Do you want to change the world, but struggle to differentiate yourself enough?

Organizing a community lets people know whether they belong there or not. Whether it’s for them or not. With the right people, you are able to focus instead of wasting your time and energy on everybody else – who is not meant to be part of that community.

Author, world traveler and change agent – Chris Guillebeau is our first guest this month. He took a moment from planning his book tour – to let me know what inspires him and how he built his global community.

Q & A with Chris Guillebeau

Q : What is the Art Of Non-Conformity?

Chris : AONC is a blog, a book, a business, and a community—mostly the latter. I started the project in 2008 as a way to spread unconventional ideas and help people find a way to achieve big goals.

Q : While developing products and travelling the world, how do you maintain focus on building your business and “making a living”?

Chris : I don’t really focus on “making a living.” I do focus on work, but most of my work is free for everyone. I use a 90/10 model where 90% of my writing and events are free and 10% are paid.

Q : How would you define your product?

Chris : Let’s look at the overall goal: to help people live unconventional, remarkable lives. How that works varies. I have the blog and other hubs where I connect with readers. I have the Unconventional Guides business that consists of things like the Empire Building Kit and the Frequent Flyer Master guide.

Overall, I hope that all of these help people in a different ways, but with the same goal of creating individual freedom and inspiring action.

Q : Why did you decide on creating your own niche community?

Chris : I felt like I had helped a lot of people on a one-on-one basis over the years, but I had no broader platform. I turned 30 years old and in the process realized that I wanted to be a writer. So I started the site and went from there.

Q: Most entrepreneurs starting out want to satisfy everyone. We want to sell everything to everyone. How did you identify the people you wanted to organize into a community?

Chris : Correct, and that’s a big mistake. In my case I learned to target people on a psychographic basis as opposed to a demographic basis. I have readers of all ages, all backgrounds, from all over the world. What they have in common is a desire to change the world.

It’s interesting, because in the beginning when I connected with a literary agent and he was pitching my project to traditional publishers, some of them said, “People who want to change the world are not a target market” – which makes sense in a traditional, business-oriented context. But over time I’ve become more and more convinced that “people who want to change the world” is indeed my perfect audience. It’s also an audience that is motivated to take action, which is always good.

Q : What would you attribute as the single most important aspect of creating your community?

Chris : Consistency. A lot of bloggers start out strong and then fade off into the blogging sunset. If you can just keep going and building a strong platform, you end up outlasting people and it gets easier over time.

Q : In your manifesto: A Brief Guide To World Domination – you clearly state “I should warn you now that this report is not for everyone”. I have also realized that from your blog and the rest of your products. Doesn’t that separation of your audience from everyone else limit how much you can make and who you can reach?

Chris : No, for reasons you alluded to earlier—it’s always a mistake to target everyone. Better to be clear what you’re about and who your work is for. This also makes it much easier to build trust and authority among the group with which you choose to identify.

Q : Most of your content is free, while traditional business principle tells us to “sell” “sell” sell”. Where do you make your money?

Chris : I still make money, but the greater goal is influence. The money comes from UnconventionalGuides.com and my book publisher—though much more of it comes from my own projects than the publishing arrangement. (I’m still a fan of writing books, but it’s true that there’s not much money in it.)

Q : You have become quite – in fact very influential online and off. What does it take to build such influence and become this outstanding?

Chris : Well, I’m not sure I’m outstanding. When I think of people who are outstanding, I don’t think of bloggers—I think of people who have truly sacrificed, like the aid workers I used to work with before I embraced the soft life as a world-traveling blogger.

But in terms of influence, it takes working towards something day-in, day-out for an extended period of time, often without much reward or attention in the beginning. I also decided I wanted to create real relationships with readers as much as possible. I answer all the emails and don’t outsource anything. I meet with readers wherever I go. I do blog interviews for sites that have 10 readers and podcast interviews for shows that are still getting off the ground.

Over time, I think those things have a real impact.

Q : Most entrepreneurs want to be different, but fear the unknown – the unexplored. How does one overcome that hurdle of distinguishing themselves and carving a niche?

Chris : Yes, I agree that fear is a very real obstacle. I think the key to overcoming it is:

a. acknowledging your fears, without trying to be “fearless” or pretend that fear doesn’t exist, and

b. not allow your fears to make your decisions for you.

Instead, ask yourself – what would I do if I wasn’t afraid, or if there were no limits? Then find a way to get closer to that, even if it’s a series of small steps at first.

Q : You are doing the Unconventional Book Tour soon, what inspired it?

Chris : These days a lot of people are saying that books are dead and book tours are ineffective. I like the idea of proving those ideas wrong—my contention is that people have been doing book promotion the wrong way, but that doesn’t mean that books are dead.

And I also like big goals, so when I decided to establish my own tour, I thought… why not make it as epic as possible? So I picked all 50 states instead of just the major cities. Then I added all 10 provinces in Canada, because I didn’t want to leave them out. Then I added an extra city in California, an extra city in Texas, Washington, D.C. – and came up with a 63-city self-funded, collectively-organized book tour. I hope to take it worldwide next year, but one thing at a time.

