Your idea went viral. Did you get credit?
Every thought leader wants to be known for a powerful, breakthrough idea.
It’s very hard to create the idea that breaks through. But if your idea is big, new, and persuasive, you have a chance.
It also helps if its timely and has a catchy name.
But even if you do all that, you may not get the credit.
Who came up with these ideas?
For each of the ideas listed below, please answer the following (from memory, no fair using Google or ChatGPT):
- Could you quickly describe this idea?
- Do you know who came up with it?
- Crossing the chasm.
- Content marketing.
- Client-server.
- Splinternet.
- Dunning-Kruger effect.
- Gartner Hype Cycle.
- Disruption.
- SEO.
- Enshittification.
- Meme.
Make a note of how many you felt you understood.
Then list who you think originated them, or if you don’t know.
What these ideas mean
Here’s my understanding of these ideas.
- Crossing the chasm. The challenge of reaching the mass market after winning over early adopters.
- Content marketing. Attracting prospects and generating leads by creating useful and popular content.
- Client-server. A model for computing that combines computing resources both locally and with a remote server.
- Splinternet. The unified web splits into shards that are incompatible with each other.
- Dunning-Kruger effect. Novices think they are smart because they don’t know what they don’t know.
- Gartner Hype Cycle. New technologies become overhyped, then there is an inevitable backlash.
- Disruption. Low-cost, low-quality competitors bedevil incumbents in a market, then move upmarket and take over.
- SEO. Search engine optimization — the science of getting your site in the first few results shown in a Google search.
- Enshittification. The inexorable process by which the proprietors of useful platforms lock in users and then make them worse and worse to maximize their own profits.
- Meme. An idea or piece of content that spreads rapidly.
With the possible exception of Splinternet, you’ve probably heard of all of them. These were successful ideas in the sense that they caught on and became part of the vernacular. From that standpoint, the creators of these ideas were successful.
But for how many did you identify their creator? These are my best answers for who created them.
- Crossing the chasm. Geoffrey Moore, in a book of the same name, based on older diffusion of innovation ideas from Everett Rogers.
- Content marketing. Popularized by Joe Pulizzi.
- Client-server. John McCarthy, according to Forrester, but the internet says others used it sooner.
- Splinternet. Me. But I wasn’t the first to use the term.
- Dunning-Kruger effect. David Dunning and Justin Kruger.
- Gartner Hype Cycle. Jackie Fenn of Gartner Group.
- Disruption. Clayton Christensen in his book The Innovator’s Dilemma.
- SEO. Danny Sullivan, although others used it first.
- Enshittification. Cory Doctorow.
- Meme. Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.
As you can see, sometimes creation and credit is messy. Ideas are in the air, and multiple people notice them. This has been going on a long time (ask the Germans and the English who invented calculus, Isaac Newton or Gottfied Wilhelm Leibniz).
What matters is not who coined it, but who did the work to own it
If creating an idea that captures people’s imagination is so hard, is it even worth it if you don’t get the credit?
If you create an idea and somebody else runs with it and makes it more useful, they deserve the attention. If you want that attention to follow you, you need to regularly and constantly add to the knowledge about your idea. This will attract both other thinkers and potential clients to you.
In order of importance:
- Invent a great idea.
- Name it in a catchy way.
- Constantly update your knowledge about it.
- Share what you’ve learned with the world.
- Argue about who gets the credit.
Step 5 is optional and counterproductive. Spend your time on the first four steps.
(Share how many ideas you knew, and how many inventors you knew, in the comments.)