync with others. That's why we gravitate toward a tribe.
• In the past 5 years, the laptop has revolutionized the world. It is the means of production. And now the worker has it--not just the people in power.
• The worker is being replaced by the artist.
• Managers try to get you to do what you did yesterday, but a little better and faster. Leaders are different.
• Competence used to be important. It used to get you a job. Competence is no longer a scarce commodity.
• If the only thing you have to offer is that you are the "local church" --that no longer matters.
• If you have decided that what you are doing is so important that failure is not an option--you have just announced that success is not an option either.
• Every revolution destroys what came before--just before it creates something new.
• Too many people are walking around hanging on to stuff until it rots...rather than giving it away.
• We are constantly looking for a reason to not do our art--and to blame someone else.
• The world is begging for your leadership.