Just finished a pretty interesting book called Ghost Map. It’s a complex book about science, cities, urban planning and industrialization told through the lens of the cholera epidemic of 1854 in London. It’s a smart book and worth your time. It was fascinating to learn about how diseases spread. Usually, when a virus goes from one person to another it in an unconscious act. Rarely do people say, “I think I’ll infect others with my illness.” Yet the common marketing parlance for the conscious act of passing information along is for it to “go viral.”

Take a look at Mike Arauz’s post regarding this very topic. He offers some really smart tips for creating content that people will actively and purposefully pass along. He also references a recent post by the super sharp Faris Yakob. Faris isn’t a big fan of the term “viral” either, and does a good job of explaining why.