In Linguistics, the term Convergence is the process by which an individual adjusts his speech patterns to match those of people belonging to another group or social identity. It is a concept that has been studied in depth and was further elaborated on by LePage & Tabouret-Keller in 1985, in their paper Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Their findings were rolled into what has become known as Acts of Identity.

Are you with me so far?

The short version of their theory is that human beings adjust the way that they communicate to align themselves with social groups that they want to belong to. This is usually in the pursuit of power or other sociological factors. It explains why your neighbor couldn’t stop talking about Bangers and Mash for a month after that “great trip to Europe.” These Acts of Identity are possible if the following criteria is met:

• We can identify the desirable group
• We have both adequate access to that group, and the ability to analyze their behavior, i.e. their speech patterns
• We have a strong enough motivation to ‘join’ them, and this motivation is either reinforced or rejected by the group, and
• We have the ability to modify our own behavior.

Let’s step back to more familiar ground.

Take a look at how entrepreneurs market their products. No matter how niche their initial appeal, they are always striving to chase down more desirable groups. Starbucks made a mean cup of coffee, but they lost their way when they decided to parlay that into selling music (and everything else). Facebook was a great platform for college students to share too much information about their lives, but when you had to worry about being bitten by a baseball wielding, zombie-vampire many users felt like they’d left the reservation.

Both of these companies have models that force them to Converge with increasingly large sections of society (multi-billion dollar valuations will do that), and in almost all cases this sort of convergences starts to bleed off what makes a company unique.

So where is the alternative?

If you happen to have a multi-billion dollar valuation or are in the market for one, you don’t really have one. Continued growth means becoming continually more general. For my dollar, however, I prefer Havi Brook’s model — instead of chasing every person down every rabbit hole, stick true to your product’s values and cater to your “Right People.”

This program is something I put together for my Right People. For the ones who come here every single morning. The ones who re-read old posts . . . I don’t want to convince you that spending time with me and my duck would be the best thing to ever happen to you. That’s why I didn’t try to write copy for this thing.

If you aren’t already getting over-the-top turning-cartwheels excited by the possibility of what could happen in a warm, cozy, structured environment where I teach everything I know, I probably don’t want you at the Table.

Convincing you would be a mistake. It would bring in people who aren’t necessarily my Right People.

There it is, straight from the (ahem) duck’s mouth. The way I see it, you have two choices — create a small number of fanatical users by sticking to your core values and helping to build small solutions to small problems or you can try to be everything for everyone. With enough money, time and effort both of these paths can lead to the same place but when you go down the second, some part of what made your product special in the first place is always lost.

Here comes my challenge, over the next 24 hours I want you to identify who your “Right People” are. Who are your best, bravest, most fanatical users? Who is shouting your message from the rooftops and why? Then ask yourself this, what’s more valuable to you, 50 more of these fanatics or 500 more generalists?

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