We must all be engaged in the process of Innovation. We must all be engaged in the process of increasing each other’s productivity – in whatever form that may be, that’s the objective. Anything that wastes time needs to go away. It’s that simple.
The following video discusses what the dynamic of an innovation economy will look like. Not glass walled towers and obscure think tanks, but real productivity – yours and mine. That’s the basis of the new global currency. It’s that simple.
Wow, stunning.
You know that the time is right for a disruptive technology when nobody can agree what’s floating the World Currency. Will there be deflation, Inflation, or a new currency altogether?
We believe that a new currency will emerge.
It will be called a Rallod (dollar spelled backwards), similar to a dollar, except corrected to represent real human productivity. It will be exchanged in a new social media application and supporting institutions will be crowd sourced. If you think we’re nuts, you haven’t been reading this blog long enough. If we don’t succeed, there will be someone behind us trying.
Never, ever, ever underestimate the cloud; the source of all rain upon which rising tides float all ships, yadda, yadda, etc…..
Conversational Currency
Imagine people owning their knowledge assets like real property? Imagine that people trade knowledge assets like financial instruments? Imagine if they can bundle and securitize knowledge assets like the WS glory days did with debt (debt is really just a future contract on knowledge assets)? Far off? Think again….
In the mean time; here are some interesting articles aggregated by McKinsey:
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As the US economy emerges from the crisis, there’s little consensus on what lies ahead. Economic forecaster David Levy says chronic high unemployment will lead to, at worst, slight deflation. While former Fortune writer and financial adviser Al Ehrbar says, not so fast: with the Federal Reserve having flooded the market with dollars, massive inflation is likely.
Read Here
Plus: What Matters continues the conversation on the fate of the dollar:
GENG XIAO: Why the Chinese will not bail out the dollar by allowing the renminbi to appreciate
Read here
BENN STEIL: There are steep downsides to both a strong dollar and weak dollar policy
Read here
GERARD LYONS: Whether or not the dollar will topple isn’t in doubt, only its speed of decline is
Read Here:
MARTIN GILMAN: Now that the United States is a debtor nation, its currency can no longer dominate
Read Here:
CHARLES WYPLOSZ: The dollar is the worst international currency, except for all the others
Read Here:
TIM ADAMS: The dollar’s share may shrink, but it will continue to dominate
Read Here
MICHAEL MANDEL: Beware of a dollar crash if the United States loses its innovation edge
Read Here
JEFFREY GARTEN: The question isn’t if the dollar will be replaced–it’s when and how
Read Here
Join the conversation at WHAT MATTERS
Here
The questions are:
1. What is money? 2. Why is it important? 3. Why is it all so confusing?
The answers are:
1. You are money. 2. You are important. 3. You’re not supposed to know this.
This video provide an easy way to find the truth among the high-fiber ambiguity that has become our political morass. Oh Yeah, they want you to be confused because they don’t want you to act any differently.
Many Social Media Gurus are espousing a new culture that their clients should forget about blogging (adding meaningful content) in favor of the ubiquitous widespread “updates”.
Using automated apps, you no longer need to waste time creating content that teaches or expresses, you can populate across social media space carefully wedged in between someone else’s creative content. I find this appalling.
This is starting to sound more like the neighborhood drug dealer than any sustainable economic paradigm.
Slavery is a term characterized in part by the coercion of another person to perform or act without compensation. The effects of slavery are not only physical, but mental as well. The effects of oppression manifest themselves in addictive behaviors.
Social acceptance is an extremely powerful psychotic that can be cleverly turned against any person. The techniques of social media are getting increasingly sophisticated in hijacking and consuming the social capital of others.
It does not take long to see that the marketing professions are defining the social media space regardless of what anyone says about user-generated content. The danger is that social media will become just as unsustainable as the economy that it replaces. People will soon lose the ability to produce the currency that the media demands to support itself.
t would be high temple sacrilege for any social media monetization strategist to suggest that advertising of any kind must be banned. Well, not exactly, but the objective of advertising can be redefined if there were a means to do so.
