It’s true, of course. We don’t like the advertising that’s not for us, not about us, not interesting to us. But talk to me, directly to me, about something relevant and personal, and I love you for it.

This goes far beyond advertising and actually informs how we feel about politicians (we hate them, except the ones who are for and about us) and products and causes and government agencies and even birthday parties (those kids at the next table are incredibly annoying, unless they’re here for my party…)

The many silos of interest we live with now enable a totally different sort of communication, certainly, but they also demand a fundamentally different sort of organization, one that can deliver particular instead of general.

Dishwashing soap is general. Family sedans are general. Coca Cola is general. Please don’t dress up your general and pretend it’s particular. It’s not. When you do that, you’re not catering to the weird, you’re defending mass in any way you can.

Your policies are general. The way you deal with the public is general. Our knee jerk reaction, inculcated by generations of mass, is to worry about the big hump in the middle of the curve, not to obsess about the weird outliers.

The story of Tom’s Shoes is largely misunderstood and worth revisiting. Blake Mycoskie started a shoe company with a simple but radical idea: Every time he sells a pair of shoes, he gives an identical pair to someone in the developing world who has no shoes.

That’s it. That’s the business model. No ads, no serious promotions, no hype.

Do you see that this has zero in common with the pregnant elephant at the Antwerp Zoo?

Tom’s is particular. The elephant is general.

Blake understands that his shoes (and his story) aren’t for everyone. In fact, the story of his shoes are for a tightly knit group, a tribe, a group of people who share an interest and a passion and a way of talking to one another. One person rushes to buy his shoes, but then that person tells the rest of the tribe, not Blake, not Tom’s, not their ads. Tom’s is organized around particular. It thrives when someone resonates with its weird story, but most of the time, for most of the world, Tom’s is invisible.

This is fine with Blake. And fine with the members of Tom’s tribe. It wouldn’t, on the other hand, be fine with Pepsi or Taco Bell or Dreamworks. They’re still searching for a pregnant elephant.

The relentless search to recreate the mass of the past is at the heart of the stress we feel at work. It’s pushing governments, NGOs, entrepreneurs and most of all, big marketers, to go to extravagant lengths to push us to conform. A few outliers, though, have seen a different path. They’re catering to the weird instead.

The challenge of your future is to do productive and useful work for and by and with the tribe that cares about you. To find and assemble the tribe, to earn their trust, to take them where they want and need to go.

Many marketers would like to become a modern PT Barnum (but with a better circus). That’s not the goal, though. The goal is find and organize and cater to and lead a tribe of people, embracing their weirdness, not fighting it.

This single shift in our culture has opened the door for a huge outpouring of creativity, innovation and art. Your turn.