Me and the Meme

I want to write about ideas relating change in business, new technology and communication; only ‘idea’ seems so big and sweeping and life changing. Ideas belong to the ivory towers, the philosophers, the educators. So I chose the word “meme” instead.

Meme is “the fundamental unit of information, analogous to the gene”, according to the online Urban Dictionary. So gene for how we are physical built up, and meme for our knowledge and cultural make-up. The dictionary also adds that memes can spread through a culture horizontally, by cultural acquisition. Ah! so we can share memes.

A third, more cynical definition from the same source “a pervasive thought or thought pattern that replicates itself via cultural means; a parasitic code, a virus of the mind especially contagious to children and the impressionable”, hinting that memes might have a life of their own, they might behave in a viral way to spread ideas. I like the subversive underscoring this gives, and it matches some of the new concepts in technology and business that I want to write about.

So welcome to Change Meme, a personal brainstorm on technology, communication and business.