The Ingenesist Project

The Next Economic Paradigm

Executing the News

There are lots of questions about what constitutes news. Powerful editors decide what people read and what they don’t.  Journalists decide what is worthy of investigation and what is not.  Advertisers, special interests, lawyers and lobbyists defend the boundaries of inquiry against themselves or their industry.  All this plays out in a delicate dance of “crowd sourced censorship”  Whatever survives this gauntlet of execution becomes THE NEWS.

So, I took a snapshot of today’s news and ran it through the “History Test”:

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Making A Mess on Madison Ave

Wall Street talks about a Basket of Goods. The UN talks about a basket of Currencies.  What would Madison Avenue say when Main Street coverts your baskets of goods with their basket of social currencies?

Here is a simple business plan that will screw everything up.

Suppose that a pool of advertisers in a single industry (yup, competitors) all throw 10% of their advertising budget into a basket.  Now, suppose that money is distributed among a basket of the top 10% most active social media mavens (bloggers) based on their rankings related to the affinity segment.

For example, all teen fashion designers and outlets would toss 10% of their ad budget into a basket.  The money would be distributed to the top 10% of teen fashion bloggers for doing exactly what they are going to do anyway – communicate their lifestyle experiences in their galaxy of communities.

What does this achieve?

1. If your product sucks, you’ll know why.

2. If your competitor rocks, you’ll know why.

3. Your brand is disseminated more efficiently than advertising

4. You are supporting the community that serves you.

5. People who are good at community organizing can earn a living doing it – that’s good for communities and your brand image.

6. Beats the Payola Laws because the payer can only pull their money from the basket – not any single payee.  Pulling out would not send a good message oh, no, no, no

7. Bogus Bloggers can’t beat the rankings

8. a 300 Billion dollar per year advertising industry with a 95% failure rate can be bypassed by GOOD products – profit center anyone?

9. Designers create products in response to Social Priorities not Wall Street priorities.

10. You’ll create a Millions of young, proactive, innovative entrepreneurs too busy to watch traditional media anyway.

Oh sure, you’ll hear a desperate whine from Madison Avenue – That’s all free advertising – as a bulldozer moves the wrong way down a ONE WAY street.

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The Weakest Link; Advertising

As an Engineer, my respect for the Advertising/Marketing/PR, as an industry, is diminishing daily.  I see what is gorged behind the curtain and I see what is reguritated in front to the curtain.  The degree of hypocrisy defies social responsibility.

While many Marketing and PR professionals have a deep commitment to social values and the empowerment of people and their communities, many also see society as a big fat consumption machines whose collective minds can be mapped and channeled into “basic-needs” reactions designed to ultimately meet Wall Street priorities over social priorities.

Meet your maker

It is also not surprising that the advertising industry is also on the front line of social media where savvy gamers call themselves strategists, gurus, and experts over the very game that they cannot control.  They are quick to define “Social Media Innovation” as new ways to penetrate the hearts, minds, and eyeballs of people and their paychecks.

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When Capitalists Are Really the Socialists

Yikes…

Unemployment tops 10%.  Add in the under-employed, part timers, young adults trying to enter the job market, the ones who have given up or otherwise marginalized, and we’re well into the 15-20% range.

Mediated Reality:

When will people come to the realization that a new financial system is needed to represent the new social order?  When will people realize that they have in their possession the most important tool ever devised by humanity for the benefit of humanity?  When will they shut off the TV and reject the barrage of mediated reality that blinds them with propaganda at every turn?

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Community Currency; Ithaca Hours

Editor’s note: I found this copyrighted piece from all the way back in 1995.  I find such history enlightening.  As a researcher it allows me to eliminate certain variables such as Social Media, 9/11, TARP, GWB, BHO, Global Warming, and a host of other firebrand influences on public opinion and action.  That said, the clarity is remarkable. Take strong note of the intention of fulfilling social priorities.  Today, as our corporations and government (federal, state, and local) continue to cut social programs in order to service interest on debt, the void on social programs will induce an inevitable condition; Community Conversational Currency.

by Paul Glover

Originally published in IN CONTEXT #41, Summer 1995, Page 30
Copyright (c)1995, 1997 by Context Institute

Many communities are giving up waiting on large corporations or government to invest or provide jobs, and are instead building on their own strengths and resources.

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Community Currency Systems

Community Currency Systems are not new, in fact, they preceded the current financial system by, say, 50,000 years. The focus of this blog resource is to investigate all currencies and reflect them upon the image of a vast new technological breakthrough called social media.

