Author: Admin Page 12 of 23

The Next Google

On July 30, 2010

Everyone wants to know what “The Next Google” is. From WIKiD Tools, the answer should be obvious: Google is an information company. Their stated objective is to organize the World’s information. The next element up the human development ladder from the Information Economics rung is Knowledge Economics rung. Therefore, the next “Google” will deploy technology that can organize the World’s knowledge.

A State of Mind

Unfortunately, knowledge can only exist inside the minds of people, so consequently, “The Next Google” must also engage in the messy task of organizing the World’s people as well as the knowledge contained in each one of them. Not an easy task in dog-eat-dog Global Market Capitalism.

The Facebookie

At first, it seems that Facebook may be converging on this – they are certainly trying. The problem with Facebook’s approach is that they continue to insist that Market Capitalism is valid (obviously preparing for the killer IPO) when they should be pioneering the hedge fund called “Social Capitalism”. Facebook continues to bank on the suggestion that people really really want to share their personal details and will tolerate invasion by armies of anonymous data miners in order to do so. Facebook’s best shot may be for one of their gaming currencies to become a black market currency so that when the dollar collapses, people would gladly sell their privacy in exchange for food.

Since a gaming currency can only be created by people performing frivolous tasks, at best, gaming currencies – phenomenal growth or not – are no more robust than the dollars it seeks to displace. Sustainability? Uh, no.

Anonymity rules

Think about it this way. Real human productivity is stored in a dollar bill; otherwise nobody would “work” for it. The recipient does not know or care if the dollar bill was last used by someone to buy cigarettes or Girl Scout cookies. The dollar bill is completely anonymous. Likewise, value is stored in the brains of every living person – there is no need to know who they are until the transaction is exercised and profits are distributed. Everything else is unnecessary invasion of privacy and certainly not something to build a currency around let alone the next economic paradigm. The Next Google will treat people like the currency, not ‘like’ the Girls Scout Cookies.

The “Next Google” will be a percentile search engine that will return odds – or probabilities – based on an anonymized public knowledge inventory. Search results will predict the likelihood that any combination of knowledge assets can produce or execute any combination of products or services at a known cost based on the supply and demand for those known knowledge assets. End of mystery.

Everyone can now make their bets and play their games with real productivity because, in effect, the percentile search engine will match most worthy knowledge deficit with most worthy knowledge surplus and throw the rest of it in the trash bin.

The only thing people want to know is what they want to know, and nothing else. Now that’s what real productivity is made of, that is what real money is made of.

Please Vote for The Ingenesist Project to present at SXSW 2011

The Ingenesist Project specifies an Innovation Economy built on a platform of social media as the next economic paradigm. 60 minute solo presentation in the advanced technical track. Your help is deeply appreciated. All comments welcome. Material based on video series here

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Social Capitalism; The Scarce Resource is Time.

By Admin

On July 29, 2010

In General Information

The difference between market Capitalism and Social Capitalism is that factors of production are reversed. In Social Capitalism, creative capital, intellectual capital, and social capital are the “tangibles” while land, labor, capital become the “intangibles”.

But the currency for social capitalism must still represent productivity – otherwise nobody would “work” for it. Productivity is defined as “all the stuff we can make within a certain period of time“. Market capitalism is built on “stuff” while Social Capital is built on “Time”. Waste stuff and you’ll lose money. Waste time and you’ll lose social currency. Every living person is allocated a certain amount of time on Earth. Time is impossible to forge, debase, or otherwise counterfeit – unless stolen from someone else – as such, Time makes an excellent currency.

What is the ROI on Land, Labor, and Capital in Social Capitalism? ROI is wholly dependent on the knowledge assets deployed upon that Land, Labor, or Capital.

So what exactly is the underlying asset that supports Social Currency?

WIKiD Tools introduced the idea that everything we produce will ultimately come as a result of transforming data into information, or transforming information into knowledge, or transforming knowledge into innovation, or transforming innovation into wisdom. We can articulate a very powerful Equation to model productivity in Social Capitalism. This equation can be translated as follows:

Wisdom is proportional to the rate of change of innovation with respect to time. Innovation is proportional to the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time. Knowledge is proportional to the rate of change of information with respect to time. And Information is proportional to the rate of change of data with respect to time.

Note that in each case, the “rate of change” (hence, time) is the underlying asset.

The creation of Social Currency:

Sounds complicated? Well, it happens every day in every city where a person sees an important issue and convenes a conference where they invite relevant speakers and guests into the discussion. It happens when a manager notices people talking about something important to them and incorporates it into their job description. It happens when a teacher helps a student to the next level. It happens when someone spends some of their time so that you can enjoy more of yours. It happens with stay at home moms. It happens with volunteerism. It’s created by mentors, parents, neighbors, civil servants, and everyday citizens. It is created in Communities, not factories. It is created by time.

***

Please Vote for The Ingenesist Project to present at SXSW 2011

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Bizarro Capitalism

By Admin

On July 27, 2010

In General Information

In the 1960’s Superman comics, Bizarro World was a place where everything was the opposite as Normal World. On the planet Htrae (Earth spelled backwards) lives Bizarro Jimmy Olsen, a Bizarro Lois Lane, Bizarro Superman, etc. Of course, Normal World is the standard bearer for all that is great and good to the reader.

Normal Capitalism:

In the study of Normal Economics, currency always represent productivity – otherwise nobody would “work” for it. Productivity is defined as: all the stuff we can make within a certain period of time. We measure it with expressions like “dollars per hour”, “miles per hour”, “5% compounded annually”, board-feet per minute, etc.

Abnormal Capitalism:

Suppose we were to describe a Bizarro currency as: All the Time that can be produced within a certain amount of stuff.

After all, every living person is allocated a certain amount of time on Bizarro World. Time is a scarce resource whose value is determined by supply and demand. Time is not easily forged, debased, or counterfeited. It makes for a perfect Bizarro currency. Of Course the Bizarro Currency would be called the Rallod (Dollar spelled backwards).

Bizarro Capitalism:

In Normal Economics, land, labor, and financial capital are the factors of production called “Tangibles” while social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital are called “Intangibles”. By contrast, in Bizarro Economy, social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital are Tangibles while land, labor, and financial capital are the Intangible factors of production.

Of course in Bizarro World, it takes rallods to make rallods. So if you want to get rich, you need to invest your time in one of two things: Saving time for other people, or reducing the amount of stuff they need to consume on their time.

Likewise, in a Normal Banking, an entrepreneur assumes that they have the Knowledge to execute a business plan and they borrow the money. In Bizarro Bank, the Entrepreneur assumes that they have the money to execute a business plan and they borrow the knowledge.

