One of the best teachers I ever had the chance to learn from commented on my previous “Links Are Dead” piece and it made me realize I needed to add some clarity to the sharing/following language:

Links Are Dead; Long Live ShareThis | PayPerTrends Chris Harrelson: “I love the share part, but doesn’t that mean they follow instead of lead? Never mind–everyone follows. As the Romans say, nihil novi sub sole.
Or is it that everyone is leading?”

Leading and following are delicate terms packed with heavy freight and baggage. I’m guilty of using them as throwaways in that post instead of giving them the space they deserved.

Last November, David Amsden posted a fascinating topic entitled “Introducing the First Dropper” in Details (I know, I know) magazine. In the piece, he makes this point:

You know this man, right? It’s just that you’ve never been properly introduced. He’s a lone cowboy by the name of First Dropper, and while we tire climbing the hilly switchbacks of compulsive trend hunting, his straight and level trail is the one we’d all do well to follow. Unlike most consumers, the First Dropper seems to be immune to peer pressure and the sway of marketing gurus; he’s propelled instead by an instinctual feel for when a trend has become overvalued. Think of him as a slyly influential arbiter of taste—one who operates as a covert counterweight to his better-known cousin, the Early Adopter.

I took this notion and put a theological spin on things after reading the article last year and made my own connections to the piece.

However, there’s more to unpack about sharing/following/leading paradigm from the concept of a First Dropper. For years, affiliate networks and performance marketers have gone after the “super affiliates” or the tastemakers in the industry based on who has the “freshest” sets of data, most immediate access to niche communities and who are quick to try new offers and spread the word. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard “Well, bla bla runs this offer from blabla.com on their best positions, so you know it has to be converting well. What else can I tell you? How many leads should I sign you up for?”

What if that chase of the early adopter is being supplanted by something we really don’t track here in affiliate marketing… the early dropper?

Amsden writes:

For marketers, advertisers, Internet-start-up heads, and fashion designers have recently begun the difficult work of identifying and targeting the First Dropper—with the hope of placating him before it’s too late or at least knowing if their time is running out.

In a circuitous way, droppers are now the folks people follow when it comes to whether they decide a service, site or offer is still valid. So what does this mean to the notion of following/leading?

Curation is becoming an “essential skill” (to use teacher-talk) in this new century. It’s why I teach how I teach and one of the critical thinking toolkits that will determine success of a person going forward. The ability to see what is valid (or a “reliable, relevant resource” to use the jargon of a teacher without a classroom) is becoming so incredibly important for both learners, marketers and citizens in general.

Those who have the ability to curate, or a strong notion of what curation implies, are the ones who will be leaders in this new century. The rest of us will be following them, learning from them and adopting/dropping their stream of breadcrumbs as they mark the way.

As affiliate marketers, we’d do well to learn all we can so that we can become those curators in the industry.