The only sustainable monetization strategy (of which there are terribly few current examples) are the deployment of social media applications that empower people to discover their own individual talents, to pursue what they are naturally best at and enjoy doing most – while also eliminating the clutter and irrelevant messages that distracts them from their personal life goals.
This means that brands should communicate more and not less. They should identify, educate, and promote the talents and abilities of a million customers instead of 1 superstar athlete or celebrity.
Advertisers should sit in the bleachers and cheer on their favorite customer, but they should not be in the game, blowing the whistle, or running the scoreboard. Let them pay admission, see my logo, and buy my overpriced beer. Let them sell to each other on their own dime – but under no circumstances should they be allowed on the field, in the schools, or in the home without explicit and expressed permission of the customer.
As we build the Next Economic Paradigm we seek to define the quality of conversations.
The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, (CEFR), is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe.
Here is the twist.
We propose the use of a language proficiency standard as the conversational quality standard for any subject. Why?, Because every subject has it’s own language and related subjects have related languages. Try to bridge the philosophical chasm for yourself by reading the descriptions and drawing the analogy to the subject of your expertise, lack of expertise, or your interests and intension!
As such, for conversations about any subject matter in the world, past present or future, the following also holds true for subject matter proficiency:
Basic Proficiency
A1: Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.
A2: Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance. Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.
Intermediate Proficiency
B1: Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.
B2: Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.
Advanced Proficiency
C1: Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.
C2: Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations.
OK, the social media buzz is getting a little stale folks.
Show me how everyone is related and I’ll show you a new economic paradigm. Here is how they are not related:
The next economic paradigm is related to transformation.
Under a set of fundamental assumptions that:
This is how value is generated. This is where the mystery of monetization hides.
I recently caught up with a childhood classmate on Facebook. I remembered hearing that she had lost her older brother, Robert, in a recreational accident several years ago. Nobody ever knows what to say to a friend in a situation like that. But her brother was different.
When I was a freshman in high school many years ago, a couple of goons were getting ready to kick my ass for no particular reason except that I was a freshman. Then Robert walked around the corner. He stood next to me, applied a menacing grin, and stared my oppressors down. After a few moments, he walked away without saying a word.
Robert never said very much, he didn’t have to. He had so many friends that nobody dared to mess with him. I very much appreciated his intervention because nobody ever bothered me again.
Over the next several months, I saw Robert do this few more times. That’s when I realized why he had so many friends. It was one of those “life lessons”.
I’ll leave the story here, where Robert left it for us. Draw your own conclusions about social media organization.…
Picture credit: Names and Faces are not of the actual people portrayed in article
Given the events of the last several weeks, it’s time to for the aviation industry to get serious with Social Media. This article demonstrates how an alternate currency can be used to severely reduce or eliminate terrorist risk in commercial aviation. Think I’m kidding, read on.
Obviously an airline will not let you board an airplane if you don’t have the financial currency sufficient to buy ticket. Why should an airline let you board an airplane if you do not have social currency sufficient to fulfill your social obligations while in the air?
People with extreme social currency deficiencies are routinely stripped of their rights by a jury of peers and isolated from society for a period of time (where they would not board an airplane anyway). While there are many systems in place to manage the various degrees of social currency deficiency, none appear to be able to identify a terrorist without also violating the rights of non-terrorists.
Human Writes
However, many people are willing to share information about themselves to associates with whom an economic benefit is shared or exchanged. This happens a billion times per week on Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter – why not among fellow passengers? After all everyone is already connected by 6 degrees.
What would a terrorist’s Facebook profile say about them? Do they have a lot of referrals on linkedin? Do they post great work on Flikr? Is their community orchestra featured on My Space? Are their posts popular on twitter?
Should a social currency credit score become imperative to social transactions as the financial credit score is for financial transactions?
Banks and Insurance companies already rely on a highly invasive “Credit Score” to establish financial risk profile as a means of protecting their selves and their other clients. Why wouldn’t an airline use a social credit score to establish a social risk profile as a means of protecting their selves and the lives of their other clients?
