WHAT'S-A-MEME / MIAMÉM ?
A short and very explanatory animation about memetics and how memetic research is re-forming marketing strategy.
[more]Projects & Research
iResearch
My name is Balázs, pronounced as Lazlo in the US. I was a Yale World Fellow last year now I divide my time between San Francisco, New York, my hometown Budapest, Hungary and my village: Szentantalfa
My research interest tags are covering three territories, the networked economy, the study and practical use of memetics and online politics.
I am interested in computers since 1982, when I hacked a BASIC program on a ZX Spectrum. I initiated one of the first BBS based virtual community in Hungary in 1994, the first planned webcommunity in 1998. I am teaching a class since 2002 on how companies can face up to strategic decisions in the business environment created by technological change.
http://del.icio.us/szekfu/networked_economy
My interest in memetics is about 10 years old now. I have a PhD dissertation draft on the subject and a company that successfully uses the theory of memetics in marketing practice. Now we are in the process of setting up Darwin’s California Inc, the daughter company of the Budapest based Darwin’s Marketing Evolution Kft.
http://del.icio.us/szekfu/memetics
In my view Hungary has to be cured from 4o years of systematic distruction of communities, social capital and trust in the public sphere. I am working on a political web2.0 platform that would help the wired community of a country, the netizens, to ignite social change on a mass scale in the real world, to leverage virtual communites to effect the political community IRL.
http://del.icio.us/szekfu/online_democracy
Destinations
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture
CC: interdisciplinary study of cooperation and collective action
[more]Balázs Karafiath
Balázs László Karafiath is an entrepreneur, communication expert, and evolutionary media sociologist.
Karafiath is the founder of Darwin’s Marketing Evolution, a firm that successfully incorporates the theory of memetics into marketing practice. Darwin’s has been based in Budapest since 2003. Karafiath has been fascinated with memetics for over ten years and is in the process of completing his PhD dissertation on the subject.His
theory is that, when dealing with the huge data sphere interlocking with volumes of human interaction, we create a new hybrid evolving entity that shows the distinct signs of a complex system: this “memescape” is a living being, evolving, changing and surprising us with emerging properties.
Karafiath was a 2006 Yale World Fellow at Yale University. He has ten years of university teaching expeience and now teaches at the MOME Theoretical Institute in Budapest. He has designed an introductory course in the field of Emergence which covers evolutionary theory, networkology, the science of memes, studies of human
cooperation, and internetology. He has coined the term “Evolutionary Media Sociology” to refer to this complex field.
In 1997, he founded Carnation, Inc., a start-up internet consulting and marketing company. Carnation now ranks second in the Hungarian market, with revenues consistently over $10 million. He regularly is asked to speak about the network economy and the information society. His articles are published in the Hungarian press and he had his own show on Tilos Radio, Budapest’s best known “pirate”/community radio for 7 years.
Balazs co-founded East Europe’s biggest week-long music and arts festival (Sziget) at the age of 21.
Contact: karafiath@darwins.hu
CV
2007-present
▪ Director of strategy and business development at Darwin’s Marketing Evolution
2006-2007
▪ Yale World Fellow
▪ Founding of Guanxi Business+Technology Consulting Partnership
2005
▪ Founding of Darwin’s Marketing Evolution
2003
▪ Director of IVSZ, the Hungarian Association of IT Companies
▪ Founding of Emergent Systems Research Institute
1997
▪ Founder and CEO of Carnation Internet Consulting Ltd. As a consultant at Carnation Consulting Balazs worked for clients, among others: Compaq Hungary ▪ Dreher Brewery ▪ Ericsson Hungary ▪ Hewlett Packard Hungrary ▪ CIB Bank ▪ Hungarian Post ▪ MATÁV ▪ Unilever Hungary ▪ Westel
1993
▪ Founding of Sziget Kulturális Rendezvényszervező Kft, orgaizer of the Sziget Festivals
His hobbies include movies and theatre, computer games, water polo, scuba diving and bicycling.
http://www.youtube.com/szekfu