Our hope is to discover, specify, and influence the formation a new financial system that allows communities to trade among each other for basic goods and services before, during, and after the “reboot” of our current economic system.  We are optimistic that the current economic system will ebb in favor of a next economic paradigm that reflects social priorities as a means of meeting Wall Street Priorities. We’ll be posting several articles on the subject in the coming days.

Here are some of the earlier resources to get you started on local currency and other aspects of community economics.  I like the early systems because their rationale was independent of more recent influencers such as 9/11, TARP, GWB, etc.

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Building The Social Economy

The following summary from Hannah Del Porto does a great job in identifying the State of the Art in Building The Social Economy.  Such “Thought Infrastructure” is essential to what will evolve into the next economic paradigm.  For years, we have specified an Innovation Economy Built on Social Media platform.  The thesis is published Here.

The key, we believe, is for the Social Financial System to emulate the critical components of the Monetary Financial Systems that support capitalization. Hence, “Social Capitalism” will emerge as a replacement for both Socialism and Capitalism.  We are deeply excited in observing this integration of knowledge assets

Thanks Hannah!!!

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Social Currency; History Matters

History often provides clarity in the present. I was searching the term “Social Currency” and I found these two posts on a forum from all the way back in 2001.  The authors are quite explicit in their expectations of social currency in their present and deep into the future.

A framework for the future:

I find such framework to be useful in grounding my own opinions, expectations, and aspirations in the social media space.  The authors here are quite intimate in their views and we would all be remiss in not searching the hidden layers of our consciousness on the subject.  Enjoy.

(I left all the links in hoping that this would suffice for credits back to the source  http://everything2.com/title/social%2520currency)

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A Local Currency Primer-Comfort Dollars

Douglas Rushkoff has an interesting post, indirectly on how local currency can spur social capital.  As more corporate and governmental institutions fail to meet the needs of society, people will need a currency that they can trade among each other. If the dollar fails, the need will be dire.

The difficulties that will ultimately limit such enterprise is the inability to capitalize and securitize a social currency.  Conversational Currency solves this problem by demonstrating how social media, if organized correctly, can simulate many of the functions of corporations and government.  As such, people will ultimately trade the currency they trust most.

I like Douglas Rushkoff’s work.  I suppose the ultimate test of concept would be if he finds this post and contacts us to integrate The Ingenesist Project and Conversational Currency into his thought leadership.  Thanks Douglas!!

A Local Currency Primer-Comfort Dollars

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Social Currency 101

Here is a very great video by Scott Stratten explaining social currency.

It is short, it is basic, and it states what should be obvious to everyone. It also states what many of us should repeat to ourselves every single day. It is one of those explanations that has a new and different meaning every time you watch it – if you let it.

I swiped this video because I’ll will be posting a series of articles and interpretations on the subject of social currency and it’s a great place to start. The reasons for organizing social currency are becoming more obvious everyday – as institutional and corporate currencies leave gaps in our communities, people will need to fill these voids with social currencies. Our job as Social Media Practitioners (because nobody else is going to do it) is to develop, construct, and deploy social institutions that support a real time, close proximity markets to exist trading social currency (ref: The Ingenesist Project).

Scott Stratten is the President of Un-Marketing and spends way too much time on Twitter.

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Ingenesist Accepted by Trakkrz

The Ingenesist Blog has been accepted by Trakkrz, a new and rapidly growing aggregation site of vetted content. Trakkrz’s vetting processes is rigorous and highly selective. For this reason we are proud to be a member of the Trakkrz community.

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Can Twitter Fuel a Run On Banks?

The Ingenesist Project is retained by corporate clients because we look at the world through a different set of filters. We are looking for possible disruptions on the horizon as far in advance as possible so that our clients can be aware of potential perils and modify their business plans accordingly.

One of our signature assertions is that Money is merely a social agreement – not a federal mandate of a democratic government. People will trade whatever currency they agree to trade. Increasingly, people, empowered by social media can impact the financial system far more that a bunch of Quants peddling CDOs.

People simply do not know how powerful they are.

Suppose someone puts together a Twitter/Facebook campaign for everyone the withdraw their money from a single financial institution who just handed out big bonuses? At best, those bonuses will have to be recalled to keep the doors open. At worst, people will find an alternate currency to store the “value” that is destroyed by a bank run. Virtual Currency? Admittedly, it’s far-out, but we need to keep our eyes on these trends because once started, they move very very fast. That’s why they call it a “Run”

Is this scenario really possible? Read on…..