Ruse and lose
Sure, the bad guys can adapt to social media as they have adapted to all other measures. The problem is that the greater the size and scope of their social media ruse, the more difficult it is to maintain the ruse. A threshold score could be set to nearly eliminate this possibility. Those folks can then simply opt into the full body scan.
The Paradigm Shift
As the saying goes, the attacker needs to be successful only once, while the defender needs to be successful every time. The concept of a Social media credit score flips this paradigm on it’s head. The attacker’s social credit score needs to be successful every time. The defender needs to be successful only once.
In the broadest definition, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an investment outside the economy of the investor. It usually refers to a measure of foreign ownership of productive assets, such as factories, mines and land. Increasing foreign investment can be used as one measure of growing economic globalization.
The Disruption
Social Media has the effect of defining an economy not by an international border, but rather, by associations between people and their conversations. Investment is in the form of time and the exchange of ideas, experience, and knowledge. Ownership is expressed in the form of reputation, search placement, social ranking, hits, etc.
Social FDI
Therefore, FDI in social media refers to an investment applied outside the economy of the investor where:
Likewise, increasing Social FDI can be used as one measure of growing economic socialization. For business, this means that Social FDI would then include investments in people who are not your customers.
For Example:
I recently wrote a post for Plane Conversations – a blog serving the private aviation industry. Thousands of private airplanes that once served the corporate market are grounded because of the financial crisis. The jist of the article was that the private aviation industry could help communities to stave off commercial aircraft expansion by empowering local entrepreneurs to compete with commercial aircraft industry by selling “lift products” provided by the private aviation industry, hence, Citizen Airlines, LLC.
The paradigm shift …
…is that a company that sells corporate jet services would engage, cooperate, and empower people who are not their customers in order to compete more effectively. Who saw that one coming? Can it happen everywhere? Can it happen in every single industry imaginable? What if everyone did it in their personal lives? Can it create entirely new industries altogether?
This is not trivial.
FDI in all forms induces a sharing of risk between the host economy and the investing economy. This provides a stronger stimulus to economic growth in host economies than other types of capital inflows. FDI is more than just capital; it is access to diverse technologies and management knowhow.
Welcome to conversational currency.
Many people who read the title of this post would conclude that the article is about the 100 million dollar Russian investment in Facebook, or how countries outside the US are using Linkedin and Twitter. Perhaps some repackaged assessment of well worn forecasts. Guess what, that is exactly what the article is about.
Innovation Economics 101
Innovation is largely the practice of connecting two useful ideas resulting in a third. Innovation leading to increased productivity is the fundamental source of increasing wealth in an economy. Innovation is the most important thing for the human survival.
One must seriously ask, how exactly do political memoirs increase human productivity?
2009 marked the resurrection of the infamous “Book Deal” with lovely Ms. Palin and entourage leading the charge. However, books are not the actual product; it is the kindling (amazon pun intended) that they provide for endless fodder for the mainstream and new media. It’s the money shot.
Entering a mid-term election year with the future of our country in the balance, the onslaught of meaningless dribble will be epic. The national pundits will go wild fueling local media coverage as the authors engage in their cross-country tours of duty performing the perfunctory act of accomplishment.
There will be a wide audience of Americans asking themselves the same question:
Should the past be used to predict the future?
Karl Rove
Former deputy White House chief of staff’s book Courage and Consequence will be published on 9 March by Simon and Schuster’s Threshold Editions, a conservative imprint. Deal reported by US media at $2m.
Donald Rumsfeld
To be published in the autumn by Sentinel, an imprint of Penguin. No advance for the former defense secretary, share of proceeds to go to charity.
George W Bush
Autobiography, tentatively titled Decision Points, is to be published by Crown. Deal estimated at $7m.
Laura Bush
Her memoir is due in the spring from Scribner. Laura’s deal may be worth more than her husband’s. US media put it at $8m.
Dick Cheney
Scheduled for spring 2011, the former vice-president shares publisher with Rove. His deal is estimated at $2m.
What if this conversation has no currency?
What if we are reaching a tipping point? What if nobody cares anymore? What if none of this makes any sense to anyone? What if we can more accurately use the future to predict what really happened in the past?
