Intro

Cultural AlchemyApplying the science of memes to culture design

Presentation by B. Laszlo Karafiath, Cultural Alchemist CultureCulture Inc. San Francisco, CA

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• Leaders today have the power to nurture change applying culture design & development.

• We combine our brand of meme science and social media tools to help our clients to spread winning ideas and thrive in a world of intense idea competition.

Culture2

Our mission is to support leaders to spread the memes of a sustainable world so they can multiply the results of their communication efforts by leveraging the power of memes.

Culture was

an Art

Now Culture

is Science

Culture is biologyWe are looking for tipping points in cultureAt these resonance point culture can changeWe can use these leverage points to create multiplier effects

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Three Types of Culture-change

Splash

SurfShape

Memes are waves of culture. They generate the flow of our thoughts & ideas.

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„Freedom torches”

“The Business

of Doubt”

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Culture is an Ecosystem

Ideas

Thoughts

Gossips

Theories

Opinions

Beliefs

Views

Behaviors Technologies

Clues

We share common memes but rarely have common thoughts. We have rather different thoughts generated by same memes.

meme

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Memes are Cultural Genes

The meme is not the thought, but what “gets through” of the thought.

Memes are the DNA of culture, business, communication & technology.

Meme-based communication is measurable. What you can measure you can manage.

memes are idea molecules, they generate thoughts

We are cultural designers.

We all are.

One billion of us.We create our world through thoughts.We can change what is possible.

It’s not about ‘going viral’. It’s about changing the collective mind.

Meme change is individual.Behavior change is social.

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Memes Create Megamemes

Ancient godsHermesZeusApollo

Cultural IconsSherlock HolmesBatmanPac-Man

BrandsCoca ColaCitibankFacebook

…what we worship

12Culture2 Meme Mapping Tech.

Symbiotic Memes

Defining Memes

Hostile Memes

Memes that cannot

be fought with the “memetic

immune system” of our own

meme.

Memes that define your

meme from the negative or

shadow side.

Memes of the external world that threaten the existence of your meme.

Memes that undermine or inhibit the spread of your meme.

Parasitic MemesMemes which depend on

our meme for their existence & spreading.

Memes that specifically define your meme. Your ‘forté’.

The memes that differentiate you from any other meme construct.

Reinforcing and complementary memes that exist together with your meme.

The blue ocean of memes.Integrate many of them.

Shadow Memes

©2004-2014 Darwin’s Marketing Evolution, Budapest – Culture2 Inc., San Francisco

Culture2 Inc. presents

Analysis of the Coca-Cola Meme

on Twitter

A QUICK RESEARCH REPORT2012

145000+ memes collected from tweets

Somebody please tell me: why am I suddenly in love with the song on the cocacola commercial?

World of coca cola is an amazing museum and entertainment.

Coca Cola supports animal abuse! Help stop this!

People are using Coca-Cola to clean their toilets and saying it works really well.

I like your lips like I like my Coca-Cola, yeah. Oh how it pops and fizzes

Your nails would dissolve in a cup of Coca-Cola in about 4 days.

Coca-Cola played both sides during World War Two, they supported the American troops but also kept making soda for the Nazis.I hate when people ask dumb

questions like "Why do you smoke kush", I usually answer with "Why do you drink coca cola? my dads

insane, they say im to blame & my brothers on the coca-cola.

Can I have a Coca-Cola Please? Is Pepsi ok? Is monopoly money ok?

When it originally appeared in 1886 - Coca Cola was billed as an "Esteemed Brain Tonic and Intellectual Beverage".

That guy who found a condom in a coke bottle, should be thanking cocacola for protecting him from cancer.

Coca-Cola Company sponsors 100 students for a summer entrepreneurship

Coca Cola and Ice, admit it, no matter what your age it's always been one of the best things ever. I'm chilln like

a polar bear in a coca-cola commercial...

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Meme Dimensions of Coke

Prestige

Hatred - Love

Emotions

Low – High

Sincerity

CulticLegends – Facts

Dishonest – Honest

• Four memetic dimensions were found that explain 62% of the variance among the memes

• These are the drivers of the perception

32%

13%

9%8%

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Belief System In Flux

0-100% +100%

Dishonest Honest

Hatred Love

Low High

Emotions

FactsLegends

Prestige

Cultic

Sincerity

Dimension:

• Coke is more loved than hated in spite of the many hatred memes

• Its prestige is relatively lower than how much it is loved (positive emotions more influential than cognitive aspects)

• It is accompanied more by ‘legend memes’ than by ‘fact memes’

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Uncertainty and Risk • In spite of the love Coke

is considered rather dishonest. This is a very real mid- to long-term risk.

• The Coke-meme can flip!• The meme landscape for

Coke is deeply ambivalent and conflicted… creating uncertainty and risk about its future as a global brand.

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Recent Cultural Waves

19Memes of Political Change

• A meme isn't an "idea," in that the phrase itself is essentially nearly “meaningless”. It is small enough to spread without mutation and distortion, and big enough to create meaning in someone’s mind.

