Random the Book

Questions for you:

• When you see ideas or phrases “go viral” in your organisation, how much of their success do you attribute to their intrinsic quality versus random timing, initial champions, or other uncontrollable factors?
• Have you ever tried to replicate success by doing exactly what worked before, only to find it fails completely, and did you consider that random environmental factors might have been more important than the approach itself?
• What “dead” ideas in your organisation might have succeeded if they’d been introduced at a different time, to different people, or in a slightly different form?
• When evaluating why certain cultural changes took hold whilst others didn’t, do you look for rational explanations or do you acknowledge the role of essentially random variation and selection?

Organisational applications:

Innovation portfolio management: Don’t expect to predict which ideas will succeed. Like meme evolution, most variations fail immediately whilst a few resonate unpredictably. Maintain diverse experimentation rather than betting everything on “best ideas” chosen by committee. Accept that selection happens through unpredictable audience response, not rational analysis. Budget for many small experiments knowing most will fail for essentially random reasons.

Internal communication strategy: Messages that succeed within organisations evolve through variation as people retell them. The version that spreads isn’t necessarily the one you crafted. Monitor how messages mutate as they propagate – successful variations reveal what actually resonates. Don’t fight natural evolution by insisting on “official” wording; instead, identify and amplify variations that work.

Cultural change programmes: Culture evolves like language – through accumulated random mutations that either spread or die. Formal change programmes often fail because they assume designed changes can override evolutionary processes. Instead, introduce many small variations in behaviour and let selection pressure determine what spreads. The changes that stick will surprise you and won’t be the ones you planned.

Product naming and branding: Names and phrases that catch on do so through essentially unpredictable processes. “OK Boomer” succeeded whilst thousands of similar phrases died. Don’t overinvest in predicting success through focus groups or research – test multiple variations with real audiences and see what spreads. Early adoption patterns matter more than intrinsic quality, and those patterns involve substantial randomness.

Further reading

Memetics and cultural evolution

• The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins – introduces the concept of “memes” as cultural units subject to variation, selection, and inheritance similar to biological genes, foundational text for understanding how ideas spread through populations and why most variants die whilst few succeed.
• The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore – comprehensive exploration of memetics demonstrating how cultural evolution operates through random variation and selection pressure, explaining why success of ideas depends more on transmission advantages than intrinsic merit.
• Virus of the Mind by Richard Brodie – examines how memes spread like viruses through populations, with discussion of why certain ideas succeed whilst others fail based on their “infectiousness” rather than accuracy or usefulness.

Viral content and algorithmic amplification

• Contagious: Why Things Catch On by Jonah Berger – analyses factors that make content viral, though understates the role of randomness in early adoption patterns that trigger algorithmic amplification, useful for understanding mechanisms whilst recognising unpredictability.
• The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell – explores epidemic-like spread of ideas and behaviours, with discussion of random factors in reaching critical mass, though tends toward rationalist explanations where random variation often dominates.
• Hit Makers by Derek Thompson – examines psychology and economics of popularity including role of exposure, familiarity, and network effects, with acknowledgment that timing and random early adoption often matter more than quality.

Language evolution and change

• The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher – demonstrates how languages evolve through accumulated errors and random variations that become accepted, providing detailed examples of how “mistakes” become standard grammar over generations, directly parallel to meme evolution.
• Words on the Move by John McWhorter – examines how word meanings change through random misuse and recontextualisation, showing that language evolution resembles biological evolution with variation, selection, and drift determining outcomes.
• The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker – explores innate language capacity whilst acknowledging that specific languages evolve through historical accidents and random variation, demonstrating how cultural evolution shapes communication systems.

About the image

I have a strange fascination with the clash of colours when green and red are placed together. It makes my eyes do strange things.

Illustration by Matt Ballantine, 2026