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Banks In The Future

 

Bankers don’t care about money, they care about the rate of change of money. At The Ingenesist Project we are not entirely interested in change – we are entirely interested in the rate at which things change. As you can imagine, we get all giddy when we see the rate at which the rate of things change…that’s all that banking is and all that banking ever will be.

Each of the Facebook Applications posted below are to Facebook what The NYSE is to Commercial Banking. Note that Facebook is growing at an astonishing rate. Now, these applications – on top of Facebook – will increase the rate of change of the rate of change in how people communicate, transact, organize, and deliver conversation.

You are hearing it here; these innovations are the most significant disruption that Wall Street can’t possibly imagine. Money is a social agreement and these are the banks of the future. Although many come from the gaming industry, many games are modeled after the real world, therefore, transition back to the real world is not as difficult as one may think. If people are willing to trade it, it becomes money. This is serious business. While many of these new innovations are on the right track – not all of them will survive.

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Banks In The Present

I see a lot of articles asking the question why people are not absolutely livid about what is happening to them. The degree at which their wealth is being transferred away from them and the debt being shod on their grandchildren is astonishing. I saw LA burn for a whole lot less after the Rodney King affair and this crisis does not even foment a decent March on Washington like the good old Reagan days.

It would clearly be in the best interest of stock market capitalists to keep the majority of people poor, weak, and disorganized. Below a certain economic threshold, people simply fail to organize – they are too busy trying to feed their families by working harder. This is where they want to keep us…but will it work?

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Banking on the Past

I am writing a short series on the Banks of the past, present and future. Prediction what future of banking was the easiest piece. Identifying the current transition phase was a little tougher so I borrowed from another blogger’s post. Describing banking of the past was most difficult. Here is an example of what I’m talking about:

“The bifurcation of the credit loss piece is a key component of the revised rule,” says Larsen, “but the part that often gets missed when pundits talk [about the rule] on TV is that the trigger that starts the whole [measurement and recording exercise] is the realization that a loan is not going to be repaid. The rule addresses an impaired security, you still have to identify the fair value of that security, and all of the losses are disclosed on the balance sheet.”

Holy shit, did you understand any of that? Guess what – nobody else did either and bankers are wondering why nobody wants their “currency”. Currency is a conversation, a social agreement, a community organizer – if nobody know what it is, people are going to start trading something else.

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Counting Eyeballs

The Advertising Industry has some serious problems. Ad agencies are having a difficult time understanding the modern advertising space with the limited, if not worthless, paradigm carried over from the days of radio; the CPM.

CPM stands for Cost Per Mille

CPM means: how much does it cost to penetrate 1000 heads?… or 2000 eyeballs, I suppose. They count the penetrated heads, like an act of war – the body count, the bullet shells, the napalm canisters…and that is the basis of their decisions. As Dr. Phil would say “How’s that workin’ for ya?”

The CPM is however, a great way to kill off creativity, highlighting the flashy crap while burying the good stuff. Maybe it works well in the counter insurgency of Afghanistan, but it does not work in social media space. What happens after the mommy blogger gets a look at that Spiderman drinking cup that melts in the dishwasher?  Imagine the blog post about that cool new GM retro rod that smells like formaldehyde to the undertaker enduring their midlife crisis.

What’s the CPM for the blogger?: zero.  Can advertisers compete?: no.  Should they stop?: yes.

People are not stupid and they do not work for free. Yet, the entire web advertising model tries to get them to walk through a rat maze of links and pages just to hit more banner ads (impressions).  Advertisers keep doing it, ad after ad, page after page, year after year.  They wonder why the rat don’t hunt.  The most important thing to a rat is food, family, and friends.  There must be a tangible economic incentive for people to do what you want them to do.  Even after that, not all impressions are equal, or favorable, or lead to sales – but every one is valuable to your product and your brand if you know who I am.

Foresight is 20/20

It is always very expensive to change people’s behavior and the best management policy is to accommodate what people are going to do anyway.  If  I want to drive a retro rod, help me do enjoy my friends with it – don’t pull the emergency brake.  If I want to spend time with my family, don’t interrupt me.  If I want to walk in the park, don’t whack me on the head with a billboard.  That’s not a great way to start a conversation.

