The Value is in the Filter, Not the Idea

how many trees of ideas are being unnecessary felled

Photo Credit: Bladeflyer

It's all About the Filterer

The value is not in the idea, rather the filter. The curator of ideas. The creator of new ideas. The sharer of relevant ideas.

This is Part Two of  Information Commands To Be Shared, Denying It Will Cost You

If I was to take flying lessons, I am paying for the instructor to give the ideas and information related to flying a plane. I am not paying the instructor to teach me guitar. He is the filter, taking many sources and ideas in and giving me only the ones I currently need.

His filtering of ideas creates a new idea in my mind. How to fly a plane. This is valuable filtering (also known as expertise in a field), as such he would be compensated for it. But, this is merely one example of how a filter is valuable though.

In news, a valuable news site would be one that gives you exactly the type of news you want, that is valuable. In music an artist you like is a filter of music. They filter out all the styles they don't like, add their own interpretation and output their own new music. You follow that artist because you like their music. You like their filtering per se. So whilst their music isn't terribly valuable, their filtering is. Therefore they are.

This simple idea to complex idea function results in a tree of ideas. You can trace an idea's ancestors back, or find an ideas derivatives just like you would with a family tree. Every idea influences the next even in the minutest of ways. Something as simple as observing the pattern or execution of a object or song influences us when we create a new idea based on that.

Sharing, Filtering and Procreation

In "The Tree Of Ideas" below I've visualised a small section of the idea procreation timeline. A simple idea influences and thereby gives way to a new idea. Many simple ideas can influence someone, some influences like a riff, or chord pattern are so minute you may not be able to discretely identify them as influences.

The distinct in the image between simple and complex ideas is not a very important one. Sure some ideas are more complex and have more influences than others but they are all still just, ideas. They are all equally important as they all influence other ideas.

Every idea has its own ancestors and derivatives. So imagine what would happen if suddenly, a idea was completely locked down. It was restricted. There becomes no way to discover or use that idea. We would lose every descendent idea.

It's scary to imagine what the future would be like with information and ideas locked away. This is effectively what censorship does. But traditional government censorship like the Great Firewall of China is not the biggest issue. Imagine if you simply stop one of those ideas from being shared. Think of all the derivatives from that idea that would be lost forever. They could never be created.

The film Twelve Monkeys was stopped by a court twenty-eight days after its release because an artist claimed a chair in the movie resembled a sketch of a piece of furniture that he had designed.

The movie Batman Forever was threatened because the Batmobile drove through an allegedly copyrighted courtyard and the original architect demanded money before the film could be released.

In 1998, a judge stopped the release of The Devil’s Advocate for two days because a sculptor claimed his art was used in the background.

The Future Of Ideas, Lawernce Lessig

Heres the catch: You can't stop information being shared, filtered and procreated anymore. The arrival of the internet has enabled a scale of idea sharing, filtering and procreation never before seen. If an idea needs to get out, it will. If an idea is valuable to the masses they will find it. 

The printing press brought books which for the time enabled a large scale sharing of information, but that pales in comparison of the sharing power of the internet. So now, you truly cannot stop an idea from getting out. Perhaps when physical distribution was the only option you could, but now you have no chance.

So great is the speed and power for which computers and the internet foster new ideas that we have seen a large increase in the output of cultural works. According to the Neilson SoundScan report in 2008 in "2000, 35,516 albums were released. Seven years later, 79,695 albums (including 25,159 digital albums) were published." Such an increase in output can be described as nothing less than a renaissance.

Where to now?

It should be obvious by now that ideas, evolve. One idea literally leads to another, though usually in tandem with yet another idea. Previously physical distribution slowed this process, but the internet has speed it up not only to a speed never seen before, but closer to its natural, optimum speed.

Censorship is preventing an idea from spreading. This was previously possible. As John Gilmore said in a Time article back in 1993 "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." With the internet coming into its own now, it's impossible to prevent any idea from spreading. Ideas intrinsically want to be spread, they need it. And the internet gives it to them.

If you profited by holding ideas hostage whether it was: music/sound recordings, books, text-books, news, art, photography and any other intangible you are in for one hell of a shock. Previously you made information available to the masses. But now you are hanging onto it, suing those who try to consume it, to reinterpret it.

You went from aiding the sharing of information to attempting to prevent it. I have two strong, cold, painful words for you.

You lost.

Or at least you will, unless you can see the now painfully obvious signs that you need to change your business model.

If you don't then we not have sympathy for you. We will laugh at you. Mock you. Above all we will remember that information needs to be shared, and anyone preventing that will eventually lose.