Unleash Your Ideavirus

Get the Picture?

Think of an ideavirus as a big idea that runs amok across a target population. It's the fashionable idea of the moment that propagates through a section of the population, teaching and changing everyone it touches. Heard of Hotmail? Ever used it? If so, it's not because Hotmail ran a lot of TV ads (it didn't). It's because the ideavirus got to you. Someone you know infected you with it. How did you discover the Polaroid I-Zone Pocket Camera? Did you come across it in a marketing campaign? Or did you find it when you saw a group of teenage girls at the mall, taking pictures of one another for their scrapbooks? Another ideavirus on the move.

Sometimes it seems as if everyone you know is watching the same TV show, reading the same book, or talking about the same movie, Web site, or TV commercial. How does this happen? It usually happens because an idea spreads on its own, not because a company behind a product spends a ton of money advertising it. How an idea spreads, and how to make it spread faster -- that's the idea behind an ideavirus.

Ideaviruses aren't new. Word of mouth is as old as the oldest profession, but now it's different. Ideaviruses are more important, easier to launch, and more potent than ever before. Ideaviruses are critical because they start fast and spread fast -- and speed wins: Brands and products don't have the time to develop the old way. Ideaviruses give us increasing returns: Word of mouth dies out, but ideaviruses keep growing and spreading. And finally, ideaviruses are the currency of the future, because we relish the new. An ideavirus is always about the new.

How Fast Is a Good Idea?

I wore Converse sneakers growing up. So did you. But the shareholders of Converse never profited from the idea of the shoe -- they profited from the manufacture of a decent sneaker. If two pairs of sneakers were for sale, you bought the cheaper one.

It took Converse generations to build a brand and years to amortize its factories. The price of sneakers was based on how much they cost to make, and they were sold one pair at a time by earnest shoe salespeople who cared about things like how well the shoes fit.

Converse could take its time. The company was in it for the long haul. But now the long haul is long gone. Twenty years later, it's the idea of Air Jordan sneakers -- not the sneakers themselves -- that permits Nike to sell them for more than $100 a pair. It's the sizzle, not the fit. The idea earns Nike outsized profits -- and because of that, the company doesn't even bother to own factories. But in the idea business, Nike does know that even the best idea has a short half-life, so it needs to find the next one in a hurry.

It took about 20 years for radio to have 10 million users. By then, an industry had grown that could profit from the mass audience. It took about 10 years for TV to do the same thing. It took only 28 months for Netscape to get to 10 million users -- and Hotmail did it in 7 months. By aggregating a mass audience and by not having to share it with an entire industry, Internet heavyweights such as Hotmail and Netscape are able to realize huge profits, seemingly overnight. And they do it by spreading ideaviruses.

Ideas can now be carried in the ether -- and because ether is fast and cheap, ideas can move faster and cheaper. Whether it's the image of the new VW Beetle (how long did it take for the idea of that car to pop up in your brain?) or the words of an online-only novella by Stephen King (400,000 people downloaded Riding the Bullet during the first week that it was available), the time that it takes for an idea to circulate is approaching zero.

Why does it matter that ideas can instantly cross international boundaries and change discussions about crime and justice, economics, education, or politics -- or even get us to buy something? Because the currency of our future is ideas, and the ideavirus is the way that those ideas propagate. And you don't have to wait for it to emerge organically or to hope that it happens accidentally. You can plan for it, optimize it, and make it happen.

Sure, some ideaviruses are organic and accidental. They happen and spread without overt action or intent on the part of the person who creates them: Contrary to what you may think, the Macarena was not an organized, sinister plot; it just happened. But many other products, services, hit movies, or catchphrases are the intentional acts of smart entrepreneurs and politicians who know that launching and nurturing an ideavirus can help them accomplish their goals.