Tracing the life of an idea
(July 26, 2004)The fruition of an idea depends on its innate strength, the attention it gets and howmuch it is acted upon
MANY of us wonder if ideas have a life of their own. Why is it that some ideas replicate themselves and others die? Is there a similarity between how ideas live and how genes survive? In the last decade-and-a-half, significant bodies of work have emerged on the subject that ideas are like living things. The surge in this thinking came after British anthropologist Richard Dawkins published The Selfish Gene. Subsequently, Susan Blackmore wrote The Meme Machine. The latter is a seminal piece that dwells on memetics. Just as genes are the subjects of study in genetics, meme is the subject of study in memetics.
The term 'meme' is Greek; it is the essence of a replicable idea. Just as the purpose of a gene is to replicate itself, so is the purpose of a meme. Yet, its continuity depends on many factors. As with genes, a strong meme cancels a weak one.
Memes travel over time and space. Consider ghosts. Across civilisations, people have believed in ghosts or in some form of life after death. It is a meme that has survived. Even religions are memes. While genes are passed on vertically (from parent to child), memes can be transmitted both vertically and horizontally (as between peers, friends and contemporaries).
Take the world of technology - think of the concept of an Internet browser as an idea that originated in somebody's head. From there, it replicated itself as Netscape Navigator, and became a commercially valuable concept. But a time came when another meme called Microsoft Explorer challenged it and became the ruling standard - just the way a strong gene would cancel a weak one.
In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the television show Sesame Street as a great example of an idea that has a life of its own. It started as a concept in someone's head, and became commercially interesting because it figured out that attention must precede any learning process. This simple concept led to the sustained success of a television serial that is most watched by pre-school children.
Organisations are people bound together by memes. If you look at any active organisation carefully, you will realise it represents not just an idea, but possibly an idea of ideas. Hence, an organisation may be called a memeplex, made up of its own mission, vision, values, myths and ways of working. When the memes governing its social contracts weaken, employees and customers unsubscribe to the memeplex. This can lead to the organisation morphing into something unintended, or to it withering away.
The impact-making capability of a meme depends on three things: its innate strength, the attention it gets and how much it is acted upon. Think of the non-violence movement. The concept of satyagraha was a meme. It was inherently potent. But ideas live in the attention people pay to them. Given attention, an idea can rapidly replicate, as did satyagraha. Why people do or do not pay attention to an idea is an interesting subject of study. Thomas Davenport, an authority on knowledge management, deals with it in The Attention Economy. But attention alone is not enough. Much depends on the action generated around it.
Sometimes in history we see an idea whose time has come. The idea reaches a point at which it becomes viral. This is called the tipping point of an idea, beyond which there is no stopping the idea; it almost becomes an epidemic. Gladwell illustrates this in The Tipping Point. He brings forth the concept of the power of the few, and shows how the theory of six degrees of separation works in the real world. He illustrates, through real examples, how 20 per cent of people control the outcome in 80 per cent of the situations.
The Meme Machine, The Attention Economy and The Tipping Point are books that have impacted me deeply in recent times. I recommend these books to leaders who have a transformational task ahead in their organisations.
