Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jurvetson/

Seth Godin, upstate New Yorker, TED speaker and perhaps the one person who can really call himself a marketing guru, due to his brand of compassionate and self-determinist philosophy coupled with his natural talent for hustling, has inspired no fewer than 1,155 communities on Meetup.com. Many of them are also hosting an event today based around one of his books, Linchpin: Are You Indispensible?, the book that "brings all Seth's ideas together."

The Meetups are meant to connect people who fit Mr. Godin's definition of a "linchpin"--a highly capable and committed person who does their work so well that they turn whatever it is into art. No pitching, The first Linchpin meetup last year drew more than 6,000 RSVPs to more than 900 events across the world.

This is the description:

Find other linchpins. Form teams, solve problems. Hire. Be hired. Dream big. Make promises and keep them. Talk about Linchpin. Talk about Poke the Box. Publish your plans. Invite your friends. Reinvigorate yourself. Invigorate someone else. Discover how small the world is. Remind yourself how big the world is.

Make a ruckus!

The biggest Meetup in New York is at Veranda in the West Village tonight at 6 p.m.; 119 people have RSVP'ed.

Unfortunately, Mr. Godin's lofty ideas about linchpins are also attractive to the kind of salesmen and lightweights Gary Vaynerchuck might call "clowns," and the comments on the Meetup page wax fanboyish--"do you think Seth will show up?"--so it'll be interesting to hear reports back from anyone who goes.