A couple of other thoughts about The Dip With Seth Godin.
Ben Arment from Reston Community Church has four posts on Church Planting and the Dip. You can read them starting here. How I found them: On Seth's blog.
Back to our staff trip to hear Seth. (The first part is here if you missed it.) One of Seth's points caused several of us to make comparisons to The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. (You can read the Wired Magazine article that pre-dated the book here.) Anderson himself calls The Dip Seth's "latest mind-grenade" so we know Chris thought it was thought-provoking.
What provoked us was the thought that one of the primary points of The Dip is to strive to be "the best in the world." In other words... concentrate on the head and not the long tail. Is it possible to do both? It seemed to us that both are important. Greg Bowman and I are in the middle of planning the Group Life Conference in September and this is exactly what we are trying to do. Lean into the head (several world-class speakers with broad appeal topics). Run down towards the end of the Long Tail (98 breakouts led by topical specialists, a few of which may appeal to those with a deep interest in a very narrow niche). I guess by the first of October we'll know whether we Digg Seth or Chris... or both.
Our team did not exactly come to agreement on whether or not Seth and Chris' positions could (or should) be resolved. What was cool was that having been exposed to both The Dip and The Long Tail enabled us to have the discussion in the first place. Combining new ideas with biblical worldviews and specific ministry objectives... we explored each other's views, rationale and potential outcomes.
Three things enabled our experience: Exposure to some carefully selected books (careful meaning somebody on staff read it and said "Hey... this has ministry implications... you need to read it!); a willingness to devote several man-hours of work time to a field trip; and a commitment to community that valued the post-presentation coffee (relationships and application) as much as the presentation itself (knowledge).
Two questions. First: Heads... or Tails? Second: What does your ministry team do to stretch itself? To build community?
