From the Director's Desk

From the Director’s Desk

Many of us wonder if ideas have a life of their own. Why is it that some ideas replicate themselves and others die? Is there any similarity between how ideas live and how genes survive? In the last decade-and-a-half, significant bodies of work have emerged on the subject that ideas are like living things. The surge in this thinking came after British Anthropologist Richard Dawkins published “The Selfish Gene”. Subsequently, Susan Blackmore wrote “The Meme Machine”. The latter is a seminal piece that dwells on memetics. Just as genes are the subject of study in genetics, meme is the subject of study in memetics.

The term ‘Meme’ is Greek; it is the essence of a replicable idea.. Just as the purpose of a gene is to replicate itself, so is the purpose of a meme. Yet its continuity depends on many factors. As with genes, a strong meme cancels a weak one. Take the world of technology – think of the concept of Internet Browser as an idea that originated in somebody’s head. From there, it replicated itself as Netscape Navigator, and became a commercially valuable concept. But a time came when another meme called Microsoft Internet Explorer challenged it and became the ruling standard – Just the way a strong gene would cancel a weak one.

Organizations are people bound together by memes. If you look at any active organization carefully, you will realize it represents not just an idea, but possibly an idea of ideas. Hence an organization may be called a memeplex, made up of its own mission, vision, values, myths and ways of working. When the memes governing its social contracts weaken, employees and customers unsubscribe to the memeplex. This can lead to the organization morphing into something unintended, or it is withering away.

We at Plasti Pigments not just run our organization with ideas of ideas, but along with innovations to ideas. Life is all about growth. Adaptation is the keyword to growth. Thus we keep innovating the concept of ideas which in turn add to the productivity and functionality of our organization.

“The Fruition of an idea depends on its innate strength, the attention it gets and how much it is acted upon.”