Introduction

The term meme was coined by Professor Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book "The Selfish Gene". He was referring to the way in which Darwinian natural selection was equally capable of describing how ideas can propagate as it is for describing how genes propagate.

It is a nice irony that the term 'meme' itself provides an excellent example of memetic propagation. Since 1976 the 'meme meme' has spread far and wide to the extent it is now part of the English language. It's now generally used to refer to a "a transmissable unit of cultural information". But this shorthand definition only tells half the story, memes are more subtle than that.

In this document, I'll explain what a meme is, and what a meme isn't. We'll get back to basics with the Darwinian principles Dawkins had in mind when he first thought of the concept, and see how these principles might be rather useful in the context of knowledge management.