In Normal World, money is backed by debt. In Bizarro World, money is backed by innovation.

What if we got it backwards?

Probably the most immediate concern is whether the Rallod can hedge the Dollar, or will the two planets collide?

Material based on video series here

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Social Capitalism: Meet The New Intangibles

By Admin

On July 26, 2010

In General Information

Today, land, labor, and capital make up the “Tangible” assets allocated by entrepreneurs in the production of all products and service. Meanwhile, Social Capital, Creative Capital, and Intellectual Capital of people and communities are called “Intangible Assets” on the corporate balance sheet.

As soon as you leave the Corporation, this condition reverses. What if the new generation of corporations were built on this reversal?

Suppose it is already happening.

The next economic paradigm will be built on Social Media as soon as people start getting together to build things. Social Capital, Creative Capital and intellectual capital will be allocated by entrepreneurs in the production of all products and services. Meanwhile land, labor, and capital will be the intangible assets.

This may not be so far out.

LAND: with Social media, Mobile internet, geolocation applications, mobile applications, and speed blogging – most activity is independent of physical land. Instead, Public “land” or private “land” behave as the intangible component where people assemble and produce things.

LABOR: no longer means that two physical parts are assembled into a machine. Instead two ideas are assembled into a third idea and redeployed as data, information, knowledge, innovation or wisdom.

CAPITAL: Seriously; what exactly is Capital these days except the thing that banks play with and politicians argue about? Capital is created from debt. The continuation of Capital Markets as we know them exists more as the absence of a reasonable alternative than an actual proxy for true value or productivity.

Instead; 500 Million people flock to Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linkedin, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc., to collect options and store social value. Uhm…Why?

The next phase for social media will become user generated productivity. That is when people get together outside the construct of government and corporations to build something. If we are lucky, this transition will happen before we are forced to “rebuild” something.

***

The Ingenesist Project specifies an Innovation Economy built on a platform of social media as the next economic paradigm. Material based on video series here

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What is Social Capitalism?

By Admin

On July 19, 2010

In General Information

July 8, 2014 Update:

Wikipedia defines Capitalism as an “economic and social system in which the means of production are privately controlled”.

Factors of Production (from classical economics) are presumed to be some proxy for land, labor, and capital. Suppose, however, the factors of production for modern society were something like “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and Creative Capital” of people and their relationships? After all, these are the assets that are deployed in order to produce the proverbial basket of goods upon which most currencies are compared.

Since these factors of production exist between the ears of each individual person, they are, by definition “privately controlled” and readily exchanged among other people in social networks. If the US Supreme Court can rule that Corporations are people, then it is equally valid that people are corporations. Therefore, Social Capitalism refers to the economic and social system in which the means of production are social, creative, and intellectual assets.

In order for Social Capitalism to become the dominant form of social organization, quite literally, society must reorganize itself to trade “abundant intangibles instead of scarce tangibles”. Then, all the decentralized innovations can integrate. The following video describes a system for reorganizing society so that the new economic paradigm; called Social Capitalism, may emerge.

Reorganizing For The Era Of Social Capitalism

Social Capitalism is similar to Material Capitalism with the exception that society would trade in abundant intangibles instead of scarce tangibles….and, everything changes.

***

The Article below is from 2010 – more than 4 years ago – when Social Capitalism was just beginning to enter the lexicon of the social media practitioners. This article below quotes the Wikipedia Article on “Social Capitalism”. That article has since been removed by Wikipedia for failure to be a real -ism; I suppose. That is, Wikipedia does not yet recognize the movement as a real form of Social Organization. It is interesting, if not historic, to watch the progress of a social movement from its tenuous inception:

The Adaptive Cycle: Holling, C. S. 1986. Resilience of ecosystems;

Social capitalism is an old idea taking on an new form in the age of social media where social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital are deployed outside the construct of the prevailing corporations or governments.

Throughout human history, societies have reorganized themselves in response to tyranny, innovation, environment, new wisdom, etc. I believe this to be the root of what Social Capitalism is, and therefore, how it should be defined.

In The Shadows:

The dominant definition of “Social Capitalism” from Wikipedia reflects a social cause cast against the backdrop of market capitalism. This definition acknowledges that economies work better when everyone participates; specifically, the so-called tier 1 and tier 2 people. Tier 1 individuals have steady financial incomes that allow them to function without private or government support. Tier 2 individuals cannot meet the prevailing standard of living and rely on private or government support. Therefore the prevailing definition of Social Capitalism often refers to efforts to bolster tier 2 persons as a means of reinforcing the economy for everyone.

Conflict:

There is an inherent conflict where tier 1 is held responsible to support tier 2 as a means of protecting their tier 1 status. Traditionally tier 2 included poor families dependent on food stamps; children who depend on public education; elderly people who are no longer able to work, and low-income criminals who require police intervention, etc.

Ideally, getting more people from tier 2 into tier 1 is the desirable objective. Indeed political division is marked by the theories and practices on how exactly that objective would best be accomplished.

A worst case:

What happens when tier 2 is simply forgotten; they are simply allowed to fail in the mainstream economy? What if the government becomes too weak to bolster their economic prospects? What happens when a critical mass of tier 1 people involuntarily enter the tier 2 environment bringing along their substantial knowledge inventory. They are otherwise very productive people that had been laid-off, outsourced, underemployed, or otherwise marginalized.

The Special Case:

What happens when Tier 2 deploy new technologies that responding to their priorities, not necessarily Wall Street priorities. What happens when tier 2 people trade a social “currency” among themselves? What happens when tier 2 swells to a size and scope that they are able to bear broad political and economic influence. Many great human struggles emerged from under the hand of a Tier 1 constraint using their own manner to store and exchange value (currency) represented by their own knowledge inventory and productivity. Why would that not happen internally in American Society?

Structural Capitalism:

Social Capitalism is where factors of production in an economy are purely human and technological and less structural:. Specifically, social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital deployed outside the construct of the prevailing corporations or governments. Maybe it should be called “structural capitalism” because that is what is actually changing. We are at an extraordinary time in history where an extraordinary structural reorganization is taking place.

That’s Social Capitalism as it’s always been.

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The Next Great Leap for Social Capitalism

By Admin

On July 17, 2010

In General Information

The Knowledge inventory will become the most important element of Social Capitalism. Today, knowledge is largely sequestered behind the walls of corporation in the form of titles, skill codes, resumes, job descriptions, certifications, and college degrees. In order to predict the future, we point to the things that we have done in the past.