My New Years resolution is to be authentic.
Obviously this is easier said than done if it needs to be a “resolution”. As I venture into video blogging, a rush of emotions overtakes me when I watch and hear myself on the computer screen. I cringe at my double chin, my tired aged look, and my tremendous ability to botch the English language.
What else am I supposed to do? That guy has something that he wants to say. That guy spent many years trying to understand a discovery that he made and he feels strongly enough about it to share it with others. That guy is talking about it and who am I to stop him.
I wish I were more eloquent, I wish the camera were more “slimming” and I wish that I were smarter like all the other Social Media celebrities that I read of. I hope all my Face book friends don’t think that I am a babbling idiot. I hope my family does not think that I am reflecting badly on them.
But Social Media is a strange beast – I have so little control over where a communication goes, how it is interpreted, and who gets to read it after I have posted it. I even lost control over my video producer and his creative staff (my two awesome kid brothers). I try to tell them to make the videos serious and dignified but they insist that “Flames” and “Heavy Metal” theme music are much better.
That coupled with an economy on the edge, a divided country, and a long list of “unknowns – and I have no control over anything except the “publish” button. Yes, I still control the publish button – and publish I shall.
One ancient girlfriend calls me a blowhard in the comments, headhunters run for cover, employers won’t hire an old “radical” like me, I tend to attract RNC stalkers, and other friends just shrug their shoulders at the inability to find the right category for me in their logically parsed world view.
But then I get people out of nowhere who just blow me away with their generosity. They call the Ingenesist Project “Pure Genius” and tell me that I articulate the ideas “splendidly”. Obviously they are talking about someone else.
Visionaries come out of the woodwork to adopt my in their own work; some provide material support and others provide me with knowledge on how to navigate the social media environment better. Others provide me with connections to smart and influential people. This is becoming a multiple-daily occurrence – that, again, I have no control over.
As Chris Brogan says in his book Trust Agents, “People have very sophisticated bullshit filters”. This is as true for my stalkers and my supporters as it is for myself. Bullshit is in the eyes of the beholder. So when I review my blog article or I watch my latest video, I need to confront the idea that I could be bullshitting myself. I control the publish button – that is the moment of truth.
Title: The Nativity
by Martin Schongauer (c. 1448 – 2 February 1491)
Oil on panel (37 × 28 cm) — c. 1480; Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen, Berlin
Martin Schongauer biography This work is linked to Luke 2:16
Joseph, Mary, the ass, the ox and the shepherds all admire the new-born child lying on a bundle of straw covered by a blanket.
The style of this work shows resemblance to that of the Southern Netherlandish master Rogier van der Weyden, whose work Schongauer is believed to have closely studied.
Greg Lake’s Christmas song I Believe In Father Christmas has always been one of my favorites. By the Magic of YouTube, I found this video from 1975. This was close to the time that the Vietnam War had ended.
This video really caught me by surprise in it’s reverence, then darkness, and then joy – in 3 minutes. On further research, I had no idea how controversial the song was. While some called it anti-religous, others called it a stand against materialism. Such diversity of action and reaction is the definition of an Art form. For this we celebrate.
And to think that each and every one of us has the same power to communicate our vision that rock stars still dreamed of 35 years ago. May we learn how to use it wisely.
Greg Lake stated that it sometimes brings some strange reactions. Some people have said it’s anti-religious… but in reality it’s really about objecting to the commerciality of Christmas and trying to remind people basically ‘the Christmas you get you deserve.’ It’s all about giving; it’s the joy of giving. That was the real intention of the song.
I will be introducing a number of applications of Innovation Economics in Social Media as continue writing part 2 of my book. The objective is to identify new business opportunities by disrupting the old economic paradigm with new ways to organize people around social media. In this case, a troubled industry would team up with communities that are not their direct customers:
I live in Edmonds Washington near Paine Field – home of the sprawling Boeing manufacturing site of the 747, 777, and 787 aircraft. For years, the county executives have been trying to lure major airline service into Paine Field Airport claiming the economic benefits would far outweigh the drawbacks. Paine Field is about 1 hour north of Seattle Tacoma Airport and about 3 hours South of Vancouver, BC.