Q : As an entrepreneur and agent of change, what is the one most difficult challenge for you?

Chris: The fear and insecurity we mentioned earlier are continual challenges. I also have a hard time asking for help – I have a lot of people willing to help with things, but I don’t always know what to ask them to do.

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While Chris is on the go and launching his new book, he also Tweets here and blogs at AONC. I recommend you follow him.

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I recently wrote about the Tech4Africa Conference, which actually turned out to be amazing. More awesome than the conference itself were the organizers, who gave me an all-access blogger pass. Emerging Media and the Tech4Africa team are rockstars.

We interviewed some of the speakers, delegates and Seedcamp participants.

The Tech4Africa Special

In this NetwebTV special, we spoke to:

• Gareth Knight, the founder of Tech4Africa, about how it was received and whether the change he foresaw ago when we spoke was achieved.
• Gareth Ochse – the founder of iSigned and one of the competitors in Seedcamp Africa. I heard they are also one of the companies who qualified to attend Seedcamp Week in London

Speakers and delegates

We also caught up with some of the speakers and delegates who gave us their views on development in Africa as a whole.

Erik Hersman, the co-founder of Ushahidi spoke their development and how it’s changing lives. It is also one of the most talked about projects on the web.

Mark Kaigwa, a Creative Director and Entrepreneur shares his views about the conference and what it means for Africa. Kenya is 4 to 5 countries away from where conference was, so Mark came a long way.

Clay Shirky was the keynote speaker at the conference and he also took a moment to speak to us. In a nutshell – Clay is a professor, speaker, thought leader and an icon in all things economics, community and open source.  He is the author of 2 books and shares his expert views on how social phenomena were started small and grew globally.

Take a look at the video below and share some of your views with us in the comments.

This episode of NetwebTV was probably the most debated. The concept of Viral Marketing is seemingly dying out in its most organic form. At least for me it seems it is.

The way I thought about it was – someone records a video of some or other mishap and it spreads on YouTube. Then marketers and big corporates caught on to it and invested money, which later transformed that initial perception.

To not only satisfy my own curiosity – but also to find whether viral marketing and spreading ideas can be planned – we had to out and find some black belt ninjas to speak to us.

Change of perceptions and new knowledge:

In this episode I spoke to an entrepreneur who spread the idea of education, furtherance and growth in the lives of young people. Yashivan Govender, is the founder of FristStep.me that was built around the idea of developing oneself. And they have been growing in leaps in bounds – long before the now known hype of Social Media.

You Make Joburg Great connects people who want to be connected

We also went out to Penquin International, the company behind one of the most popular campaigns in Johannesburg if not South Africa. You Make Joburg Great is based on the simple idea that a city should be about how its people are and the change they are part of.

Guy Orsmond, the account executive behind the campaign, shares how they spread this initiative and got the masses so involved people themselves took ownership of the idea.

Seth Godin on the viral spread of ideas

If there is one thing about Seth Godin and how he spreads his thinking widely all over the the globe, it’s how always links a simple idea to his work.

In this episode, he talks about how you can and execute your strategy as an idea. Once you have managed that, then the product related to that simple story spreads among its users.

Take a look at the video below and share your thinking about viral marketing and spreading ideas.

How did you find the video? Let us know who you think we should feature next and what you want hear about.

It seems 2010 brought with it a downpour of work and little distractions that just keep me away from writing. But there will be more reading this winter.

If you have been here before, you would know I had an interview with Seth Godin about his book Linchpin. (If you haven’t – you just might score yourself a free copy. I’m glad you stopped by).

Linchpin is a book about gifts, and art and adding value and being indispensable. If you thought that couldn’t be done where you are right now – in your job or business. This gem blasts that misconception along with the lizard brain that propagates it. Seth describes the ‘lizard brain’ as that part of our minds which holds us back from making real progress. It strikes a balance between being an entrepreneur and a change agent where you currently work.

Lost marbles

By now you are probably thinking I’ve lost my marbles, books that accomplish such balance are watered down and don’t really speak to the one or other person. But it does, in a way that on only Seth Godin can. And I will have you know that my marbles are still intact. Thanks for the concern.

Monthly read

The idea is to share and recommend our latest reads, while giving one book away every month. Yes, you stand a chance to get yourself a copy of Linchpin, because that is what I’m reading at the moment. Leave some ideas in the comments and the best one gets the book. It’s really that easy! We’ll keep expanding on the ideas and probably make it more intricate with your contribution, but that’s not intention.

Terms and conditions don’t apply, but there’s just one small thing

As you might have guessed it, there is one thing that could be a potential challenge. Because this is a self-funded project, I’d like to try keep it as cost effective as possible. So for now, the give-aways will be to our South African readers and we can spread it globally at a later stage.

Why should you get it?

Leave some ideas in the comments and if yours is the best to spread this project to most people, you get the book sent to you.