This is a really lame title, so i'm goin to change it. What im after is a work that synthesis the lessons of a lot of other works (art of Memetics, The Game, Seth Godin etc) and uses them as an adaptable community based development guide. Posting here for criticism etc.
QuotePractical Memetics.
1. Intro.
Overview - a note on the structure - a note of disclosure - a note on terms and complementary works.
There are a number of book that do a good job of discussing Memetics and the accompanying tools they provide, the most seminal being 'The Art of Memetics'.
This book is an attempt to offer a structure for the uninitiated memetic to begin the journey of creative growth through the tools of Memetics. It follows a series of activities designed to assist you in developing your skills and experiences.
A note on the structure. This work is designed to be used in a way that connects you with others. Sometimes this work will send you to websites, or to physical locations. Sometimes it will ask you to start your own pages or projects. Sometimes it will send you to forums or other online communities. Some projects will ask you to share or critique creative works. None of this would have been possible years ago. Many books that seek to energise or develop community have websites that compliment the community. This work aims to interrogate the two.
Each segment should provide some writing and an activity.
A note of disclosure. Hopefully you're canny enough to already be asking yourself what I get out of this (or what I hope to).
What I am after; People reading this work, having to opportunity to network with people, better knowledge of my 'brand' Placid Dingo.
What I'm not after; Money, you doing my work for me, any personal info or email addresses etc, undying loyalty etc.
Notes on terms. There are terms in this work from a number of sources. These include Art of Memetics, The Game and many others. Terms are defined in the work, but these additional resources are definitely recommended reading.
Part one; Deconstructing and Understanding self.
A) What is a meme?
Dawkins original definition isn't much used any more, and the use of meme tends to vary fairly wildly, depending on who's using it. Our working definition is this; a meme is a single unit of information, which is close to a way of saying 'anything, really', that can be represented as an idea. Examples of memes could include;
A catch phrase (I'm lovin' it) etc
A piece of visual information (Backwards caps, the punk look)
A Trope (see www.tvtropes.com for a detailed look at what tropes are.)
A behaviour (Shaking hands, the 'sup' nod)
An ideology (Communism, Objectivism)
A symbol (an 'on' button, the McDonalds M)
Memes tend to be made of other memes. So if we look at the Gangsta look, it ties a lot of memes together; 'Bling', 'Bandanas (possible tying in with the meme of colour as a signifier of gang loyalty), certain brands, certain jargon sets, music styles etc.
A successful meme will spread fast.
What makes a successful meme? Generally there are three things a meme should be to spread well.
SIMPLE: The McDonald's M is essentially a yellow letter. Democracy is a simple idea of 'rule of the people'. 'Meat is Murder' is a simple message.
REPEATABLE: McDonalds M is repeated on EVERYTHING the company makes. Democratic process is simple enough to be followed in schools and organisations beyond government. 'Meat is Murder' is catchy and quick to repeat (Google shows 1,480,000 hits).
ADAPTABLE: The McDonalds M is printed on adverts, animated in ads and turned into big plastic signs on the roof of stores. Democracy has proven adaptable to multiple types of government (sometimes questionably so!) and 'Meat is Murder' is seen in multiple ways (including the popular subversion 'Meat is Murder; Tasty, Tasty Murder'.)
Activity:
Seth Godin describes simple but important marketing ideas, and builds up terminology to make these ideas easier to discuss. Read his work 'Unleashing the Ideavirus' at http://www.sethgodin.com/ideavirus/downloads/IdeavirusReadandShare.pdf.
The whole thing in development if you're interested:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dD9o90M8J5snt_iMtDDcYKb6U8z1WsXrouhiCAz73FY/edit?hl=en&authkey=CNC_sMwF
Quote
B) Why does it matter.
You should have some concept of this already from the previous work.
The main reason we're getting into memes is because it gives us a structure for developing, extending, processing and spreading ideas. That's our business here.
However, this is all outside stuff. We want to hit the inside stuff first.
One of the reasons I wanted to work on this is because I wanted to take the tools of multiple structures and sythesise them together. I won't be getting you to read every book or text I'm using, but they certainly come recommend.
Our mission for Part One is to focus on you.
This means a number of things
1) Get a picture of who you are now, and begin to chart your progress.
2) Develop confidence in yourself.
3) Develop your own manifestos.
We won't be doing all of this in part B. It will take us a few letters to get through this. Work through at your desired pace.
Activity:
Optional: Many of the tools we're going to use in this part come from three works; Art of Memetics, The Game and Rules of the Game. I recommend you read these. AoM is a HUGELY recommended work; you can get a free copy here; http://artofmemetics.com/.
