Welcome to the ‘Age of the Idea’
By David Wethey, author of ‘THE VERY IDEA; unlocking the power of idea economics.’
Idea Economics is a belief system (that ideas are actually the world’s most valuable commodity). Also a value system, that enables us to value ideas at every stage. And an implementation system that uses the best and most valuable ideas to combat threats and realise opportunities. It also assumes that there is an almost infinite source of ideas going forward — rather like quantitative easing.
When we use Idea Economics, we are putting a value on the difference that ideas make.
The Labour Theory of Value, as proposed by David Ricardo, Karl Marx and ad agencies when justifying their fees, states that the value of a good or service is determined by the time and effort it takes to make it.
Idea Economics, on the other hand, is the Idea Theory of Value: where it is the idea itself that has a measurable value.
In the world of Idea Economics there is no room for value judgements. It doesn’t help talking about ‘Big’ ideas, ‘Brilliant’ ideas, or ‘Great’ ideas. It is valuable ideas — especially the one in a hundred Very Ideas of the book’s title — that we are looking for.
Professor Paul Romer, former Chief Economist at the World Bank, and a distinguished academic economist currently attached to NYU, won a half share in the 2018 Nobel Prize for Economics for championing the importance of the Economy of Ideas, with his Endogenous Growth Theory. This says that developing countries are better placed to solve their challenges with home-grown ideas, rather than relying on ideas and money from the economic imperialists, like the US, Russia and China.
Challenging The Old Guard
Idea Economics is not the first challenge to economic orthodoxy. Brand Economics prior to the invention of Brand Valuation in 1989 was all about sales, share and other short-term measures of performance. Now we have brand value to balance the marketing scorecard with a measure of medium and long-term performance.
Advertising used to be about persuading people to buy what manufacturers wanted to sell. Now we can work out how to influence the empowered consumer, using the psychological insights of Behavioural Economics, which explain why people think and behave the way they do.
Idea Heroes tend to be inquirers and transformers, as opposed to acquirers and transactors. They understand that every idea starts in the brain of one person, and never in a conference room. They also know that an idea cannot fertilise until it is shared with colleagues and agile teams. The value of an idea depends on what we can do with it, how much it is worth to someone else, and the results it can achieve. All this can be calculated and planned.
Welcome to the Age of the Idea, the Idea Economy, and Idea Economics.
In THE VERY IDEA my collaborator Jon Leach and I also put forward a key role — the Idea Economist. They are the dynamic change agents, not just in marketing, but also in business as a whole, in the financial world, in politics, in the media, in entertainment, in sport, and in numerous other fields.
Whether Idea Economists are communication strategists or political wonks, whether they are City analysts or televisual academic experts, the world is their oyster. Their stock in trade is not just to predict trends, but to put a value on the difference ideas make.
I look forward to next week where I will be sharing my secrets, developed alongside renowned Idea Economist Jon Leach, on how you can put a value on ideas themselves and make the economics work for you.
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NB: This is the second article in 3-part series. Find the first here.
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About the author:
David Wethey is the author of THE VERY IDEA (about Idea Economics and the value of ideas), published by Urbane Business in October 2018. His previous books are DECIDE (2012) about making better decisions better, and MOTE(2015), which proposes a radical solution to the problem of unproductive business meetings. David spent 20 years managing ad agencies (including his own) in Britain, Southern Europe and SE Asia, and 30 years at Agency Assessments International as a consultant on the client/agency relationship, where he has advised brands including Cadbury, Camelot, Coca-Cola, Confused.com, Electrolux, Ericsson, GSK, Heinz, HP, Honda, Jaguar, John Lewis, JP Morgan, Kelloggs, Lloyds Banking Group, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Pernod Ricard, Reckitt Benckiser, Shell, Toyota, Visa, VW, and Volvo.
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