Idea Machines
Description
Nadia Asparouhova:
"An Idea Machine is a self-sustaining organism that contains all the parts needed to turn ideas into outcomes:
- It starts with a distinct ideology, which becomes a memetic engine that drives the formation of a community
- The community’s members start generating ideas amongst themselves
- Eventually, they form an agenda, which articulates how the ideology will be brought into the world. (Communities need agendas to become idea machines; otherwise, they’re just a group of likeminded people, without a directed purpose.)
- The agenda is capitalized by one or several major funders, whose presence ensures that the community’s ideas can move from theory to practice – both in terms of financing, as well as lending operational skills to the effort. (Without funding, an idea machine is just that: an inert system that needs fuel to turn the crank and get it moving.)
- As community members move from ideas to action, they might become scene builders, who help sustain the community, develop the agenda, and attract new members; or operators, who drive the operating initiatives that lead to outcomes – the ultimate purpose of the entire machine. Both types might also lend a hand to create support organizations, whose purpose is to strengthen the values and best practices of the idea machine."