• Memes are the most basic component of an idea, and that allows it to spread from person to person without being inhibited by rational thought

• Memes are cultural genes, that generate ideas and thoughts. Political change can only come about through cultural change. Cultural change can only come about through the propagation of memes.

20Climate Change is a Meme

• “Tea Party" is a meme. It is the implication of a new American Revolution, without any of the inconvenient mental effort that spelling out and defending the concept would require. We all saw that drastic effect this meme had on US political culture.

• "Occupy" is a meme. It is the reincarnation of the 60's "sit-in" with none of the cultural baggage. It, again, isn't an "idea" but just the most basic component of one. It's vagueness is it's strength, because it doesn't limit itself to one specific interest - it is used to further a variety of interests, and it uses this utility to a variety of interests to grow and spread itself.

• And climate change?

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Introducing: ClimateMeme

People have no direct experience with climate change. Despite the draughts and tornadoes climate change is not an object they can touch to confirm that it is real. And so it only lives in the minds of people as a meme – a very threatening meme!

If you think the economy is more important than the environment, try holding your breath while counting your money.

Friends don’t let friends date climate change deniers…

“I’m definitely going to change this year.” -- Climate

Happy to agree that climate change exists. Not sure if reality exists though.

We collected 5000+ memes from Twitter and harvested during MemeHunter Hackathons in San Francisco and Seattle.

Global warming = the result of the sun trying to give the earth a hug.

Global warming is increasing UM NO!!!! We cannot control the weather

The most effective green house gas is not carbon dioxide, but water vapor. The trend of co2 in the atmosphere is following the rise in temperature, not the other way around.If climate scientists find any evidence of

global warming then their funding throughout eternity will be assured.

It would be great if assault rifles could shoot climate change…

The Doha climate conference made more hot air than global warming

Remember when a Tornado was just a Tornado and not a commercial for global warming?

One of the main weapons of the power elite is climate change. People are supposed to be panicked…

If we all just got real, as a culture, then we would fix it…

Don’t believe in climate change, rap fans? Tell that to Vanilla Slush, Water Cube, and LL Warm J. Adjust your

spine, adjust your attitude.

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ClimateMemes are a fraction of a percent of Twitter’s daily traffic

• Some people have been “infected”with ClimateMemes.

• Their minds then tried to fight it off by either actively denying the meme’s existence – or striving to rid the world of it

• Both of these groups represent a small percentage of the larger society.

• The majority of society have not been infected.

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ClimateMemes are not speading

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They only create anxiety. • Are we out of harmony

with nature? • Is it going to kill off

everyone we ever loved?

• Does this mean there’s something wrong with us?

• Do we have the power of gods to shape the planet in such profound ways?

Maybe it’s better they don’t spread!

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Meme Dimensions of ClimateMeme

• Five dimensions were found that explain 63% of the variance among the memes. All five dimensions can be interpreted clearly to reveal strategic insights.

• These are the drivers of the perception of climate change.

17%

15%12%

11%

8%

HarmonyDisharmony — Harmony

SurvivalExtinction — Survival

CooperationDisintegration — Unity

MomentumStall — Advance

ElitismPopulist — Vanguard

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ClimateMemes reached & activated minority archetypes

archetypes reached & activated: hero, outlaw, warrior, activist, explorer, adventurer, pioneer

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The Majority is Not Activated!

archetypes not reached/activated: innocents, everyman, citizen…

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New Strategies Needed

• In order to reach the majority archetypes progressives have to communicate with memes that resonates with these archetypes

• New dissemination strategies needed• Work with memes that live in the memespace• Assess and utilize networks of spreading based on

memetic influence • Build bridges between memes and networks

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Challenges to core beliefs

Find those opinion leaders who are bridge nodes between the progressives and the target group networks to get the message through

Find the meme-bridges with network science

32Re-engineer

• Determine progressive ideas’ relations to the memes of the target group

• Select ideas that resonate and opinion leaders to spread them

• Find resonance and rejection• Re-engineer• Create the fits between

the progressive ideas and the target group’s meme set

33Example: www.creationcare.org

Just one - maybe surprising - example of a meme based strategy:

Enhance the spreading of existing ideas that match the memetic profile in the heartland of America.

34Cultural Alchemy

1) Know and control your meme

2) Use memetic insight in strategy

3) Pre-empt memetic crises

4) Use memetics in competitive analysis, learn your competitors’ memetic weaknesses

5) Divide and conquer: find memetic wedges in the opposition’s reactions and draw attention to it

6) Offer new meme-alternative when the divided parties are locked in meme battle

7) Memetic jiu-jitsu: turn the hostile memes around use their own energy against them

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Belief: System: Change

You never change things by fighting the

existing reality. To change something,

build a new model that makes the existing

model obsolete.

– R. Buckminster Fuller

“”

B. Lazlo Karafiath, [email protected]

facebook/culture2.com twitter.com/culture2 www.culture2.com

Our Memes Thank You for Your Attention!

facebook.com/culture2inc twitter.com/culture2inc www.culture2inc.com

Balazs Laszlo [email protected]

CultureCulture Inc.