The other two, both by Neil Strauss, are really about teaching men to pick up girls - though they offer largely generic life advice, which is why we're using them. So it's very much up to you if you read them. I advise a HUGE grain of salt; some of the advice is valuable in general terms, some is kind of iffy and some will simply help you be a jackass.
The main activity. AoM suggests you use a number of tools to chart personal progress and reccomends this particular test. Go to http://similarminds.com/jung.html or any other page offering the Meyer Briggs personality test. Take the test and record the results in a document. As we're going to give you the chance to share a lot of this later, you may want to use an electronic document.
QuoteC:
There's no sense in giving you the tools to reach your goals if you don't even understand the motivation behind your goals. I can't help you get what you want, unless you already know what you want.
Doing a self analysis can be hard for us sometimes, especially if we feel like we're still finding out who we are. The good news is we're like water, not rock; we flow, change and develop. That's why I talk about charting who you are as opposed to determining who you are.
It's useful to be able to articulate who you are at a given point. That's what this letter's about.
Activity: Optional; Have a look at the other quizzes at http://similarminds.com/. Use them and record results.
Main activity: Start a new piece on yourself, give answers to the following questions;
What do I value?
What do I believe?
What do I want?
What motivates me?
What energises me?
What are my strengths?
What are my weaknesses?
QuoteD: Tentative Goals.
One of the things Public Relations is massive on, is goals. Measurable goals.
Be more successful is a bad goal, because it's not measurable. Measurable goals usually use numbers or specifics.
Good goals include;
I want to increase my creative output to 6000 words a day.
I want to meet at least five new friends across this month.
I want to clean out my room so that all work spaces are tidy.
Each of these goals are measurable.
This text is generally intended to help you develop your creative/social side, but it's up to you how you use it.
Activity: Again, on your document, write out three areas in your life that you want to improve.
Eg, Writing, Music, Confidence.
For each of these areas, develop a measurable goal.
Eg, 15000 words by August, Play one song well on guitar, approach one new person socially, confidently every time I go out.
We will tweak these later, but for now, when we discuss goals, think of this.
I'm liking this so far!
Feel free to pillage from my AoM cliff notes, and my Anatomy of a Meme (http://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=13437.msg429277#msg429277) thread (most of which is borrowed from Godin or Wikipedia in of itself)
Unleashing the Ideavirus is free at http://www.sethgodin.com/ideavirus/downloads/IdeavirusReadandShare.pdf - you'll have to dig around for a license, but I'm guessing you can probably print excerpts without pissing anybody off
Awesome, ta.
I very well might. The main aim is to take a lot of different sources and blend them up. Not entirely sure where it's all going yet.
Quote from: Placid Dingo on January 10, 2011, 04:05:49 AM
This is a really lame title, so i'm goin to change it.
bump. you didn't change the title!! :argh!:
Hey! thanks for bumping, I completely neglected this project for a while there.
I haven't got a name yet, but you've kicked me into adding more. The 'Recognising, understanding' self section is pretty much done, and I want to start looking at 'developing-expanding self'
QuoteF: Completeness
You may feel you are missing something in your life. This work isn't going to assume what it is, or pinpoint what it is, but it is going to propose that there's a useful model for identifying it.
Abraham Maslow proposed the idea of a hierarchy of needs.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg/800px-Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg.png)
This is an adapted version of Maslow's pyramid produced by Factoryjoe. There's debate about this model, especially it's tendency to refer specifically to individualistic cultures exclusively, but it tends to be a useful reference point.
Activity: Using the pyramid as a reference point, identify areas in which you feel you may need further development and write three points on how you feel you might address this. Keep in mind that this is an imperfect model.
BUMP because this was a great idea
QuoteE: Identifying challenges of self.
We're going to start applying a few things from The Game. Naturally, our goal is different to the goals of the book; not least because this is a text designed to be as good for females as it is for males.
One of the things self help books do well is create jargon that make it easier to discuss ideas. All three texts I've recommended do this heavily.
There's three terms I want to use with you here that come from 'The Game'; Inner Game, Outer Game, and Limiting Beliefs.
'Game' is a tough term to use because it's loaded with meanings that we're not necessarily trying to use here. The standard implication is that people who 'have game' have the ability to pick up girls. We're tweaking the meaning slightly, to use 'Game' as the quality that an individual has that allows them to achieve their intent. It also implies a kind of Heretic (in the sense of Seth Godin's Tribes) or Chutzpah sensibility.
Inner Game is your internal sense of game. This included your confidence, self belief, internal monologue etc.
Outer game is the way in which you externalise these elements, expressing confidence and value.
