Nothing is original so why not steal with pride? You get the drift. I just googled ‘Steal With Pride’ to see if I could attribute the quote to someone, and it turns out I already wrote a blog post with the same title back in July of last year. Well whaddya know – I stole it from myself, and doubtless from others too.
I read a really funny post by Laurie Ruettimann last week called ‘Unwritten Blog Posts’ in which she came up with a list of 50 titles for blog posts as yet unwritten. The list is funny and well worth a read. Laurie also said ‘If you are a blogger, you should blog on a daily basis.’ so in her comments suggestion I said ‘Love it! Man, I need to up my game, thanks. That’s not a blog title – but it should be perhaps? I’ll think of some, meantime consider some of these stolen for future use!’
I thought on for a bit, got excited by the idea and went back to say that I would try and experiment this week with a post a day, taking titles from the list. I was so enthused, I even threw in a swear for good measure, ‘Laurie – fuck it – next week I’m going to blog Monday through Friday stealing five of your 50 titles. Thanks – Doug’
I went away for the weekend, fired up the laptop this morning and went back to Laurie’s place to look at her list again. Underneath my reply Laurie had written ‘FUCK NO’. That’s pretty clear, so for the record there won’t be any blog posts appearing here with titles stolen from Laurie’s list.
This dialogue has got me thinking about the whole ‘steal with pride’ ethos. I reference other people’s stuff all the time in my blogs and elsewhere, and I never knowingly don’t credit them. I used to make a point of contacting people in advance, ‘Is it OK if I quote you on XXX/link to your blog’ etc etc and the responses were always positive. So I stopped asking.
After what’s just happened do I still feel the same way about ‘steal with pride’? I guess operating in this connected world, yes I do. And I’m also mindful that theft is a crime, so if you are gonna steal something, maybe it is best to say please first?
Hi Doug,
The CapGemini Applied Knowledge Management Team came up with the term in relation to KM at a Workgroup meeting in 1997. I was a little ‘tongue in cheek’ as we were brainstorming how to turn KM into tangible value. Theft is a simple way to generate value. Of course it hurts the donor, however the principle of “steal with pride” was to take pride in re-using someone else’s idea, to ensure you attribute them as the source (unlike other thieves who rarely admit to the source of their goods!). Of course the term has been widely adopted and criticized by a combination of those who also stole it, and those who just don’t get it!. I guess the lesson is, if you steal something like a saying, it’s as well to understand what it means!!!. The source are the following – Marc Hoogenboom, the late Petra von Krutchen, Julie Coleclough, Bob Coen, Jim Palmer, Herman Fokkink and myself Roger Williams.
Hi Roger – thanks for dropping by and adding so usefully to the story, cheers!