2nd Place is 1st Loser

10% of the country is unemployed and less than 10% are fully actualized in their profession. Competitive forces drive the hiring manager. The consequences of all business decisions eventually lead to win-or-lose market scenarios. People compete with each other for promotions, the boss’s time, the corner office, or just staying off the unemployment line. That is the only future anyone can truly predict based on the past. It’s easier to predict the loser than the winner – so that’s what happens.

Social media is very different.

People are organizing themselves in a new form outside the construct of the corporation. Linkedin aggregates intellectual capital, Facebook aggregates social capital, and You Tube aggregates creative capital. Millions of blogs, Twitter, and a generation of search engines reassemble all these parts in ways that create social value. People are not competing with each other, instead, they live on a bell curve. They are seeking cooperation and collaboration. People use “like” buttons, tweet counts, and analytic data to “value” the quantity and quality of another person’s knowledge. There are fewer losers, hence more winners, because there are a greater number of markets – not just one corporation. Everyone is a corporation.

No Governance, no anarchy, no problem

Since social media is outside the construct of a corporation, there is no governance. There are lots of people trying to control only to experience diminishing returns. Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Facebook must tread extremely carefully on the landscape of public opinion precisely because of their dominance. People use Facebook to attack Facebook, PowerPoint to attack Microsoft, YouTube to attack Google, and Twitter to attack everyone. Retribution would be suicide.

The Last Mile of Social Media

Now, geo-location services are filling in the Last Mile of Social Media where communities will form to produce things that are tangible and real. As a result, there is a sharp increase of interest in a form of currency that can represent this social value. Some of this is because the dollar is losing its ability to represent people’s productivity. So they engage a different economic system.

Social Productivity

The next great leap in Social Media will happen when people reorganize themselves in an external knowledge inventory, outside of corporations, and segmented in high granularity of knowledge assets in close proximity to each other. Entrepreneurs can then assemble people in unique, efficient, and productive ways. People will then build things for profit using a new currency – a new social currency.

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War Is A Social Agreement

By Admin

On July 15, 2010

In General Information

I often make the point that a currency is simply a social agreement. People need to agree that a monetary unit represents their productivity so that they will use it to trade their productivity with the productivity of another person. The test question for any so-called currency (coined by Jay Deragon) is: “Yeah, but can you buy groceries with it?”

I am now seeing a SHARP increase in the social interest for an alternate currency to the dollar. The dollar does represent productivity – albeit future productivity in the form of debt – that’s why it is still exchanged for the work that we do. My suspicion however is that the social agreement regarding the dollar is, in fact, increasingly becoming a social disagreement.

People have a deep seated unease with what the dollar is and what the dollar represents. To escape the dollar is to escape a tangle of influence that impacts everything we say, do, and think about ourselves and about each other. It almost seems that to escape the dollar is to escape ourselves.

That’s just the idea that came to me after watching this video about a soldier questioning the occupations. He is saying something very interesting:

War is simply the soldier’s willingness to fight it. It is a social agreement.

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Stock Harmony; Exchange of Social Value

By Admin

On July 14, 2010

In General Information

I came across an interesting business model for the deployment of a social currency. Stock Harmony, quite simply, sells itself to interesting people. Those people then interact with each other adding social value to Stock Harmony. The more social value is created, the more the original shares are worth. The more the shares are worth, the more interesting people will join further increasing the value of the shares. From that position to deploy social value, Stock Harmony can amplify the voice for social priorities over Wall Street priorities, effectively re-allocating factors of production.

Actually, the same thing happens all the time in typical social circles, networks, affinity groups, and political action committees. However, I am not certain that anyone has yet been successful (ethically) in using social circles as a way to store and exchange value. That is why Stock Harmony is interesting.

It sounds so simple, right? Well, … not really….

It’s all about structure. The way that a process or system is structured determines how people interact with it. Structure also determines how governments, markets, laws, politics, and even public opinion interact with the process or system as well. Interestingly, the structure of facts often keeps secrets tight. In short, structure shapes human behavior and human behavior shapes structure.

Companies sell shares to raise money. Per SEC regulations, the “sale of shares” must comply with certain disclosure and accounting standards. The SEC regulates companies in the sale of shares as a means to safeguard investors. In other words, it is illegal to sell shares without government oversight.

Raising Money

The possibility that anyone can sell shares in themselves or their private enterprise as a means of raising money is, by default, relegated to the banking system. A person essentially sells shares on their productive time on Earth to buy a house, a car, or a business, etc. The structure begins to crumble when the employment contracts begin to crumble. As people leave the old system, they take their value with them and tend to create new ones. This is where Stock Harmony treads.

What if the shares are issued in non-dollar denominations?

Today we see many non-dollar denominated structures arising apparently at the same rate that the financial system is failing. Google secretly invests 100M in Zynga – a gaming company with a common gaming currency. Facebook established a system of currency-like Credits. Groupons deploy social currency to incite monetary discounts, etc, and PayPal stands ready for the next killer currency app. Any of these transaction systems are poised to hold a black market currency if fiat currencies fail. If the fiat currencies fail to recover, the black market becomes a gray market and ultimately a legitimate market. So, there is a lot at stake.

Currency must act as a proxy for human productivity;

So this is what makes Stock Harmony interesting. The successful “next currency” will be the one which best represents human productivity. Only then will someone be willing to trade their productivity for that of another person using a currency note as an exchange mechanism. This is where other alternate currencies fall apart and where Stock Harmony shows greater strength. After all – what would you rather accept in exchange for your services – Farmville gaming currency or a currency backed by the harmony and productivity of real people in real community?

It will all come down to structure.

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Alternate Currencies Ending the Monopoly on Money

By Admin

On July 9, 2010

In General Information

Hundreds of community currencies are forming across the globe. Gaming currencies are jumping back into reality. Europeans communities are calling for the authority to print their own money arguing that the fractional reserve system is like trying to recover from a war by waging more war (a novel thought).

Many people doubt that the dollar has more than a decade or so of steam left as the interest on debts mythically exceeds the total amount of money on Earth. Yet banks march on, heading straight for the cliff.

Governments are polarized against themselves to solve any problem – except by reducing services to the people. Do the math: Interest on debt can approach infinity while austerity measures can only approach zero. You don’t need religion to predict that outcome.

But isn’t this why Governments exists in the first place – to provide social services? Are politicians suggesting their own elimination? Of course not, so they issue press releases and have tea parties worth about as much as the photons they are broadcast on.