Open letter to Pitchmeisters

Dear CPM mongers, I have learned to ignore you. Like the paint blots on a Monet, I have learned to see the image despite your distortions.  Your “fear” pitch is comical to me.  The buy-me-love pitch is goofy.  The lifestyle-threat angle sounds as ridiculous as an old like Archie Bunker re-run.  The most fun I can have is using my ability to walk away leaving you talking to yourself like a deranged chimpanzee at the zoo.

Measure what I measure

Help me do what I’m going to do anyway even if I still ignore you – all data is data.  If you want to understand me, measure what I measure; health, happiness, productivity, laughter, family, friends, hope, vision, safety, music art, quality of life.  Help me make friends, empower my community, and care for my family. Don’t try to take these away from me – you will lose.

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You’ll Know It When You See It

I’ve been publishing my research freely all over the net, in the creative commons, and several blogs.  I am passionate about this work and I want to tell everyone about it.  It’s my playground.

Not unlike a playground

Then one day another kid comes over and says, “Hey, that’s an interesting game you are playing, what are the rules”?

So I tell him; “Well, it’s part economics, part innovation, and part social media. Now sprinkle in some differential calculus with finance theory and garnish with a modern analogy or two”.

The other kid responds, “Wow, I know someone you should talk to…..”

Boomerang effect

Unrelated, this morning I received a phone call from a major brand that wants to “innovate” everywhere in their business but are not quite sure where to start.    They came across one of my blogs and essentially said “Hey, that’s an interesting game you are playing, what are the rules and where can I find a short course on innovation that meets my schedule?”

I offered my opinion: Innovation is defined essentially as “you know it when you see it”.  As such, Innovation courses can only teach you to “know it when you see it”.  By the way, the game I’m playing is part economics, part innovation, and part social media. Now sprinkle in some differential calculus with finance theory and garnish with a modern analogy or two”.

You know it when you see it

Then we had an idea. I can find a University in Seattle that will sponsor a seminar and we’ll invite a group of known Seattle innovators and some corporate folks and we’ll all brainstorm for a few days.  What better short course in innovation is there?

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The Invisible People

There is no knowledge inventory.  There is no knowledge inventory.  There is no knowledge inventory.

This is a stunning omission for a society that intends – no, a society whose future is irrevocably dependent on it’s ability to innovate it’s way out of inevitable monetary collapse.

America does not know what Americans knows.  Entrepreneurs do not know what knowledge is available to them.  Markets do not know the supply and demand of knowledge assets.  The self-correcting magic of market capitalism is utterly unavailable if people and their knowledge assets are invisible.

  • There is a story out of the past mayor (someone who performed their civic duty to run for elected office) of Bennett Colorado who is one eviction letter away from living in a Ford Explorer with her 4 dogs.
  • Thousands of older Engineers are unemployed when Congress is crying for more Engineers.  This is the reason why there are none – the career has been reduced to a lousy bet.
  • Experience is knowledge, yet older workers also have a tougher time finding new jobs once they become unemployed. The average duration of unemployment for those age 55 and older is almost 30 weeks.
  • About 38 percent of the older workers and 26 percent of the younger workers had been out of work for 27 or more weeks in June.

Our economy needs to be able to efficiently match knowledge surplus with knowledge deficit in order to produce things and educate each other.  Diverse knowledge assets need to be combined in new and strategic ways.  Knowledge assets need to be matched by proximity as well as innovation potential.  Investors need to know the probability that a collection of knowledge assets can execute a business objective in order to decrease innovation risk.

Nothing can be accomplished without a knowledge inventory.  We have empowered corporations to be the stewards of the US knowledge inventory and the associated innovation economy. Information, knowledge, and innovation act as a system.  Without one of the pieces, you cannot have the other two.  If we outsource the knowledge economy, we lose the innovation economy.

The great promise of Social Media is that the knowledge inventory becomes a public reference. People need to know what other people know so that they can build things.

Once you are outsourced – you become invisible.  Who will be the next invisible person in your neighborhood?

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Taxonomy for Knowledge Inventory

The library district in Adams County Colorado became the first in the nation to ditch The Dewey Decimal System in favor of something called “WordThink” or commonly known as “The Bookstore Classification System”.
Given that a great deal of literacy is reflected in our conversations, it is not difficult to accept that much of what we say can be traced back to some book or classified publication.  True, knowledge comes from experience, but knowledge is derived from information and information is classified by the Dewey system, WordThink, The Universal Decimal Classification System or any number of proprietary taxonomies.