Many efforts over the years to locate another airport in this gap have hit political and environmental land mines. Paine Field expansion is no different. For years, the county, state, and FAA have been funding “improvements” that look a lot like accommodations for scheduled airline service. The county executive has been courting carriers, lobbying ‘unaffected voters’ and corralling legislators to this grand economic development cause.
The citizens of neighboring communities have not stood still. They have commissioned studies of every environment and quality of life factor from home value impact to distracted learning at the local schools. They cite urban blight, social deviance, and under development at other similar expansion projects. Political careers are made and broken over support or opposition to the airport expansion.
So far, the market has not proven large enough to support a major B737 sized scheduled service. Ironically, there have been very few studies of the impact of private aviation service expansions. Little data is discussed related to the noise foot print of small jets versus large jets. Very little data is presented to the community about distributed vs. concentrated air and car traffic flows and the upscale effects of a private aviation presence.
To the community’s advantage, small private carriers can soak up and diffuse the market that would eventually support a major carrier. These battles are raging all over the country against the political mantra of Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Local communities are running out of money, lawyers, and stall tactics to fight them.
With the price of seat on a (full) private Jet about the same as a business class ticket on a major airline, local communities may want to go into the travel agency business. By using community media, website, a booking website, twitter alerts, and tourism agents to identify and match travelers to destinations combined with some proactive social media marketing, Citizen Airlines LLC can stave off an airport expansion by competing with it.
Meanwhile, unemployed citizens are available to manage an on-line Community Branded jet service (operated by a private carrier). Advertising and marketing can be transferred to the community in exchange for reduced rates and shared access to private aviation reports and data which would help them fight airline expansion.
This requires that the private aviation industry empower communities who are not necessarily their direct customers but are stakeholders none the less. Social Capitalism is the act of elevating oneself by elevating the entire community rather than opressing then for capitalist gains. By giving people a voice, the economy gets a bullhorn.
Visionaries Ho!
There are no shortage of intelligent and visionary social media celebrities. They write great books about markets, social media tools, strategies, and on-line reputation for the benefit of the millions of people stuck on any part of the slippery social media learning curve. They are infinitely generous with their knowledge and share it freely at countless conferences, blog posts, and syndicated articles.
There is, however, one thing that most of these Guru’s have in common – they consult to and are paid by large corporations. I could be considered part of this crowd for whatever my influence is worth. So the question about causation is due – will social media develop as a function of corporate interaction with it?
If so, then it is not social media – it is corporate media.
This is no surprise, nor should there be any apparent concern, after all, everyone has to make a living and it is better that the corporations pay people to create content that benefits me. The practice is conducted quite ethically too -most readily disclose where their financial support comes from and we all benefit from free information that helps us keep the playing field as level as it can be.
But at the end of the day, it’s all about eye-balls and bullhorns. In order to produce eyeballs and bullhorns, people must be sitting at a computer or, at least, staring at a handset. The longer you can keep people interacting with the brand instead of interacting with each other, the better off everyone is, right?
Social Media Consumer Advocate
A consumer advocate is someone who helps look after the best interest of the consumer for product safety and false advertising. Social media is pushing the envelope of the corporate interaction with consumers. “Advertising” no longer lends itself to the objective review of a billboard, commercial, or public statement. Social Media Marketing is increasingly sophisticated and manipulative. The vulnerable people; children and elders are no less vulnerable on social media, and may be more.
Social anomalies?
Some of the emerging research related to social media is surprising with increased instances of what can be considered social anomalies:
– Infantilism; adults doing childish things like playing silly games in ‘public’
– Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; constantly checking for updates and new photos,
– Depression and loneliness; preference of social media over real live interaction
– Narcissism; The excessive love or admiration of one’s image of their self.
Is it social because it is media or is it media because it is social?
We need to ask ourselves what is the difference between computer enabled reality and computer simulated reality. If we lose “causation” the entire body of analysis can be called into the question: is social media or is it corporate media?
