Rumours and information... never the twa' shall meet.

Friday, 10 September 2010 - When there is no water cooler, and there are no scheduled meetings, and you have a brilliant idea, where do you go?  What if you have the juiciest bit of gossip that you swore you would NEVER tell, but you always tell your cubicle mate everything and you can't find him? I mean, if you don't tell somebody you are going to burst.  After all, why be privvy to info if you can't share? And the juicier it is, the harder it is to keep to yourself.

So ultimately, if you have juicy info about yourself that you don't want spread around, why would you tell even one person? The trick to perception engineering is to only release the info you want to have spread by the gossip girls and the rumour males. Then, you control the gossip and the outcome.  But you can't participate in this gossip. You need to merely plant the info with one 'confidante' and let the pieces fall into place.

Where I work, there is not a lot of opportunity to see everyone all together. We work spread out over kilometres and as a result, rumours are often the only way we get to 'keep in touch'. It actually replaces real conversations and rumours become the reality.  If this is the case, we have one team member who is dog's gift to women (he seems to have a half dozen on the go) and a supervisor who is a true tyrant (who appears to be responsible for everything.) I guess the reality and the rumour at some point intersect, but after the story gets told a few times, it takes on a life of its own. Deep down inside, we are all writers who embellish and give creative license to our tales - whether true or not.

Creativity is one of the things I have always thought seperated us from the animals. Creative ideas is what has pushed civilization in to the digital age. If Grampa Moses hadn't had the idea that if he had a small box with buttons in his hand, and some way of transferring the actions from one device to another, he could change the channels directly from the barcalounger. Now there is the opposite argument - that laziness is the mother of invention, but even laziness can stir creativity. I mean, what else do you do with your mind while you lay about?  The wheel - too lazy to carry shit.  The TV - too lazy to hold a newspaper.  The talkies - too lazy to read.  The computer - too lazy to spell.  But all these ideas turned out to have big impact on everyone. And some ideas spark further ideas.  And an exchange of ideas IS what separates us from the animals. Today you can celebrate being human by participating in Exchange of Ideas Day. No matter how big your ideas are or how insignificant they might seem, a small idea can spark a larger idea, that can spark a change in the lives of us all.