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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: sandintoes who wrote (12000)	7/19/2007 7:22:46 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224750

Have you heard about Lurch Kerry's appearance today on C-span?...wacky libs were definitely polluting the airways this AM. Kerry denied that a bloodbath occurred after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, and suggested that some Vietnamese who were put into re-education camps are doing great now. A female caller then ripped into the senator on his military record and his undermining of the troops. During Kerry's response to the caller he actually said "none of my wounds were self-inflicted." To think he might have become Pres. Pfhoo!

To: sandintoes who wrote (12000)	7/21/2007 7:30:13 PM
From: Ann Corrigan	Respond to of 224750

Have you noticed the latest meme at SI is the use of the word meme?...every few mos a fad word hits American culture, apparently "meme" is the latest. Evidently it's marketed as the latest tool for gaining an advantage on business competitors. A hot blog has probably started the current national meme virus: --The common definition is that memes (rhymes with dreams) are ideas, beliefs or cultural values that replicate themselves from one brain to another, somewhat like a virus. The Oxford English Dictionary defines meme as: Meme: An element of behavior or culture passed on by imitation or other non-genetic means. The term meme was coined by Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene. Since then, the term has gained popularity. One measure of the increased interest in memes is the number of times “memetic” has been mentioned on the Internet. In 1998 there were about 5,000 hits. Currently there are over 600,000 hits. Although Dawkins coined the term "meme" in 1976 in his book The Selfish Gene, the notion of cultural transmission had been around in the social sciences for a long time. However, previous theories of biologists, anthropologists and sociologists do not include the key point of Dawkins' concept, i.e., that memes seek to replicate themselves. If Dawkins and others such as psychologist Susan Blackmore are correct, memes joins genes as a new replicator--a second replicator. The notion that human behavior is shaped by two replicators, genes and memes, has profound implications for our understanding of human behavior. Assuming your competitors are human (something you might question at times), the concept of memes opens up a new tool for gaining a competitive advantage. If you can understand our competitor’s “Driver Memes”, you can gain new insights into your competitor’s behavior. Driver memes are generated in a Memetic Profile which is coupled with the Psychological Profile and used to generate a Predictive Profile. Although the term “meme” was originated by Richard Dawkins of Oxford University (now occupying an endowed chair funded by former Microsoft executive Charles Simonyi), others such as Daniel Dennett, Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies at Tufts University, and British psychologist Susan Blackmore have elaborated on Dawkins’ work. Another interesting Microsoft connection is Richard Brodie, a former Microsoft executive who wrote the first version of Microsoft Word. After retiring from Microsoft, he wrote, Virus of the Mind:The New Science of the Meme. Throughout the short history of memes the focus has been on definitional, philosophical and neurochemical aspects of memes rather than on practical implications. Now the focus is on, “How do we apply this concept to the real world?” O’Gorman’s article in the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management outlines the first application to understanding competitor behavior. Memes, CI, and Marketing: A Preliminary Framework describes a concrete approach to understanding the memes of your competitors. When combined with Psychological Profiling, Memetic Profiling can generate a Predictive Profile that can be useful in helping to understand those memes that drive your competitor, and therefore help in predicting your competitor’s future behavior. Are opera singers advertising a business tool whenever they practice their traditional "memememememememe"? lol