It looks like everyone is buffing up their predictions for another year of astonishing growth by social media. The last several years have brought so many surprises that the next several are promising to yield a bumper crop of “I told you so” fodder from the “pithier than thou” crowd.
My prediction for 2010 is that nothing is sacred, including the onslaught 2010 predictions. Therefore, I’ll will go way out on a limb and make my 2011 predictions in 2009.
In General:
The interest coming due on our national debt will consume increasingly more of the money that institutions need to provide basic services. As these institutions weaken, they will increasingly be replaced by social media enterprise. These structurally weakened institutions will drive social media innovation more than any other factor.
Specifically:
So there it is and be assured that 2012 will not disappoint even the hardiest eschatologist!
Sorry for not repeating the “real-time is king” mantra or singing the “people will finally pay for content” tune, or reciting the “every department is the marketing department” manifesto. Something much bigger is about to happen. The evolution away from the current financial system will drive social media more than any other factor.
Most literature on the subject of Innovation cites diversity as an important component of the innovation enterprise. Unfortunately diversity rides a political narrative rather than practical applications. Polarization is the death of diversity and the political narrative that plagues our country also plagues our ability to innovate.
Process Diversity
Not only does the diversity in innovation matter, the diversity of acceptable outcomes of innovation is also important. In addition, the diversity of attempts at innovation is essential, i.e., failure must be culturally acceptable. Preconception, bias, thresholds, and ideology often spell the end of a economic outcome.
Moving Against the Grain
Unfortunately, the forces acting against diversity are deeply ingrained in each of us whether we’ll admit it or not. For example, if you are in charge of producing diverse groups, processes and outcomes. How does one extract their own personal bias? How does one determine how much diversity is needed? Removing oneself produces randomness. Including oneself produces similitude. Polarization returns.
A Diverse Quagmire
Most companies innovate with existing personnel whose behavior can only be a function of their interaction with the company for their career and retirement prospects. Utilizing external sources does not eliminate this bias and may in fact magnify it.
There may be a way out of this quandary; we must open our observation to include all possible outcomes as worthwhile. Then we must distribute the results broadly. Where diverse people observe the same event, objectivity is achieved.
A striking resemblance to social media
By observing something derived from unobservable events, we can gain a great deal of information. because Social media is experiencing extraordinary growth we can say that a great amount of innovation is occurring. It is our prerogative to capture the innovation and not to expect the innovation to capture us, our government, or our corporations.
Diversity by Proxy
At the Ingenesist Project, we define innovation as outcomes proportional to the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time. As such, all we need to do is look for high rates of change of knowledge and we know that innovation is taking place. We do not know what the innovation is, where it’s directed, or what the market for the innovation may be. However, when we employ diverse observation, these answers begin to emerge.
Social media provides an interesting backdrop to the innovation process. Social Media does not care what you look like, the clothes you wear, or the church you attend. Social media hold no monopoly of opinion on diversity –
Diverse Incentives
If we take a lesson from economics, we know that people will generally act in their own perceived best interest. Then we can apply a set of incentives that modifies the best interests of the people. These incentives may be rewards, access to more incentives, or reduction of risk. Suppose that diversity were in fact a process of self selection or self removal from an objective? That is, people would have enough information regarding the potential outcomes that they could choose to interact with the process or not. In effect, innovating as an economy.
Photo credit
As brands get social, they enter the new media performing their best interpretation of a conversation. Face it, they are still going for the kill – like a wolf in sheep’s clothing – the dance of the pitch is just getting more sophisticated. Social media is powerful followed closely by the of abuse .
The danger is that the more it resembles buddy talk, the more likely it will be mistaken for buddy talk. The sales pitch is being elevated to an art form. Now social media can be as much as a social cure as a social anomaly.
The 4 Big Lies of Marketing:
The integration lie; Ingratiation efforts are manipulative and calculating but serve as a very subtle way of obtaining increased power over another person. Appearing to be similar to the target the ingratiator appraises the target person’s attitudes, opinions, and interests and modifies his/her statements to match the perceived beliefs of the other conforming to the target’s wishes.