The difference is that The Bookstore Classification system is attached to a huge multi-billion dollar marketing and production infrastructure.  Think Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, Borders, etc.  Some would call it an egregious example of corporatism in the public library system.  Others would call it an astonishing opportunity for corporate subsidization of knowledge asset development.  I tend toward the latter.

Knowledge needs to be formatted to behave like a financial instrument. If this can be accomplished then entrepreneurs will innovate in the trade of knowledge assets.  If you want to build an airplane, you need an inventory of parts.  If you went to build a social media as a social infrastructure, then you will need an knowledge asset inventory. If you want to promote innovation, then you want to promote social media.  First and foremost, knowledge assets must look like a buck, walk like a buck and quack like a buck – then they will trade like a buck.

Conversational Currency, The Relationship Economy, and The Ingenesist Project have published on this matter.  But for now, let me leave you with the original article from the Denver Post (below).

Some say that WordThink dumbs it all down, others say it’s easier to browse – see article below for additional analysis.  However, as you read the article suppose you are an entrepreneur not shopping for a book on SEO, but rather, shopping your neighborhood for a person that knows SEO.  Then ask; what’ll it be; Dewey or WordThink?

 

Adams County libraries shelving Dewey Decimal

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The Greatest Threat To Social Media

I taught an undergraduate class in International Business this weekend in Mexicali, Mexico as part of an international assignment as Associate Faculty for City University of Seattle.  I first taught in Mexico 15 years ago as visiting faculty during the NAFTA era where I spent 3 years conducting research which eventually lead to  The Ingenesist Project.

My first year in Mexico back in 1994, I thought to myself, “Wow, I can change everything”.  The next year, I thought to myself, “Wow, I can’t change anything”.  The third year, I thought to myself, “Wow, why would I want to change anything, Mexico is doing just fine the way it is”.

At that time, I was referring to the cohesiveness of community, family values, complex social structure, community interdependence, generosity, empathy and personal warmth – despite their “Cold War” classification as a “Third World” country – that the Mexican people held forward to each other as well as visitors.

I also remember the huge city-wide parties (imagine a million person party) after the country won a big soccer match, or after a popular political candidate won and election, or during New Years, Christmas, and Easter, etc.  Wow – what a magnificent place.

Fast forward to this past weekend; I was explaining the implications of the financial crisis relative to the changes that have taken place since NAFTA.  Today, thousands of Global Corporations now surround the city like an advancing army, proud people are now working for wages, Euro/America centric textbooks chart their course into modernization, and pending currency shifts loom unpredictable in their speed and scope – the effects will likely not be in the best interest of the people who actually produce things.  So, I deviated from the course material – If I didn’t do it, nobody else would.  I included material on how to use Social Media.

Mexico still has it, but they are losing it – often in spectacular ways.  It seems so natural that Social Media can have a tremendous impact in countries where the fabric of community is still essentially intact.  Unfortunately, when people are held below a certain economic threshold, they simply do not have the time or the energy to organize as a community to impact social change.  This is the greatest threat to the great promise of social media in Mexico … and the United States.

The following video, A nine-minute history of corporatism, articulates the conflict that I felt when teaching the courses on International Business in Mexico.   Please watch – it is that important.

Life Inc. The Movie from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

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A Learning Revolution

Today I received an invitation to join a poll, but it was not the Gallup organization.  Today, I was given some currency to trade – it was not dollars.  Today 1200 people read my ideas – but not through traditional media.  Today, I did not work for a corporation – but I did work and I did earn convertible currency. I voted 10-15 times today, but not for politicians.

Is this the way things will become?  Ask any 25 year old what their aspirations are and, by definition, that is the way things will become.

A Learning Revolution

Today, the Wall Street Journal is reporting a strange new paradigm of populist angst.  In the past, public sentiment would swing back and forth between anger against the corporations (liberals) and anger against government (conservatives).  Today, however, things are different. People no longer view these populist swings as opposing forces.  Rather, people see government and business as one big swindle that takes all of the assets of the people and delivering them directly to the hands of the rich and powerful.

“They’re [people] mad at institutions — all institutions,” said Karin Johanson, a Democratic strategist. “Nobody can underestimate the angst, or even fear, of the American voter right now…The institutions they were relying on which were assuring them of their security were not there.”

So, dear reader, here we sit at our computer screens fully rational and aware that there is nothing we can do to impact change at this macro level.  Sure, we can join fringe groups on Facebook, or we could write a letter to our so-called Representatives.  Or… WE CAN REVOLT!!! Except, who are we going to revolt against?  Government? , Corporations?, Each other?  It’s like attacking a cloud…no middle, no defined edges, and no distinguishing features, except lightening.