Limiting Beliefs are the things that stand in the way of your ability to develop the above two elements. Strauss gives 'Girls only like jerks, and 'I'm not attractive enough' as examples.
Some better examples for our purposes may be 'I don't have time', 'I'm not smart enough' or 'Learning this is boring'.
Activity. Possibly using your goals from D write out some beliefs you may think of as limiting beliefs which cause you trouble. Once you have written out a few (between three and five is a good start) try to identify some possible counterpoints to these beliefs.
Example: Limiting belief: I'm not organised enough to get things finished.
Counterpoint: I am still developing the behaviour patterns I need, and when I improve these, I will experience large boosts in my levels of productivity.
AoM discuses affirmation and makes the sensible suggestion of using affirmations that you believe sometimes, if you don't believe the more complete version. For example, if you don't at all believe you are attractive, saying 'I am attractive' is of litle value as you will be resisting the message. 'Some people find me attractive' or another phrase that you find yourself able to believe at least some of the time is better to use, until you find yourself more receptive to the more complete message.
QuoteG: Developing useful thought patterns.
If you reread the example provided in the activity for E you'll notice that the point and counterpoint both say the same thing in different ways. One way is going to limit you. The other should invigorate you.
In PR Class we discussed the fact that you have to believe in what you do. The standard accepted wisdom was that an organisation has the right to manage the relationship between itself and its stakeholders. Without this belief being articulated in this way, most descriptions of what a PR worker does are fairly negative (manipulating people for profit, making bad people look good etc.) Perhaps you have experienced the unpleasantness of doing something you don't believe in; you would know that without framing your actions in a way that lets you believe in what you're doing, you struggle with your own willingness to complete the task at hand.
Rob Judge and Zac Bauer have a relatively obnoxious book called 'The Four Elements of Game', which, despite flaws, does provide a clever sleight of mind technique in trying to help men feel more comfortable talking to women (referred to in these communities as approach anxiety). The suggestion is, when you approach a woman frame your intention as this; you want the truth. The truth to the question, is she as friendly as she looks? Could she be interested in me? This way a rejection is also a victory; we have discovered the truth of the situation.
It is important to point out that I don't want anyone trying to lie to themselves. That's not helpful. However, to think of things in the most positive way is a useful skill.
Activity: This activity is going to deal with a handful of ideas about who you are in the eyes of others, which you may find confronting. Don't be afraid to push yourself, but don't open any doors you're not ready to deal with.
You're going to write one new thing on your document before you synthesise all the information we've been collecting in H.
You'll write two mini-biographies of yourself. One is from the most negative perspective you can think of, the other from the most positve.
For example, I would tell you firstly that I am short, scrawny and look too young to handle a real job. My clothes are not stylish and I have no fashion sense. I am disorganised, messy, unable to finish major projects. I don't take my job seriously enough.
Then, I would tell you that I am youthful, boyishly handsome, slim. I am passionate and high energy. I am not controlled by the whims of fashion, but dress pleasantly. I can handle my work seriously, but pragmatically. I thrive in a zone of controlled chaos. I multitask, but buckle down when I need to.
Neither of these provide a full picture, but one is framed through a succession of limiting beliefs, and the other as a positively charged narrative.
QuoteH: Synthesising the story so far.
This is where we're going to try developing a manifesto. You won't have to think too hard on this; most of the work has been done already in the above steps.
We want to try to identify;
Your motivation: What do you want?
Your belief: What do you believe?
Your toolkit: What about you will help ensure your success?
Goals: What are your goals, and how are they consistent with your belief and motivation?
My example ;
I want to see schools developing systems that help students to develop greater levels of autonomy, and identify their passions. I believe our systems should focus on helping students identify their own passions rather than forcing conformity to existing concepts of 'intelligence' and 'talent'.
We will be expanding this
Thank you.
Feedback of any form would be good. I've posted the three segments I hadn't shared here before.
QuotePart One Overview.
Memes are things that get repeated. We can work out ways to see what memes instruct our life, and adapt them. We look at the memes that make up our idea of who we are.
We are doing this for a reason, but everyone's reason is different. To find your reason, you will have to deconstruct your motivations, and develop some goals. A good goal needs to be measurable, so you can tell if it's successful or not. One good way to find goals is to use Maslow's hierarchy to find areas in your life that you feel are not going as well as you'd like.
We are able to recognise that the 'self' is in part constructed by the way others see us. We can focus on our positive sense of self and confidence (inner game) by the use of affirmations that click with us.
What did we talk about that we'll expand in part two?
Outer game: How do we show others who we are in a way that helps us achieve goals?
The Manifesto: How can we turn this into a successful goal?
The overview for part one: hopefully the whole thing isn't too discombobulated.