Major Brand: The key principles underlying [company] decisions and actions in social media are: Listening, Learning and Engaging in conversations with our customers where they are…while hiding where we are.
The foot-in the door lie: To increase the likelihood of a prospect saying yes to a moderate request, a person may ask for a smaller request first. By saying yes to the first, small request, the person may agree to the second request to maintain consistency with self perception.
Major brand: we recently launched an on-line quiz with a widget component exclusively through social media and it has been a great success just in terms of the number of people taking the quiz and then word of mouth as a result. This goes back to us showing people can engage with [company name] not yet buying the product.
The ‘Istanbul bazaar’ Lie: The initial request is very large – large enough that no one could be expected to comply with it. It is then followed by a smaller, more reasonable request. This technique relies on the norm of reciprocity. The norm of reciprocity states if a person does something for you, you should do something in return for that person.
From a famous social media marketing evangelist: Extrapolate the potential points of touch between your customers and your organization, by showing them what full engagement looks like but then asking for a smaller subscription, enables participation in some of your processes, in some way.
Even a penny will help Lie: This technique is based on the tendency for people to want to make themselves “look good.” Since everyone has a penny, one would look foolish to say no to the request. The target cannot simply give a penny without looking foolish. The target tends to give whatever is appropriate for the situation.
From a Social Media Marketing Guru: FB Friending, Twitter, and even Linkedin are brilliant in delivering mutual follow mentality to marketing – people want to feel good for having followers and will often put up with constant, yet fleeting marketing messages. Tweet meme is another way for people to feel good about thier self for a tiny investment of a single click.
Inherent in all 4 techniques is the attempt by an influencer to manipulate another by engaging in subtle subterfuge. The only way to undo the lie is with a simple truth: knowledge and understanding that the influencer is always lying.
We have posted a few articles about the Deep Web and presented an emerging technology project that promises to provide a database of databases for the next great development of Internet Search. This short post considers the significance of one aspect of Deep Web Search.
Google Search has provided a set of incentives that drives people to document their world by blogging, developing social media, and creating seemingly infinite video content. The ability to see and be seen is the essence of market economics.
While the promise of searching a huge store of databases may not sound like Saturday social night at the local drive in burger joint, it does by extension, introduce new incentives. The new technology will drive people to build databases. A new generation of entrepreneurs will collect, organize, analyze and create – not information – but data.
The first things entrepreneurs will organize are human knowledge data – starting with their own, then relating it to others. Not unlike the human genome project, the vast human knowledge reservoir will be mapped. Entrepreneurs will enter their communities (on line, neighborhood, work, school, church, social networks) and create a database for what other people know and parse the data in any number of important and useful databases.
The reason for this is simple; data are collections of human observations.This is the only thing people are willing to pay for. Markets cannot and do not get any more fundamental than that.
Anyone who follows the news, social media, or some of the tech blogs may have noticed a lot of rehashing of old data – every blog has a posts about how social media will “really catch on”. New media isn’t so new anymore. The only thing that makes money is is the disclosure or new data – followed by weeks of rehashing of the data all the way down the rankings.
All Financial instruments are characterized in terms of a quantity and a quality. Real news, real insight, and real productivity results from new and reliable data, qualified interpretation of data, and relevant analysis of data – relative to time. The value of money is directly associated with the quantity and quality of the data representing money – relative to time.
Data alone are useless. People must process data into information – the backbone of all economics. Human knowledge and productivity is the source of all information – derived from data. Therefore, the only things people are willing to pay for are, in fact, data. Monetization of social media may be the deep dive into the data. Do the math. That’s big news.
Conversational Currency Blog continues to present components of the Next Economic Paradigm as we spot the integrations. We believe that one of these features is the Deep Web, estimated to be 500 times bigger than the surface web or “Google-verse”.
One way to get an idea of how the deep web is hidden from view is to perform any simple Google search except add the term “database”. You immediately notice that an entirely different set of results appear – much of it is extremely interesting and useful. If you do this several times over several terms you will soon ask yourself:
“Where can I find a database of databases?”