Meanwhile, corporate media is trying to dominate (and subdue) social media….ultimately, the end game will flip. This short video invites the status quo to look at what people are “doing and saying with their productivity”.

(editor’s note: The language here is generalized to reflect trend not to endorse any system of finance)

Alternate Currencies Ending the Monopoly on Money

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The Secret Weapon of Social Capitalism

By Admin

On July 9, 2010

In General Information

It should be fairly obvious that there are some extreme financial anomalies on the Global Horizon. That legendary, but long-in-the-tooth social system affectionately known as Market Capitalism, is up against the ropes as the debt monster gobbles up everything in it’s path faster than any austerity measures can ever keep pace. Take note that debt can reach infinity but austerity measures can only reach zero … you can do the math on a postage stamp. If there ever was a need for a secret weapon, it is now.

The following 4-minute story-board video is part 3 to the series called “Will Social Capitalism Replace Market Capitalism?“. The video introduces an important futures methodology and algorithm called WIKiD Tools for the management of Social Capitalism. The next few videos will define WIKiD tools more fully while introducing a segment called “The Knowledge Inventory”. Next, the SC>MC series will lay out scenarios for the capitalization and securitization of knowledge assets. Finally, we’ll revisit the Airplane Game to wrap it all up. In other words, within the next few weeks, I should have published a fairly explicit set of functional specification for the next economic paradigm answering the question “What comes after Market Capitalism?”

Hold on to your hats and thank you for joining us on this wild ride.

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Song For The Sea

By Admin

On July 7, 2010

In General Information

I recently received an email from a major on-line publication collecting “Letters To The Gulf”. I wondered, What would the Gulf Say to Us? That question sounded familiar so I dug through some old video tapes looking for that long-lost club gig from my days in the Hollywood Rock Band Circuit back in the Late 1980’s.

This piece is called Song For the Sea and it was written shortly after the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and amid controversy over illegal long net fishing practices. Lance McCormick is playing Bass and Keys, I am on Drums, and Phil Felicia is on vox and axe. It is pretty interesting how timeless this theme is.

Interesting features:

Phil uses a can of Tuna as a slide to make the sound of expiring whales and sea life. His guitar solo is an enactment of a tuna fish thrashing in it’s final moments of life. I remember that I could barely contain myself, it was so funny to watch – I almost fell off my seat in hysterics every time Phil did the part – but it was powerful imagery especially in later shows after we worked out the shtick a little better. I think we all took stabs at the lyrics. Keep in mind that this was 20+ years ago in Hollywood California – the objective was to be offensive, shocking and controversial so don’t get too riled up over our choice of words. On the other hand, they do contain an interesting historical perspective from a bunch of kids (transcribed below) in the late 80’s. The band was called “Rage In Eden”, affectionately named after Gulf War 1

So here is a blast from the past in loving dedication to BP and the gang
***STRONG LANGUAGE ADVISORY***

Song For The Sea

Welcome to my Universe
Once the mighty sea
Turned dumping ground
for all the pigs to see

Now I’m left here in your waste
drowning in your own disgrace
(let’s do it)

Spilling Toxins in my Sea
My putrid flesh bears the stench
of your rotting soul

So I put it to you
Mr. Politician Man
Whatever Gave you the right
To come and punish my world

With your – (indiscernible) – high and low
All I live for in my life
Is just a paycheck to you

So I put it to you, Mr. Businessman
Whatever gave you the right to Punish my world

Dogs dig in my shores
Dollar Whores
I need you to taste the decay and waste
we sold you, yeah

So I put it to you, Mr. judgment man
What ever gave you the right
to punish my World.

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Social System Capitalism

By Admin

On July 6, 2010

In General Information

Whether we like it or not, we all live in and among various system; weather systems, social systems, management systems, monetary systems, transportation systems, etc. The easy way to identify a system is to simply remove one of it’s parts – if it fails, well, that WAS as a system.

You can own a perfectly good car, but if one tire is not filled with air, the entire car has NO SOCIAL VALUE. All the other pieces could be perfectly operational, the motor, transmission, brakes, etc. However, you can’t go to a wedding in it, you can’t go play golf in, you can’t even get to the bus stop in it; the car has no social value. Seems a little silly, but compressed air is part of our social system.

Suppose that you have a perfectly good social system and you remove the financial system. Will the social system fall apart? … Well, that’s an interesting question…after all, people will still have education, health, knowledge, ingenuity, empathy, community, productivity, infrastructure, and they will very likely get up in the morning and build things anyway.

Now, look at it the other way around. Suppose that you have a perfectly good financial system and you remove all of the people, does the financial system fall apart? Ridiculously, 100% yes it will fail, who will use money it if there is nobody here? The cows? Duh.

We cannot have a rational discussion about the market capitalist system without also having a rational discussion about the social capitalist system. Yet, Social Capitalism is barely defined. Social capitalism is hidden behind command and control corporate systems and “intangibles” accounting. Social Capitalism is constrained by invisible lines on a map; marginalized, taxed, oppressed and controlled by skin color, gender roles, marketing, politics, and conflict all in the name of my God and Country.

It is interesting to consider an invisible system designed to suppress a visible system that supports the invisible system (say that 3 times really fast….it sounds like someone letting the air out of the tires). The most obvious opportunity for the future is to stop letting the air out of the tires.

Luckily, social media is changing everything by acting as an alternative place for the exchange and storage of value. The weaker the financial system gets, the stronger social media systems will get; but not the other way around. Think about it like a system.

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Independence Is A State of Mind

By Admin

On July 4, 2010

In General Information

Independence is a state of mind. Americans have always chosen independence – and they will continue to do so. It is often convenient to let ourselves trust elected leaders and the esteemed business titans to do what is in our best interest. Don’t be fooled, this is “trust”, not dependence.

It is likewise unwise to underestimate the independence movement – independence from corrupt currency, independence from fossil fuel, independence from corporate greed, independence from divisive politics, independence from endless war. Just when everyone thinks that Americans are up against the ropes, they come up with an idea so radical, so creative, and so astonishingly consciousness-altering, the rest of the world just shakes their heads in collective disbelief.

That is where we are today. Something extraordinary is about to happen in the way Americans organize themselves. Nothing is sacred, no one is immune. The next economic paradigm will alter the course of civilization.

All stages of human development were derived from the prior stage of human development by integrating the tools of that prior stage. For example, the agrarians integrated the tools of the hunter-gather such as using the chopping rock to till a field for planting – and so forth. Likewise, the industrial revolution integrated the tools of the scientific revolution; mathematics, chemistry, and engineering. Earlier this century, the computer age integrated the tools of the industrial revolution, etc.

