The Ways of Memes and Genes

All the hoopla over a small article in a recent Coaching Insider is kind of amusing. The article quotes a memo from an un-named source from the Tom Stone camp as saying something that implies that Tom Stone won his lawsuit against CoachVille over who owns the Core Dynamics.

As an "insider" at CoachVille, the story I heard was very different! Not surprising. People tend to put their own spin on stories to save face. Most of us never really hear the truth.

CoachVille recognized that Tom Stone was a major contributor to the Core Dynamics. No question about that. And the Core Dynamics is unquestionably a work of collaboration. There are elements of Thomas Leonard's "Absence of" work, as well as completely new language crafted by Dave Buck and the CoachVille R&D Team. As a contributing member of that team, I attended the calls that developed much of it. The resulting Venn Diagram, which sums up the entire philosophy in an elegantly simple graphic, has CoachVille's stamp all over it. You can still find it on the Core Dynamics Coaching homepage, here.

And of course, it was Kerul Kassel who actually developed the Core Dynamics into a coach training program with teleclasses and learning guides.

The judge who presided over this case didn't rule on it. I generally avoid repeating hearsay in my blog, but I want to share what the judge supposedly said to Tom and Dave with you, because it delightfully relishes the reality of this situation:

"You two are going to have to work out an agreement between you, because no jury is ever going to understand what this stuff is about!"

Neither side "won."

So what's my point here? Stories are just stories. Our egos love them. They give us a chance to judge who's right and who's wrong. (Usually, we're right and "they're" wrong.) And they certainly are entertaining. Without them, what would we think about? Whether you believe my version or someone else's really doesn't matter.

I think the larger meaning here is about greatness vs. smallness and, in an intriguing way, the dynamics of genes and memes.

The collaboration that produced the Core Dynamics was an act of greatness that required cooperation and synergy from the minds of numerous individuals. Each contribution added a crucial element, without which the perfection of this theory, one of the most sophisticated in the coaching industry, could not have been possible. This is an example, I believe, of what Andrew Cohen would call "Supermind".

Greatness happens in the communication of ideas. We can't hoard them and be great. And once you share your ideas the Universe will do what it will with them.

Here's where genes and memes come in. Most folks know about genes. They carry our DNA and replicate and evolve the human race and all other life on this planet. They are an extraordinarily powerful force!

Their conceptual equivalent are memes. (Find out more about genes and memes in Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle. It's a great read.)

A meme is like an idea. It could be a melody or Marxism. Once it's released into the world it replicates and evolves on it's own. The originator has no control over it. And in fact, given that all ideas evolve from previous ideas, there is really no such thing as an original idea, anyway. This is how culture evolves. Ultimately, all memes belong to the human race.

In fact, the idea of ownership of a meme is a little like Casanova trying to control his sperm after having sex with a thousand women. Who should get pregnant? Who's genetic material gets to mingle and replicate with Casanova' genes? He can't control that. All he really can do is keep his pants zipped!

I think Intellectual Property laws are a little like Casanova trying to control his sperm. They give the illusion of ownership and control. (Hmm, the "illusion of control", isn't that idea somewhere in the Core Dynamics?) But they really are an artificial form of control. What would happen if we didn't have those laws? I don't know, perhaps memetic chaos. Then again, perhaps we would have more opportunities for the kind of greatness that results from a collaborative supermind!

The Core Dynamics is a meme with input from many sources. But IP law says that "authors" can claim ownership. Because there was no clear agreement between Tom Stone and CoachVille on what each side could do with the Core Dynamics, the lawsuit pulled both parties down into a petty disagreement. Greatness became small.

The people who were teaching the Core Dynamics at CoachVille, including me, received letters from Tom's lawyers threatening to sue us, also. Since we were on the profit sharing plan at CoachVille, the expense of defending CoachVille's right to use the Core Dynamics came out of our pay.

Unless you're as big as Disney, IP lawsuits cost more than they gain. I wrote Tom's lawyer and told him I thought Tom was making a big mistake. My guess is he realizes that, now.

So I must admit, I'm ambivalent about IP laws. That said, I will dutifully put my "Copyright" at the bottom of this page, just in case! (In case of what? So I can sue somebody?!)

That leads me to one more amusement, that the Insider is printing stories about somebody suing CoachVille! ;-)

Copyright, 2005, Julia Stewart www.coachingconfab.com