coolhunting or memetic

Via Kottke, Business Week magazine celebrates its eighty-fifth birthday with an articulated list of the eighty-five most troublesome concepts in the market-place.

The city-state of Singapore, mortgages, the interwebs, a coffee magnate, infant formula, out-sourcing, open-source, and global positioning among many others are included with detailed articles and charts that explain how each of these ideas changed the economy and society. For example, #75 is Jane Fonda’s Workout, which propelled both the VCR and the self-help industry, #84 is the Polaroid instant camera, which was a harbinger of social media and #25 is the decoding of the human genome that launched a mad-dash for Big Pharma and fostered an era of not scientific ignorance but rather scientific apathy as if anything that could be captive and quantified warranted no further curiosity. You ought to check out the entire listing of big ideas and maybe you’ll be the next innovative insurgent yourself.