Unleashing the Ideavirus

Unleashing the Ideavirus
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 www.ideavirus.com
other hand, made her fortune squeezing oranges. Point is that once she conquered that hive
of a few judges, the news was amplified far and wide. And the amplification (as per Zipf’s
law) gave her the foundation to create a career.
A challenge in tailoring your ideavirus is to make sure that when you do conquer an
individual or dominate a hive, the good news is amplified as far as possible, preferably at no
cost to you.
[frequency of interactions among hive members]
Some hives (like teenage girls) interact with each other far more frequently (and with much
more intensity) than others—like senior citizens. By understanding the frequency of hive
interaction and then trying to focus on moments of high interactivity, you can dramatically
increase the velocity of a virus.
Trade shows, for example, bring sneezers together for intense periods of information
exchange. By doing something as simple as handing out hats with your logo on them, you
make it more likely that you’ll reinforce your message during this critical time.
[number of times you need to expose someone in this hive in order for the virus to catch]
Some viruses are smooth indeed. See them once and you understand them. It only took one
exposure to the Macarena to get it. In general, the simpler the idea and the lower the risk, the
more likely someone is to get infected. Most of all, though, this variable is driven by how
viral the idea is to begin with. Meaning: is it cool, wonderful, important, dramatically better
and fun?
[number of different sneezers who have to recommend a virus for it to ignite]
Not all ideas have Medusa qualities. We usually need to hear from external sources before
we’re willing to buy into the new thing, especially for risky ideas. Bestseller lists for books
and other products are terrific, as are the sort of seal-of-approval validations that institutional
sneezers look for. “Hey, if it’s good enough for IBM…” say the more timid prospects.

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