Evolution 6 - "Who owns an idea?"

No one owns an idea once it exists. Everyone does.

At least that's what Jeff Tweedy of the band Wilco seems to think.

Tweedy is quoted in an article in today's New York Times (you can see the entire article here).

Here's the gist of the matter: "'Once you create something, it doesn't exist in the consciousness of the creator,' Mr. Tweedy said, telling [his] audience that they had an investment in a song just by the act of listening."

If no one owns it, who gets paid for it? And how?

Your friends at BURRIS used to be compensated for the work we did based on time. Time, I said, is our currency, and our rate was determined by the business's overhead plus the illusion of profit divided by the number of work hours in a week/month/year. The last time I filled in the answer on an RFP about our rate, it was $137.

But a rate based on time bears no resemblance to how productively we perform a task, how efficiently we deliver the goods. And it certainly has nothing to do with the quality of the work we complete.

Today our primary currency, I say, is "ideas." If no one, however - or if "everyone" - owns an idea, how do you charge for that? By bidding, of course. We write a proposal for a project, put a price on our deliverable(s), and await acceptance from our customer. If it's a value for the customer, we will win the project.

But what's "value"? I'm glad you asked.