The Allure of Everything Out There

Corporate identities are fungible.  No one is employed for life any more.  The tech industry is more volatile than most.  Most people have been through many, many cycles of identity.  And yet when people “join” a new company they expect a certain tribal affinity.  This, even though they know that membership is highly conditional and will almost certainly only last for a few years.

It is the job of tribal leaders to convince the other members of the tribe that theirs is a particularly special group.  Sales Kick offs are an annual holy day of obligation for any technology tribe.  Some of these efforts are more convincing than others.  The one I am attending this week is very convincing.  My only difficulty is that I have affinities with multiple tribes and so I end up feeling more like Margaret Mead than Pocahontas.  I resist the siren song of membership and juxtapose one company’s ritual with another.

And as often happens, one is attending an event in a lovely location.  The location beckons all day.  Blue skies!  Green water!  Urban otherness!  But you are inside of a hotel.  Large conference rooms, yield to large eating areas and smaller conference rooms for breakout meetings and bio-breaks in the men’s room.

Later of course one does go outside: a boat ride is planned.  Walking over there is a chance to speak with tribe members from Cincinnati and others from Argentina.  The boat offers dinner and everyone is hungry so we help ourselves and sit down to discuss tribal matters.  Conversation’s turn to children and everyone fumbles with their phone to show each other their loved ones.  Lights are passing by outside and you stop and consider the fact that that you are moving, while you are chewing.  Once again, the allure of everything out there must wait. 

I take a call on the starboard side and chat with another tribe back in Beijing.  We pass a small island in the harbor with opulent homes, each trumpeting their own dock.  Later we move up along a tremendous concrete bridge with heliotrope lights arcing upwards at point after point after point.  We turn and there is the Miami skyline off in the distance.