The other day, a good chunk of the Brains on Fire population stood in a circle listening to Matt and Joe spin some riddles. You know of “Green Glass Doors?” What about “4 is perfect?” These are riddles that have no actual end. They have to do with discovering a rule… and until you discover the rule, you feel like a complete moron as the riddle giver (and the people who figure it out before you) grins smugly and repeats: “10 is 3, 3 is 5, 5 is 4 and 4 is perfect.” But as frustrated as you may be (Justin), you just can’t stop trying to figure out the magic combination. You call up advanced calculus you didn’t even know you knew, just so that you can find your way to the inside, smiling smugly back out.

Why?

Just another example of how much people want to be in the know. And yes, we even want to be the ones who withhold the knowledge until you earn your way into the tribe. You could google the answer (like one cheater at BOF who will remain nameless), but then it’s a hollow victory. You may be found out as undeserving, and pushed to the outskirts of the tribe.

You can see the parallels here into the brand community context. As much as we expect companies to live up to the promises they make, we also expect the other people in that brand circle to deserve to be there. If we’ve earned it, they should too. Interesting how much the value of a club - whether it’s a brand or “green glass doors” - can be elevated or cheapened depending on who else is in it and how they got there.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 14th, 2007 at 5:21 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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