The next economic paradigm will be derived from the Knowledge economy by integrating the tools of the knowledge economy; these are The Internet, Social Media, mobile communications technology, etc…

Americans will chose Independence every time.

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Social Currency Hedges Financial Currency

By Admin

On July 2, 2010

In General Information

I have yet to see anyone of any importance in the social-media-guru-camp who has identified the inherent dichotomy between social currency and financial currency that rages all around us. No, seriously; every financial action is balanced by an equal and opposite social reaction. It’s a balance sheet of the balance sheets.

BP underestimated the social liability of their financial decisions by a factor of 100,000:1. US Corporations underestimated the social liabilities of outsourcing the knowledge economy by a factor of 1000:1, US Government underestimated the social liabilities of Wall Street Bankers by, likely, 1000:1. Tiger Woods underestimated his social indiscretion by a similar ratio; 10,000:10. Mel Gibson is trending hard on Twitter this week….etc.

I received the following press release today from “Professor Guru” at a famous US University:

US CITY, July 2 – despite a slight drop in the national unemployment rate, the situation is still grim for millions of Americans and thousands of businesses, many of whom fear double-dip recession. Beyond the numbers are some under reported aspects of the current situation: the toll it takes on employee morale and how it forces companies to manage downsizing in a manner that maintains their reputation, avoids embittering their terminated employees and keeps their remaining employees engaged.

Astonishing Omission:

Nowhere does this statement address a notion that for every dollar of financial currency saved, X amount of social capital will be lost. This is an astonishing omission of statement and purpose. All the social currency is well-accounted for with guru code speak like: “grim”, “takes a toll”, “morale”, “reputation”, “embitterment”, “terminated”, and “engaged”. And, all the financial currency verbiage is accounted for with pop-terms like: “double dip-recession”, “under-reported aspect”, “the numbers”, “downsizing”, “remaining employees (assets)”, etc. The call to action statement, of course, is that the situation “Forces Companies to manage….” or, to act in some new way that will,… uhmmm, well,….. what is it? ….minimize, balance, exploit, empower, update the Facebook page….what?.

Really, it’s time to get real:

Nobody is willing to say that for every dollar of financial capital saved, X amount of Social Capital is Lost. Obviously, nobody in their right mind would say that social currency is acting as a hedge on financial currency. Nobody has the guts to say that to cultivate social currency is to gain financial currency. Nobody is willing to acknowledge that if there are riots in the streets of America, the US currency will crash. Certainly no politician is willing to admit that it does not matter if that happens, it only matters “when” that happens.

Turning point of civilization

We are at an extremely important phase in World History. Will social media provide the fabric that society has lost from the domination of financial morality on social priorities? If so, then then keep your eyes on the ideas of a social currency conversion factor to drive Social Capitalism as a replacement for Market Capitalism.

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Social Capitalism and The Culture of Data

By Admin

On June 30, 2010

In General Information

Data are the raw material of the next economic paradigm. Data, information, knowledge, innovation, and wisdom are all related; but it all starts with data.

In order to produce anything valuable in the domain of social capitalism, the creation and formation of data is hypercritical. The better the data, the better the information, knowledge, innovation, wisdom and culture that will follow. Each stage of transformation along the chain reaction from “data” to “culture” is an opportunity for both great value creation AND astonishing corruption.

Data is King:

Yet data are often collected and processed with very little vetting. We all know that information is most easily spun from the data collection process. We know that bad knowledge comes from bad information, and we know that unsuccessful innovation comes from inappropriate knowledge. Obviously, to be an unwise leader is to be unimaginative leader. A failed culture creates failed data…and the circle completes itself.

Data is an asset:

On the other hand, the ability to collect data is often the most tangible intellectual property that an organization can hold. It is easy to copy a patent but difficult to recreate the system that generates patents. Excellent data results in excellent technology from the moon landings to the Internet. The trick is that all assets must contain two components; a quantity and a quality. This means that some rigor is needed in the data collection process. When data are produced, the quantity is the “measurement” but the quality is the certainty or uncertainty that what is being measured is actually what is being observed.

Data Relationships

Phenomena such as art, politics, emotions, capital markets, and spirituality are difficult to measure because the item being observed exists as a function of the observer’s interaction with it. Still, the quality of the data includes the certainty that all data were measured the same way AND some disclosure of the uncertainty that remains. This is an area of great omission and where severe problems arise especially where the most people rely on the data to make decisions. The term “comparing apples to oranges” is a real problem and it is particularly elusive at very early and highly incremental stages of ideation.

Mouse goes squeak:

Often the people involved with the intensely small or incremental portion of the data design and collection process are the least powerful people in the supply chain. Often they have the least say in how the data is analyzed and certainly have no visibility of what happens upstream. It is tragically amusing that the dominant characteristic of most hierarchies is that each level of management “filters” the data from lower levels and delivers it to the next level where actions are authorized.

The Culture of Data

Social media is entering the human culture at an incredible rate. Social media has also shown us what happens when the good data becomes the important information, which increases knowledge among the most people leading to increasingly effective innovation and changing the conventional wisdom about an increasing diversity of subjects. Social Capitalism will replace Market Capitalism simply because the culture is superior.

Hint: Culture Produces The Data.

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Social Capital Trolls

By Admin

On June 29, 2010

In General Information

A Troll is a member of a race of fearsome creatures from Norse mythology. Troll mythology is, in fact fairly complex but seems to resolve to common images of Neanderthal type people living under bridges who extort money from passersby, steal babies, and fear God.

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion [Wikipedia].

In the Intellectual Property world, a troll is an individual or business that holds patent or copyrights with no intention of developing the IP and every intention to enforce against infringement by those who do develop ideas.

Naturally, we seek to anticipate the future usage of the term Troll in a context of Social Capitalism. We can say that someone who was in a position to constrain Social Capitalism has the potential to engage in troll behavior.

The troll does benefit from the eventual success of traveler passing through the constraint; however, they create an unnecessary or non productive friction in a market. This can kill many business plans as troll fees and uncertainties need to be factored into the risks of doing business.

I am reminded of a legal system that facilitates litigation over education, negotiation, and cooperation. Social media has an inherent self-policing aspect that may threaten “regulators” in law and government who seek to hold exclusive vetting privilege over a social market.

I am reminded of advertisers who put lipstick on the pig by pretending to play up the whuffie, trust agent or engagement vibe, but instead lay Astroturf and buy up social media outlets. Spam is spam is spam.

