it is about a phenomenon that I call the idea entrepreneur. And this is a new cultural player

on the scene different from a standard entrepreneur. This is a person, individual, usually a content

expert, sometimes kind of a maverick or a heterodox thinker, who has a deeply felt idea

that they want to take out into the world. And the goal is not to gain some positional

power or to gain great wealth, but they want to influence how people think and they want

to affect how people behave and they want to make some kind of change or improvement

in the world. It can be quite small in their organization, it can be in a community, it

could be in the society at large, it can be within a discipline.

So they act usually in the beginning on their own. And their tools are themselves and their

personal narratives, their gifts of expression and their ability to bring people into the

idea with them. Sometimes if they're very successful and they're very persistent, they

can go on for many years and build enterprises around themselves. The enterprises are not

meant to be sold or to, again, gather great wealth, but to continue the idea often even

beyond their lifespan.

I have studied various kinds of idea entrepreneurs all around the world in different professions

and different disciplines. The important thing is that the really successful ones connect

their ideas to other ideas. So no idea is totally original, most of us have ideas that

add to existing ideas that bring a bit of originality that have our own take on things.

And the really good ones link into great ideas that have come before. So rather than trying

to own the idea or claim that it's original to them, they say, yeah, I am following in

the great tradition of this idea, but I'm adding this original piece.