You may be under the misapprehension that, if you're of a certain age, The Simpsons is a comedy cartoon series.
Of course, it is not that.
The Simpsons is an extraordinary exploration of the human condition and social comment, and one of the most extraordinary episodes and the most famous episode is one called Flaming Moe’s.
Just as a brief summary for context, Moe’s is the bar that Homer repeatedly drinks in throughout the whole of The Simpsons universe, and Moe is the bartender and owner.
In the episode Flaming Moe's, which is early on in the Simpsons universe, they develop a cocktail which has a secret ingredient, which they light on fire and becomes a viral sensation. It becomes so successful that Aerosmith even play at the bar and Moe gets a girlfriend who's a famous model, and everything moves along as you would hope in the fairy tale towards a happy ending.
Finally, though, Homer turns into a Phantom of the Opera character and just while a notorious drinks company are trying to steal the recipe (they are called Tipsy, McStagger - hilarious). They understand that they cannot find the secret ingredient.
Homer ends up as the phantom in the rafters and shouts the secret ingredient, and just as Moe is about to sign his million-dollar deal for the recipe for Flaming Moe’s with Tipsy McStagger Inc, it falls apart.
The next scene shows the outside of Moe's Bar, which is now broken down and run down, and everywhere there is a version of Flaming Moe’s around in pop-up tents, carts, shops, everywhere you can buy a Flaming Moe.
Does this sound familiar at all?
The idea virus is unstoppable, and so once you have an idea which is a good idea, it will be copied.
People get bitter about this and are protectionist. They try to keep a lid on things, and they patent things, or they keep the ingredients secret, but if it's successful and it solves a problem, and people buy it, it will get copied. And in truth, it will probably get copied better than the way in which it was originally done.
That's how evolution works, that's how the idea virus works.
Some of us are coded to produce ideas, and some of us are coded to take them and make them better, and others are coded to make them cheaper, and others are coded to run them in bulk.
Very often, the person who has the idea isn't the one who makes the money, or even gets much of the recognition.
If you want an example of that, flip back to one of the most classic examples in tech culture. You know that Steve Jobs did not invent the MP3 player; he saw it in Japan. The guys at Sony invented the MP3 player; in fact, I had a Sony MP3 player before the iPod existed. It was clunky, not so easy to use, and not so easy to upload music.
Jobs didn't invent it; he made it accessible and easy to use, and so you need to understand who you are in this journey of idea production, idea consumption, or idea development.
If you're gonna steal someone else's idea, just make it better, but remember this, the only way in a world which is full of the same product or same idea to be better is for it to be easier to access (geography, online portal, easy sell, etc) or cheaper.
Once everybody makes it as easy as possible, the only way you can go with the same idea is cheaper. It's probably better to focus your attention, or at least some of your attention having new ideas.
They're much more valuable, easier to scale in the short term, and more fun too.
Blog Post Number - 4450
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