I am reminded of Internet service providers that purposely slow down a connection and charge for speed that costs them less to keep open than to slow down. I am reminded of the demise of unlimited data packages for mobile Internet – now that the user is an addict, pull back the dosing in exchange for compliance.

In short, a social capital troll is any person or organization that seeks to CHANGE the online behavior of an individual and their community rather than EMPOWER the individual and their community to do what they would have done in the absence of the troll.

Fell free to add more for future posts on this subject……..

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Black Market Social Capitalism

By Admin

On June 23, 2010

In General Information

A Black Market is not so much illegal as it is, extralegal. Extralegal means that a condition exists outside of a legal system. Street vendors in LA, Garage Sales across the US, some family transactions, alternate currencies, and increasingly, social media, are operating in an extralegal sector. It can be argued that most businesses probably started as an extralegal enterprise where extralegal “value” was exchanged in a simple brain-storming session.

This is only a problem depending on what side of the deal you are on. There are few liabilities, high anonymity, no lawyers, contracts, or licenses. You have a certain independence from government currencies, regulations, and oversight … and you don’t pay taxes, etc.

Tax evasion – the scourge of racketeers worldwide

However, if things go wrong, there is no legal recourse. You cannot engage the department of commerce if the garage sale item is defective. You cannot go to a bank to borrow money to finance an extralegal enterprise. You cannot sell an extralegal business in mainstream markets. If your extralegal enterprise infringes on a legal enterprise, you are liable – and vice versa. You also are vulnerable to obscure tax laws that may, or may not, eventually catch up with you anyway.

Modern Black Market

The difference with the modern black market is that social media inherently rewards high integrity and punishes low integrity. This effect makes the need for laws and law enforcement less essential in protecting business interests. If someone does dirty deals in social media, there is a form of community recourse that can take place to punish trolls and crooks. Social media does not always have physical, visible, or involuntary infrastructure to impose on the legal rights of others.

The “Little House on The Prairie” effect

The Last Mile of Social Media is an emerging condition where social media applications act in a community much as they did before all mass media. One example is Craigslist – if you sell me a dodgy lawn mower, well, I know where you live. I can “ask a neighbor” and conduct a social media search on anyone that I encounter. As communities form in close proximity, anonymity goes away and people work with people they know and trust.

Social Engineering

As governments and industries increase their usage of social media applications – this black Market becomes a grey market. Employers check backgrounds. Courts hold employers to public information usage laws in discrimination suits. Anyone can be financially impacted by TMI on social media networks.

However, as long as it stays in the extra-legal sector Social Media will remain intangible in the eyes of the current financial system. This gives rise to two options: Government should regulate social media OR social media will operate in an alternate financial system.

My bet – and indeed the objective of the Ingenesist Project – is that an alternate financial system will emerge which will fully capitalize and securitize a social currency. Then, and only then, it will become a relatively simple task to convert social currency to any financial currency much like currency exchanges legally operate around the world.

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Will Social Capitalism Replace Market Capitalism? (Parts 1&2)

By Admin

On June 21, 2010

In General Information

This video describes a set of predictions for 2020 based on an entirely new form of capitalism whose velocity and voracity will take the world completely by surprise. Nothing is sacred and nobody is immune, not Facebook, not Google, not Wall Street, not even Governance itself….

Part 1

Part 2:

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Knowledge Failure Is Business Failure

By Admin

On June 16, 2010

In General Information

The top ten reasons for business failure are due to a lack of knowledge, not a lack of money. In fact, the lack of money is itself a failure of knowledge.

Top 10 reasons why businesses fail

1. Lack of an adequate, viable business plan .

2. Insufficient sales to sustain business

3. Poor marketing plan: unappealing product, poor customer identification, incorrect pricing and lackluster promotion

4. Inadequate capital, misuse of capital and poor cost control

5. Poor management skills: lack of delegation, leadership and/or control

6. Lack of experience and knowledge

7. Lack of managerial focus/commitment

8. Poor customer service

9. Inadequate human resource management

10. Failure to properly use professional advice: i.e. accounting, legal, financial, etc.

No excuses:

Lack of a viable business plan is an act of negligence where research, scenarios, and assumptions have not been tested. Market ignorance is not an excuse nor is the failure to know one’s customer. Death by poor marketing plan is knowledge deficiency related to product appeal, customer identification, pricing structure, and lackluster promotion. Obviously, one needs to know how to manage a company in order to be focused, let alone correctly estimate capital needs. Lack of customer service knowledge is deadly in the age of social media. Inadequate HR is an oxymoron – if it’s inadequate, it’s not a resource – human or otherwise. Finally, failure to listen to knowledgeable people is ego driven irrationality.

The financial system is not the only problem;

The innovation system (or lack of) is a crucial element. Information, knowledge and innovation, by any definition, are profoundly and inseparably connected. A failure in one kills the other two. So, just because an entrepreneur does not have the knowledge, does not mean the ‘knowledge’ fails to exist – it simply means that entrepreneur failed to find it.

So where is the knowledge?

Unfortunately, there is no public knowledge inventory – people do not know what each other knows. With social media raging all around us, there still is no way that anyone can assemble the knowledge needed to execute a business plan with a known probability of success given the information available. As such, there is no way to finance public innovation.

The emergence of Social Media technology presents an extraordinary opportunity to organize a knowledge inventory outside the construct of a corporation and marry it to the financial system, much like a corporation.

Tangibility of Knowledge

Knowledge tangibility must be the most important “innovation” in the pipeline today if we expect to meet the crushing challenges that await us. Just because we cannot predict innovation does not mean it cannot be predicted – it just means that we do not know how… yet.

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Tangential Innovation Communities

By Admin

On June 14, 2010

In General Information

In an earlier article (Cluster Funk) I argued that Industrial clusters can lead to stagnation, vulnerability to external shocks, and the erosion of social capital. Since I’m not one to complain without also providing an alternative, this article argues that the future will favor technology clusters rather than industrial clusters.

Make it up as you go along

Technology clusters serve what we call the tangential innovation market – or diversity innovation dynamics. Don’t worry if you have not heard of these things, I’m making this up as I go along.

For example; composite materials technology is very useful in many applications like aircraft, medical devices, transportation, recreation, and even musical instruments. The airplane company has no intention of building cellos and the automobile company has no intention of building snow boards.

Why compete when you can collude?

As non-competing industries, they can readily share technology and people. The system is naturally diversified and inoculated against stagnation, shocks and silos; if one industry encounters hardship, people and capacity can shift easily to another industry preserving knowledge and expanding social networking benefit while the damaged industry heals or dies off. Corporations may not like this idea, but social networks should.

