on finding “meaningful work”

Back in Octo­ber, I wrote a rela­ti­vely can­did blog post, “Note to My ‘Tribe’: Where are we hea­ded, Anyway?”

And as our mutual friend, Seth says, every tribe needs a leader:

The next fron­tier of mar­ke­ting is in lea­ding groups of peo­ple who are wor­king together to get somewhere.

I con­cur. So I’m gues­sing that “Lea­der” job now falls down to me.
Don’t get too exci­ted. I’m not Gandhi, I’m just a car­too­nist in West Texas with a few crazy ideas up my sleeve. I find the pros­pect of lea­ding a “tribe” a bit daun­ting, to be honest.
Lea­dership does not exist in a vacuum, you need somewhere to actually lead your tribe to. Moses had the Land of Milk & Honey. MLK had The Pro­mi­sed Land. Tho­mas Jef­fer­son had the newly-formed Uni­ted Sta­tes. Putin has a strong and proud Rus­sia. Doc Searls has The Clue­train. Steve Clay­ton and his friends within Mic­ro­soft have The Blue Mons­ter.
Me? I have no idea. Like I said, I’m just a car­too­nist…
The good news is, to lead a tribe you don’t neces­sa­rily have to have a pro­mi­sed land, a uto­pian vision, or a new world order to lead a tribe. You simply need what my other great mar­ke­ting friend, Mark Earls calls “The Purpose-Idea”, which as a bona fide Social Object, is THE REASON why peo­ple are joi­ning together in the first place.
I’ve been telling my clients for years now, if you’re going to have a follo­wing, a com­mu­nity, a “tribe”, it can’t just be about you and your lovely pro­duct. It’s got to be about something higher than, and beyond… your­self.
What is true for them is, yes, also true for me. Like I told my good friend, James Gover­nor on Twit­ter the other day,

If I’m to lead a “Tribe”, it needs to be for MUCH bet­ter rea­sons than “Please buy my litho­graphs, they’re very nice etc.”

Or my ori­gi­nal dra­wings. Or my book. Or my con­sul­ting ser­vi­ces. Or my spea­king gigs. Or whatever.

I’m happy to report, Seth left a very kind remark in the com­ments:

Ask us something hard, Hugh!
Your mis­sion is clear. You are lea­ding us where we want to go. You are pushing us to demand the pos­si­ble, not to accept the sta­tus quo. In an extraor­di­na­rily direct and pas­sio­nate way, you push your­self (and us) to look at what we do honestly and to remove the bullshit and get down to what mat­ters.
That’s where I want to go, anyway.

When I was eigh­teen, just after I had finished my final exams at high school, I went out and got my first real job. Trai­nee bar­ten­der at Whigham’s Wine Bar, Edin­burgh, Scot­land. I loved that job; I kept it every sum­mer for four years. The guy who hired me, Nick Hen­der­son, was a great man.
Since then I have been on the same, unen­ding quest: To find “Mea­ning­ful Work”.
“Mea­ning­ful” is like “Crea­tive”; its defi­ni­tion is a sub­jec­tive call. I can’t tell you what’s mea­ning­ful to you. Nor can you do the same with me. All we can do is agree that somewhere deep within all of us, the hun­ger to find it is real.
My blog for the last eight years has been a mish-mash of all sorts of dif­fe­rent things. Car­toons. Selling prints. Mar­ke­ting 2.0. The Glo­bal Mic­ro­brand. “Crea­ti­vity”.
Wha­te­ver. No mat­ter what topic I was blethe­ring on about that day, this blog has always been dri­ven by the same thing that has always dri­ven me. Fin­ding mea­ning­ful work.
I’ve come close to fin­ding it a cou­ple of times. It’s never easy. It’s always elu­sive. I often wish that weren’t the case, but it is. Sorry.
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