First of all, thanks for writing back in a slightly more conciliatory manner. I think you will find people are far more responsive and think more about what you have to say if you are less aggressive.

That said, I have been reflecting this morning on what you have said and am agreeing with you on the branding issue.

It is important to engage in the brand discourse to change the flow of that discourse. In fact, certain initiatives will be completely impotent without taking on the guise and language of branding and marketing.

By the way, your inference that I have a poor impression of business is absurd. Both my parents are successfully hard-workingly self employed, as am I and most of the people I know. I have for sure got a poor impression of “business as usual”

I think some of the distortion happening in this exchange is the fact that this post was written as a reaction to another post about “branding the movement”. In the context of an entire, nebulous global movement, a brand is just one component of a larger structure. To attempt to brand that structure has the danger of turning it into an ideology. And an ideology can creep into dogma very easily. On the one hand its clear that this emergent movement has values, but it doesn’t have a “value system” – the closest thing I can imagine working is what I have been calling the Social API.

I agree with your assertion “Memes are organic, meta plants that were once seeds or ideas.” But a movement is certainly bigger than such a meta plant. To extend the metaphor, a movement is something like an entire jungle’s worth of activity and inertia.

I think there is a subtle but important difference between labeling something and going through the exercise of defining terms.

I often think the thing we’re missing is an “equivalency table” which has mutually agreed upon translations of ideas like memes and brands across different cultures and metaphors. Some of the work Joseph Campbell did (for instance in his book The Inner Reaches of Outer Space) addresses this cross-cultural language issue insofar as it relates to commonalities between mythical traditions.

As far as the seeds I’m planting, I’ll have some more news on this front soon.

Peace and pumpkin seed oil,
Gabriel

There are all kinds of people in the world who speak in all kinds of different ways. I’m a busy man, though apology contradicts my point, for your sake, I’m sorry for being blunt. I understand you perfectly. Though witless, your post is negative in nature and contradicts the values presented by this blogs mission statement. You’re never going to create a meme by excluding, hiding out, or dropping out from the realities of life; as you said “This emergent innovation movement is rhizomatic not hierarchical.”

I’m challenging you and a mindset that supports this type of intellectual deadwood. “I am not attempting to claim intellectual rights to any movement of any sort. I am simply pointing out the danger of using the language of branding to describe social movements.” Deadwood on a living tree can kill it if not pruned. Just because you have a poor impression of business doesn’t make it so. You’re talking about millions of hard working people living life.

“Show me the stone that the builders rejected: that is the keystone.” Jesus Christ

I’ll try and use this quote from the mission statement to help illustrates my point. “For innovation to have a measurable and positive impact on global society it must be allowed to flourish throughout the information ecosystem as an unrestrained cultural meme.” A true meme by nature is metaphysical. Branding it is really only saying I support it and will never restrain it (have you ever heard the quote “You can kill the revolutionary, but you can never kill the revolution”?). By claiming the possibility of branding restraining it only restrains your intellectual capacity to understand it. Worse yet, by trying to prevent if from being, what you fear, “branded” is restraining it free flowing through the realities of life.

Memes are organic, meta plants that were once seeds or ideas. If you want your seed to grow the seed must be suitable for the dirt, not the other way around.

Where are you planting your seeds?

“Look, the sower went out, took a handful (of seeds), and scattered (them). Some fell on the road, and the birds came and gathered them. Others fell on rock, and they didn’t take root in the soil and didn’t produce heads of grain. Others fell on thorns, and they choked the seeds and worms ate them. And others fell on good soil, and it produced a good crop: it yielded sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure.” Jesus Christ

My point in saying “This movement you in fact try to claim some kind of semantically intellectual right to (like the farmer branding his cattle) is the product of life” is this movement you’re calling “emergent innovation movement” is bigger than the brand, or the psycho-emotional label being put on it. It’s o.k. to label something for the sake of communication. We’ve been doing it for several millenia.

Peace and grease, Dustin

I take it from the tone of your comments that the phrase “hide out” has rubbed you the wrong way. What I meant to imply is that the urge to label and identify a movement plays easily into the hands of a media establishment which is only too eager to box in and commodify social agitation as quickly as it can.

By “hiding out” I guess I was not using the best words to describe what I intended. Perhaps a better way to have phrased it would have been dropping out. Until we “drop out” of the brand discourse and engage in alternative means of spreading ideas and influence this so-called movement will be too easily mistaken for a product instead of a process.

As far as clubs go, I don’t know which club you feel excluded by. This blog is a multifaceted space for a group of sometimes like-minded individuals to say pretty much whatever they want to say. I’m not sure if that’s what you are referring to, and I get the sense in general that your reactions to my post tend towards sarcasm and scorn.

Your statement about knowledge being “semantical” leaves me without much of a reaction. I would be more inclined to say that knowledge and semantics are two interrelated disciplines.

I have no objections with the practices of “hardworking farmers” who branded their cattle, other than today they could probably use RFID and save the cows a little pain. I have got objections to people codifying ideas using terminology born out of property ownership when those very ideas are deeply entangled with a tendency towards collective intelligence and open innovation.

You can’t build a web using pyramid stones.

You said, “Are you suggesting that someone saying “this is who I am! This is what I’m about!” turns a person into a dumbed down cow?”

My answer to this is no of course. I was not suggesting this in the least.

You said, “This movement you in fact try to claim some kind of semantically intellectual right to (like the farmer branding his cattle) is the product of life.”

I think you and I are having a misunderstanding. I am not attempting to claim intellectual rights to any movement of any sort. I am simply pointing out the danger of using the language of branding to describe social movements. Of course I will not deny your assertion that “this movement is the product of life” but then again, what isn’t “the product of life” after all? What is your point by saying that, exactly?

You continued, “Who do you think you are?”

Dustin, I am not sure what the point of this provocation is, but if you are really interested to engage me in this most metaphysical of questions I’d kindly request that you use a less bombastic and accusatory tone in your comments.

Yours Respectfully,
Gabriel

Maybe I’ve just excluded myself from the club?

Knowledge is semantical. When you claim to be above you put yourself below; to be human you must serve humanity and embrace it.

Are you suggesting the hard working farmer who tried to stay organized by marking his cattle was doing something wrong? Are you suggesting that someone saying “this is who I am! This is what I’m about!” turns a person into a dumbed down cow?

This movement you in fact try to claim some kind of semantically intellectual right to (like the farmer branding his cattle) is the product of life.

Who do you think you are?

“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.” – — Buddha — [Gautama Siddharta] (563 – 483 BC), Hindu Prince