The Ingenesist Project goes a step further by modeling the business structure of tangential innovation markets as an integrated financial system. Suppose and Originator Company has a promising new composite technology idea but is unable to meet the ROI requirements of their stockholders? Today, such innovation would be shelved. In an innovation economy, tangential markets are factored into the business case.

New applications of social media will identify other industries that would be most worthy borrowers of your technology, if developed. The Innovation Bank can estimate the return on investment that can be expected through the tangential market as if it were another customer. The additional revenue projection would allow the originator to meet the ROI requirement prior to committing development funds.

Intellectual Property can be managed with contracts enforced through social network vetting. The originator can hold an option to see further development conducted by tangential users effectively multiplying their R&D reach and further adding to the expected return.

Then something magical will happen. At some point, the value of the tangential innovation market would exceed the value of the origination market. The originator will begin to specialize in pure innovation as a primary product and airplane applications as the secondary product. As all industries in the technology cluster begin sharing technology among each other, R&D costs and risks are effectively spread across industries. As risk is diversified away, the cost of venture capital approaches single digit rates.

Then, another magical thing will happen. As the mixing of people and ideas accelerates, the definition of corporate boundaries will become more fluid. Ownership will exist in the form of contracts among entrepreneurs now defined by social networks, options, and derivatives in a diverse innovation enterprise.

While the boom bust cycle of Industrial Clusters has brought us a great distance in economic development, technology clusters in an Innovation Economy supported by social networks may turn out to be vastly more efficient at economic growth without the perils of Cluster Funk.

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Cluster Funk

By Admin

On June 10, 2010

In General Information

I recently attended another one of those economic development summits where a bunch of people with long titles gets a chance to speak on a panel touting the mysterious benefits of a mysterious innovation clusters that create mysterious wealth that can only be realized if their mysterious department is funded.

Nearly every speaker concluded with the following paraphrase: “if only government would fund this or that, everything will be fine”, or, “if only corporations would fund this or that, then we’ll all be better off”

Uhmmm…sorry to break the news, it ain’t gunna happen.

Innovation clusters are all the rage in regional economic development circles. Actually, they are “industrial clusters” because several companies in similar industries collocate in the same geographical area. The industrial cluster then attracts supporting industry and often causes the migration of educated and motivated people to the prospect of jobs. I suspect the ‘innovation’ moniker comes from the notion that new ideas will somehow result from similarity of ideals and purpose.

Group Think Tanks

There are, however, a few drawbacks to industry clusters; they are vulnerable to stagnation, silos, and external shocks. As companies become organized and technologies mature, patents and trade secrets take hold. As they ‘go public’, SEC regulation effectively places a gag order on everyone and sharing slows while stagnation sets in.

Soon after, dozens of nimble companies consolidate into a single giant to achieve economies of scale. Finally, silos form under the weight of multiple layers of management while jobs are mechanized or outsourced.

Then, something somewhere happens to shock the cluster; the end of the cold war leveled the So Cal aerospace cluster. 9/11 busted the Seattle Aerospace cluster. The dot.com bomb stunted Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Route 128. Hurricanes and environmental disasters hit the petroleum cluster, stem cell and genetic engineering legislation stalled biotechnology, and corruption continues to shock financial institutions. At the end of the cycle, companies divest, people defect and a new planet starts to form someplace else.

Remember “scrubbing bubbles”?

While occasional cleansing, in a Schumpeterian sense, is good for industries, the extreme volatility takes a horrendous toll on that invisible turbine of the economic engine – social fabric. Families, friendships, professional networks are strained or collapse and those who dedicate their life to a career path – the pure innovator themselves – can be left marginalized by obsolescence.

The term “Innovation Clusters” makes for a good soundbite for politicians because it fits on the “Jobs R Us” banner they can stand in front of (thumbs up) for the next election cycle. The term keeps funds flowing to organizations to publish studies that conclude that more studies are needed. Maybe these summits ought to be renamed to Cluster Funks because that is largely what they actually promote.

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Crowdsourcing The New Exploitation

By Admin

On June 7, 2010

In General Information

The cadence of modern globalization has been set by the steady drive to lower labor costs across the world. Not surprisingly, the greatest threat to the global economy is social instability. As usual, political boundaries are drawn to keep people isolated from each other. The new twist is that Social Media arises because people are trying to reorganize themselves. Now, Crowdsourcing moves the eternal struggle to a new battle field.

There are two ways that the tools of the knowledge economy can integrate. 1. People are successful at reorganizing so that when the financial system does collapse, they can deploy a social currency to trade among each other. Or, 2. Social Media will become the new substrate of exploitation. Let me explain:

Turking is a phenomenon of crowdsourcing where people perform simple tasks on-line for money. Highly intellectual tasks are broken down into small components easily managed by a simple human decision. Each of these simple human decisions are sent out to humans to perform. The results are then re-combined to become a high value knowledge economy product.

Even companies that perform this service for major corporations are astonished that people would work for so little money. Academic studies declare that people are motivated by something other than money. Somehow Turking provides people with hope, self, validation, and all sorts of great personal benefit – otherwise they would not be doing it. This is good, right?

Wrong….people are desperate and turking is the last treadmill on the rat race to the bottom.

The idea that someone would work for free in order to gain “reputation” is built on the assumption that some “brand” is backing the reputation. Brands don’t exist – they are fictitious. Brands are what marketers say the are. Turking lets brands monetize their story line with cheap, invisible, and powerless labor force scattered around the world.

All the asset with none of the liability – and they call it a social miracle?

Most “turking” does not pay enough to cover the cost of the education required to complete the task. It costs a society countless thousands of dollars to teach and nurture a child to read and make good decision. Yet, the net payback is under 1.00 dollar per hour for the simplest turking tasks and net 5-10 dollars per hour for higher orders of analysis requiring specific and proficient skills. If the turk work is rejected or they lose the “contest” they are not paid and their IP is stolen – no recourse, no rebuttal.

Worse yet, turkers from impoverished countries are valued relative to the disfunction of their economy, not their inherent intellect and creativity. This sets up a tragic dynamic where it becomes, again, in the best interest of some enterprise that the poor countries remain poor and dysfunctional. As such, the inherent intellectual and creative value of their people can be efficiently transferred to the shareholders.

There are social media alternatives under development by The Ingenesist Project and others that allow people to organize and sell their own information. Applications are being devised that allow people to self organize into productive communities and to reward the nurturing and sharing of knowledge assets in community economic system. Dynamic business systems are under development that reward high integrity and punish low integrity.