Now take your original search term and add “database of databases” to it and again an entirely new search result appears. The results become highly localized and less organized. The results show FAR LESS ADVERTISING and even a few more subscription based data enterprises. But more than anything, the results give you an idea of how large the Deep Dark Web may be.
Now return to the surface web and visit your favorite blog. Where exactly are bloggers getting their insights? Follow the trail of references back to the sources (pass through Wikipedia and Forrester) and you will eventually wind up back at the Deep web.
Revenge of the Librarians
Now here comes Internous. A technology start up by library Scientists who shines the light on the Deep Dark Web with a search engine concept that combines both algorithmic search with human classification. By introducing a new standard called The Internet Search Environment Number, Internous will soon organize the database of databases.
The Next Economic Paradigm
Meanwhile, The Ingenesist Project has specified a parallel financial system with a currency similar to the dollar except backed by innovation instead of debt (both are a proxy for future productivity). In the specifications they call for a knowledge inventory system for what people in a community know (“what’s between their ears?”) as an requirement for a proxy for future productivity in a new financial system. While nobody can predict exactly how this may eventually arise, we most certainly will watch new technologies such as the ISEN very carefully.
Special thanks to Matt Theobald. Here is the Internous video – well worth the time!!
In 2001, Michael K Bergman, an American academic and entrepreneur and one of the foremost authorities about the Internet, published a paper estimating the “Deep Web” to be 400-550 times larger than the known Googleverse. What does this mean for everything we claim to know about the web, social media, and social influence marketing?
Andy Becket wrote an excellent investigative piece called The dark side of the internet that I highly recommend reading. Among many great points, Andy describes the deep web:
“The darkweb”; “the deep web”; beneath “the surface web” – the metaphors alone make the internet feel suddenly more unfathomable and mysterious. Other terms circulate among those in the know: “darknet”, “invisible web”, “dark address space”, “murky address space”, “dirty address space”. Not all these phrases mean the same thing. While a “darknet” is an online network such as Freenet that is concealed from non-users, with all the potential for transgressive behaviour that implies, much of “the deep web”, spooky as it sounds, consists of unremarkable consumer and research data that is beyond the reach of search engines. “Dark address space” often refers to internet addresses that, for purely technical reasons, have simply stopped working.
The implications of the Dark Web are subtle. Like “Dark Matter” in space, the dark web may behave as a multiplier to account for that which cannot be explained except by some invisible, albeit, constant force. We can assume consistence because the common thread that transcends the entire Internet is still conversation. The ability to have a conversation as well as the ability to reject a conversation is part of the Dark Web and still a conversation nonetheless. The opposite of publicity is anonymity – if the universe seeks balance so too can we expect the web to equalize around the average anonymity of conversation.
Entrepreneurial factors also appear rational when applied to the Dark Web, specifically true ownership. Ownership includes the right to restrict access from others. In the Googleverse of search rankings and old economics, watered down and largely unenforceable copyright laws create a wasteful game of Cease and Desist among content providers – not exactly a safe place to converse. The inability to establish ownership and boundaries of user generated content is a primary constraint on monetization.
Meanwhile, the Dark Web utilizes a knowledge inventory where trusted people of known affinity are given free access to share freely – and anonymously. Ironically, anonymity improves the quality of a conversation by eliminating the irrelevant data that often constrains conversation. It is worthwhile to consider anonymity as a possibles monetization factor – pay to hide?
Not all anonymity is corrupt and perverse. People spend a great deal of time and effort developing a database that represents a knowledge inventory and they don’t want someone to just copy it. Trade secrets are the great competitive financial instrument of capitalism and depend on secrecy. For better or for worse, political activity in non-free countries such as China, Iran, and Afghanistan also rely on anonymity. The more time people spend on the web, the more of their personal life that would want to keep to themselves – the ability to avoid Google bots is a tangible conversation.
The phenomenon to consider is that people with mutual anonymity are able to share more freely. Ironically, anonymity improves the quality of a conversation by eliminating the irrelevant data that often constrains conversation. Conversely, efforts to constrain anonymity destroys freedom of the web. Tell that to your web analytics team.
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