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Researchers that can bring a good story are a scarce good. Lucky for us, Susan Blackmore is such an exception. During a vibrant keynote she shared her vision on how ideas spread. A few years ago she got hooked by the insight that the evolutionary theory of Darwin is directly applicable to the spreading of ideas. To illustrate: Why on earth do hotels world wide started to fold the end of toilet rolls in triangles? Who started this simple habit and more important, what made this idea so attractive that even in mid-jungle this gimmick can be found? Most ideas fizzle out, but some ideas seem to survive. Interesting, isn’t it?
Memes
In the seventies already author Richard Dawkins described this concept in his book “The Selfish Gene”. Based on Darwin’s principles of variation, selection and heredity, he introduced the new concept of memes: “a unit of cultural transmission or a unit of imitation”. We humans, we are continuously creating new memes. This can be everything: a story, a song or the way we fold toilet paper.
“We are designers, we have a clever mindset” #not
We, the human race, are the result of the replication of genes. Next, we became advanced selective imitation devices ourselves. This is exactly what Susan is so passionate about. From all species we are the best imitators. It’s inherent to our species. To demonstrate this she did some imitation exercises with the crowd. Two lucky volunteers even were asked on stage, only then to find out they had to dance. Entertaining, Susan surely knows how to play the crowd. But she didn’t came to Antwerp to learn us some dance tricks. “Imitation the true source of culture” she said. It’s not someone’s creative mindset that results in a beautiful design, but always it’s the continuous sharing and copying of memes that leads to cultural manifestations. Designers might disagree although.
The age of memes
But why is this so important today? Susan referred to the presentation of Randi earlier the day. Facebook and other platforms are the ultimate meme replicators. Never ever have ideas spread more easily. So embrace this digital evolution. Build upon other ideas. Let them spread as viruses and see what happens. “All creativity is evolution in action.” Susan concluded. A vision I’m happy to share with her!
geschreven voor de Flanders DC event blog naar aanleiding van het Creativity Forum 2010 #cffdc
