Unleash Your Ideavirus - Part Two

We're All Nerds Now

Here's the first law of Nerdism: We're all hungry to understand what's new and to remain on the cutting edge.

Jed Clampett discovered that finding oil on his property was a sure road to riches. Today, that road is paved with awareness. If you know what's news -- if you know what's the latest, hottest, highest-impact new idea -- it's much easier to succeed. You can profit in the stock market, do better in politics, find breakthroughs in science, or lead the way in programming or in marketing.

In 1998, more than 3,800 business books were published in the United States alone. Every one of them got read by someone, and some got read by an awful lot of people. Why? Because as our world changes faster and faster and faster, knowing is just as important as having. And that makes us a population that is ready and eager for the next ideavirus.

While early adopters have always existed -- the nerds who always want to know about the cool new thing in their field -- today there are more nerds than ever before. If you're reading this, you're a nerd!

Because it's always changing, always launching, and always judging, the Internet has turned us all into nerds: AltaVista isn't cool anymore, Google is. The Palm is pass?; Handspring is hot. Suddenly, we're ready, willing, and able to be at the bleeding edge all the time -- which makes the profit from creating and owning an ideavirus larger than it ever was before.

The marketplace now understands how profitable -- in terms of time, money, and personal satisfaction -- it is to go with a winner. People supported John McCain just because other people were excited about him. In a political environment that was becoming stale, apathetic, and boring, excitement caused by an ideavirus was enough to change the dialogue. If something is new, different, and exciting, we want to know about it, to be a part of it. The fashion is now to be in fashion, and ideas are the way that we keep up.

Ideavirus Tip #2: Don't Sneeze at This Idea!

At the core of any ideavirus are sneezers -- the folks who tell 10, 20, or 100 people about some new thing, and whom people believe. There are two basic kinds of sneezers: promiscuous sneezers and powerful sneezers.

Promiscuous sneezers are folks like your dear Uncle Fred, the insurance salesman. You can always count on Fred to try to "sell" his favorite ideavirus to almost anyone, almost anytime. You know what Fred's up to when he starts to pitch whatever it is that he's onto now. And you know that he can be motivated by money or other inducements -- which means that you start out discounting whatever he's about to tell you. Promiscuous sneezers are rarely held in high esteem as opinion leaders, but if they're promiscuous enough, they can be extremely effective.

Many of the Net businesses that are being organized around ideaviruses are targeting promiscuous sneezers (I call any business that does this [WEB_ADDRESS]). As the value of creating ideaviruses increases, we'll see more of this, and we'll also see more and more people becoming promiscuous sneezers -- which means only that we're paying folks well enough to corrupt them into spreading ideas in exchange for cold, hard cash.

Compare that with the influence of powerful sneezers. Go back to the early 1980s. The hat business is near the end of a decades-long downward spiral to total irrelevance. Each year has brought worse news, with one manufacturer after another going out of business, and most towns left with one haberdasher -- if they're lucky.

All of a sudden, in the midst of all of this dismal news, from out of nowhere, a hero bursts onto the scene: Harrison Ford. Carrying a bullwhip. Wearing a hat.

Like the Marlboro Man, Indiana Jones had an enormously positive impact on sales of Stetson hats. Why? Because Harrison Ford is cool, because he has the influence to set style, and because his appearance in a movie in which he wore a fedora coaxed millions of men who wanted to be like him into buying one for themselves.

The paradox of the powerful sneezer is that as much as she does to sell ideas, she can't be bought. Every time she accepts a bribe in exchange for spreading a virus, her power decreases. In fact, every time a powerful sneezer introduces a new idea, she takes a risk. If, for whatever reason, her followers reject the virus, she loses some measure of her ability to introduce future viruses. For this reason, most powerful sneezers are predictably hard to motivate to adopt a new ideavirus.

One hundred years ago, there weren't many opportunities for playwrights, actors, and captains of industry to sell out. Today, Whoopi Goldberg pitches Flooz.com, and William Shatner pitches priceline.com: The celebrity is shifting from the role of influential, powerful, can't-be-bought-I'm-a-style-statesman to promiscuous sneezer, up for sale.

The growth of the Net almost guarantees that we'll see more and more people become promiscuous sneezers. At the same time, the role of the powerful sneezer will become ever more important: The less attention that we have to spare, the more likely we are to listen to someone who's spreading a virus without gaining anything personally from doing so.