Ideas That Spread

Have you thought recently about sliced bread and how the idea spread? As I was watching a TEDtalk with Seth Godin, he kept saying that “Ideas that spread win” and he explained what happened after the bread slicer was first invented – and how the idea didn’t take off until Wonder Bread, well, spread it. I was reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, The Tipping Point. Gladwell also talked about how ideas spread – and who spreads them. You just can’t predict which ideas will gain popularity. You can hope, but you can’t really tell what will catch on fire. Who would have thought that Will it Blend would spread like crazy?

One point Godin emphasizes is making your product, your idea or your service remarkable. As in, worth making a remark about. If you do that, people will talk about it. Here’s Godin’s TEDtalk below. It’s worth the 18 minutes to listen to it again.