The great question of our time is: Who will win, financial currency or social currency?

Photo source

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WIKiD Tools; A Futures Methodology

By Admin

On June 2, 2010

In General Information

The forecasting methods that we are developing at the Ingenesist Project have become sufficiently vetted and organized that I have decided to formalize them for review by others. The “WIKiD Tools” method is fairly simple to describe and demonstrate, but be assured, it is a powerful method for predicting futures outcomes.

WIKiD stands for:

Wisdom > Innovation > Knowledge > Information > Data

All five of these elements are related to each other – in fact, each is derived from the prior element by integrating the tools of that medium. For example information is derived from data by integrating the tools of the data medium. Knowledge is derived from information by integrating the tools of information medium, innovation is derived from knowledge by integrating the tools of the knowledge medium, etc.

Likewise, if I want to predict innovation, I look for high rates of change of knowledge in it’s medium….and so on for all five elements as needed.

The chart below helps demonstrate the WIKiD Tools methodology.

The Hunter-Gatherer

About 50,000 years ago humans sustained themselves in a hunter gather economy. They would wander for food to eat and fuel to stay warm. Eventually they invented tools to trap their game and chop down trees so they no longer needed to expend as much energy and could remain relatively stationary.

The Agrarian

This led to the agrarian economy, the formation of towns, and the division of labor. A leisure class emerged to engage in philosophy and explore nature. New ideas were explored and the “scientific method” of observation and experimentation was invented

The Data Economy

With the invention of interchangeable parts in manufacturing, the industrial revolution became the dominant era of economic activity. The idea of industrialization separated production from assembly of parts. This allowed for greater efficiency and precision.

The Information Economy

The Industrial revolution generated a lot of Data and the invention of the integrated circuit turned these data into information – we now look back at the 60’s and 70s as the information age.

The Knowledge Economy

Widespread use of computers allowed humans to process the information in creative and unique ways – we now call this the knowledge economy.

Since there were many eras prior to this, we can expect that there shall be many eras following this – so we ask the question “what comes after the knowledge economy?

When we apply the WIKiD Tools Methodology:

We can say that each new era was derived from the prior era by integrating the tools developed during the prior era. We have seen the data economy in the industrial revolution, we have seen the information economy with Invention of the Integrated Circuit, We are in the midst of the knowledge economy with the advent of the Internet.

The next economic paradigm:

Now the tools of the Computer, software, and Internet connectivity are integrating around social media. From this we predict that an innovation economy will emerge by integrating the tools of the knowledge economy, specifically social media, mobile devices, software, hardware, and the internet.

The Wisdom Economy

Looking far far into the future, we can predict that the wisdom economy will emerge from an integration of tools developed in the innovation economy. The wisdom economy – with or without the current financial system – will have the greatest likelihood of achieving a sustainable human presence on Earth. Consequently, failure to achieve the wisdom economy presents an equally predictable outcome.

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Let’s Argue About the Definition of Productivity Instead

By Admin

On May 27, 2010

In General Information

Many arguments rage because of poor definitions to terms. If people cannot agree on a definition, they will not agree on much else. A definition should be definitive – here I will tackle 5 of the most elusive definitions that are at the center of much, if not all, global controversy: Data, Information, knowledge, innovation, wisdom

To state the obvious

It should be obvious that data, information, knowledge, innovation and wisdom are related. The test is simple: if you corrupt one of them, all the others become corrupted. The question becomes; how are they related?

Consider the following definitions

Allow me to provide the following 4 relationships:

1. Information is derived from the productivity of data

2. Knowledge is derived from the productivity of information

3. Innovation is derived from the productivity of knowledge

4. Wisdom is derived from the productivity of innovation

These relationships are very useful.

1. They include everyone, they exclude no one.

2. They are personal enough to reflect individual value system yet discrete enough to not contradicting the value system of another.

The question now resides in how we define productivity, that is a much simpler, more efficient, and far wiser problem to be arguing about. Besides, a singles solution solves 4 problems.

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Financial Currency vs. Social Currency

By Admin

On May 26, 2010

In General Information

The difference between the current economic paradigm and the next will balance on the difference between financial currency and social currency. Let me explain:

The flawed calculation

Obviously, the Gulf Oil Spill was a result of a flawed calculation. As a result, the rig was not equipped with an “acoustic trigger” in the event of an explosion – should the dying surface workers fail to hit the manual cut-off – this device would automatically shut the well. The device costs 500,000 dollars.

The estimated damage at 1 month of constant spilling was estimated at 14 Billion dollars with no solution in sight. The residual social cost in unemployment, health and destruction of social fabric could easily double that score. The long-term cost to industries and natural ecosystems could double that number again.

Score: 500,000 dollars vs. 50 Billion dollars; The financial currency to social currency ratio = 1: 100,000

Ted Nugent, a fervent and vocal Republican, Tea Party spokesperson, 2^nd amendment activist, hunting enthusiast, and hard rock guitarist accuses this nation of losing it’s culture of accountability. His quote on CNN this weekend “I never had a fire, but I have a fire extinguisher in every room of my house. The spill was a criminal act of negligence”. In this case, I would have to agree with ‘The Nuge’.

Accountability is a calculation

When a company performs a cost benefit analysis, they look at the remediation cost of peril and the cost of mitigating peril and the probability that the peril will occur. The problem arises from the valuation of remediation cost; quoted in financial dollars “subject to litigation” when it should be actually be quoted in social currency. Litigation risk is not a proxy for social currency.

In the example of the Gulf Oil Spill, this equation was off by a factor of 1:100,000. Every other possible failure calculation that could have occurred was likewise flawed by the same ratio. Therefore, there is 100% probability that none of the perils were properly mitigated, hence, accountability was zero. I am sure the 11 workers who perished would have agreed.

Scraping the Deep Web

So what would accountability look like? We see that Social Media, in general, provides a remarkable system to punish low integrity and reward high integrity. Could this medium of exchange in social currency provide an accountability standard to hedge financial currency?

If Facebook can map the human consumption genome, technologists certainly have the data scraping ability to develop a true value calculator that can compare financial value to social value for any venture, prior to the venture being executed. In fact, we should be able to predict what ventures are more likely to occur given the relative values of social and financial currencies. The fear, of course, is that this will hurt business.

True leverage calculator

A true value calculator would, in fact, be better for business because it improves business intelligence shifting opportunities to meet true market demand. A true value calculator would not eliminate markets, it would liberate the true demand of a market. And if that is not enough, consider the 100,000:1 market leverage that the trade in social currencies could have over financial currencies.

Now that’s a business to consider!

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