As posted on Sivers' blog:

Yes, indeed, it is ours - I first heard it back in June 2009, on Seth Godin's blog. It got posted up on Hacker News too.

Here's the seth post of the same video, making the same post (though he reckons guy #3 is more important than the first follower):

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/guy-3.html

I like Sivers' version because it was more thorough. But it's good to hear the same idea expressed by a new person in a new way. You need new iterations and personalities you trust to make things click. That's essential to them spreading.

And where Seth observed, "We need more guy #3s," Sivers called you to action: "When you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first person to stand up and join in.": http://sivers.org/ff

Just to be fair: Seth is a friend and I told him about it before he posted about it.

I posted about it on June 6: http://sivers.org/dance-lessons

Seth posted on June 10: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/06/guy-3.html

Not being competitive. Just making it clear I wasn't copying Seth's idea.

Interesting! I wasn't aware of your previous post. Thanks for clarifying.

Looks like Sivers is actually the 'first guy' and the one to bring it two the masses will be guy #3. : )

Guy #2 and #3 were definitely critical here. Both were needed, and in the same order. (Guy #3 didn't seem like he was willing to have been guy #2.)

I think Sivers is trying to prove the point that his idea will only become a movement after the first follower joins him. Tricky.

I'm not that subtle, no. It's really as-is.

So many people telling me the idea should be developed into a book, but I don't want to, so I was just letting it publicly be known that the idea is up for grabs.

Hoping to encourage someone who wants to run with it, knowing I won't compete.

I saw the dancing video before and it was hilarious, though that guy was dancing for a loonnng time before the first follower came along, and there were people came in on and off in between. He had to struggle for a while before it became a movement. But the First Follower idea is very insightful.

I think it is actually quite old. Seth Godin or somebody like that might have blogged about the dancing guy about a year ago? So definitely to late to become the "First Follower Guy".

OK not too late - but where is the fun in taking somebodies meme?

It will be interesting how this maps to Open Source. Github has "followers" explicitly. In open source, is the "first contributer" more important? Lots of interesting intersections..

Absolutely! There are lots of one-person projects on Github; I have a few of my own. They already do what I want, but could be expanded to be useful to more people. Anyone who wants to dive in could make a big difference.

The tricky bit is that I'm not really looking for one-person open source projects to contribute to, so how would I ever notice them? It seems like there's an opportunity here.

You can see that right here. First few votes make a submission die or get to the front page. And then it's just momentum.

IMHO, this is detrimental to quality and doesn't fend off bandwagon bias.

I was surprised at how fast the article came up, even with Sivers being HN gold. But I submitted it because I wanted to see how HN would expand on the topic of leading and following.

Oh, I mean HN in general, not this particular submission. I'm even subscribed to Siver's feed. =)

You mean be a leader of the first follower movement?

It's a good story, Seth posted about it too a while back.

The problem like with Gladwell's "Tipping Point" and "Blink" is that they sound actionable but aren't really.