Are you a Linchpin?

If you don’t know what a linchpin is, you probably aren’t familiar with Tribes or the Purple Cow.  There’s a pretty good chance that you already think All Marketers Are Liars, but you might not have heard of Seth Godin, the author and marketing guru who penned these titles and more.

So what is a linchpin?  As defined by Godin, a linchpin is the indispensable person in your organization.  This person cannot be replaced, and the success of the organization hinges on the results generated by this single person.  According to Godin, if your goal isn’t to be the linchpin you are risking economic and career suicide.  To become the linchpin you must overcome the fears that are holding you back. An organization can be the company you work for, the school you go to, the charity you volunteer for, or even the home you live in.  Anyone and everyone can be a linchpin – if they want to be one.

Last June, Godin inspired almost 1000 meetups all over the world to form and discuss the next big idea for these forward thinking folks to work on.  980 meetups, over 6000 people attended.

The June event was created as a one-time-only event, but due to popular demand, on December 7, 2010, there was the second session, with over 1500 meetups scheduled in 102 countries.

The real impact of Linchpin, then, is the ability of a book to help individuals verbalize what they already knew, and to connect us to one another. With a little effort, this can scale, the connections can become more vibrant and we can all ship some work worth doing.

~Seth Godin

If you attended one of these meetups, what did you find?  Was your group of linchpins able to generate amazing ideas?  Did they come up with a plan to execute them?  Is the secret to success really to just meet with like minded folks in your community, or is there more to it?  Love to know your thoughts.

To hear what Seth Godin has to say about Linchpin and the current publishing process, check out this Q&A on KirkusReviews.com

Starting next week, we will have a regular feature on the Brandscaping blog – Local Linchpins.  We have a few local linchpins in mind, but if there is someone in your life that epitomizes this concept, we’d love to hear from you.  We’ll try to interview your nominee, and with any luck, you’ll see them featured here soon.

If you haven’t read Linchpins yet, Linchpinyou can order your own copy here, or have a look at the interview with Seth Godin and the book review here .  Or have a look at Chris Brogan’s video review of the book – it’s only 2 minutes, but it gets the point across quite well.