For example: (WSJ) The double-edged anger is creating difficulty for both parties. Voters are demanding solutions to problems in health care, but remain wary of both government agencies and private firms that could play a role in a solution. People are upset about deregulation and furious at re-regulation. They want government action, but not if it swells the deficit.

“The greatest movement within the tea party is ‘None of the above,’” said Jim Bancroft, a founder of the tea-party group in Hartford, Conn. Officials in both political parties “need to be totally removed — every single one of them,” he said.

It would really not have mattered if John McCain or Barack Obama were president.  The difference would have us entering the same vortex with either a scowl or a smile.    The job of the President in this day and age is not unlike US Airways Captain “Sully” Sullenberger – land the crippled jet on the icy river by gliding as slow as possible, as low as possible, as level as possible, for as long as possible and hope that the hull does not sink.

Whatever is left will become the new economic paradigm: the fabric of society must remain intact, capitalism must be preserved, and social priorities must be enabled. It will be neither socialism not capitalism – both have failed.  We need to learn Social Capitalism where social media is the dominant institution that issues a productivity based currency.   So sit back, keep your eyes, ears, and minds open. Learn from each other. Let the pilot do his job – love him or hate him, he’s got the rudder.

Photo credit:  Bill Moseley

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Toyota Raises the Bar, Again

Adapted from NY Times article here

Last week Akio Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor, apologized for his company’s poor financial performance and possible culpability in the death of an American family for faulty product.To this, I ask – what is the value of this conversation in the age of Social Media and where is the associated innovation?

I worked extensively in Japan and apologies from CEOs are not uncommon.  When All Nippon Airlines and Japan Airlines had a few runway incursions – both CEOs (competitive enemies) appeared together on national TV nearing tears and ending with a loooooooong bow of remorse.  US media does not often get a chance to see this side of Japanese culture because of it’s intimacy, sensitivity, and frankly, it’s a little bit strange since scandal and corruption in Japan can be truly world class.

A few interesting quotes from Mr. Toyoda:

  • Toyota was shamefully unprepared for the global economic crisis and now is a step away from “capitulation to irrelevance or death,” said Mr. Toyoda, the grandson of the car maker’s founder. The company, he added, is “grasping for salvation.”
  • Toyoda declared the automaker had gotten too arrogant on “the hubris born of success” and the “undisciplined pursuit of more.”
  • “I want Toyota to return to profit, so we can start paying taxes and go back to contributing to society,” he said.
  • And in a peculiar show of deference, even the reporters gathered were issued an apology.
  • “I’m sorry I am standing on a podium, standing above you,” Mr. Toyoda told the seated audience. “But my seniors always taught me that I must stand when addressing those who are above me.”
  • ….and they go on and on….

And on the other side of the pond…

I am still waiting for a single US Banker, Insurance company CEO, or Corporate executive to apologize for mismanagement and failing to sell worthy products.  Not one – Sure, they will kowtow to the Congress or the courts, but not the people – all they need to do is look straight at the camera. Seat belts were not even installed in US automobiles for the first 60 years because they did not want to give the “impression” that automobiles were unsafe.

The devaluation of conversation?

“Sometimes, this apology business is a way to avoid taking real action or responsibility,” said Robert Dujarric, director of the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University’s Japan campus.

“When you hear these long apologies,” Mr. Dujarric said, “It makes you want to say: ‘Don’t be sorry, just do something about it.”’

Now, enter Social Media:

Toyoda again has set a new standard.  This story is covered throughout social media space – most other big Japanese apologies had not.  The difference between the US automaker and the Japanese is stark.    Toyota intends to be the standard by which all other competitors are compared.  When most are trying to lower the bar, Toyota raises it.

That’s the value of conversational currency.

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Nobel Prize Goes to Social Media

Well, not explicitly, but given the firestorm over the Nobel Peace Prize, the Economics Prize ought not go unnoticed.   The Irony is that that just because we don’t know how to model some economic phenomena does not mean that the impact should be ignored.  Whether you agree with the Peace Prize decision or not, clearly the impact of Social Media cannot be ignored.

Many Students of Social Media have long argued that the shortcomings of government and corporatism are more and more often becoming filled by innovation in Social Media.  Likewise, the notable successes of Democratic Government and Corporatism should be preserved.  Thereby, we form the basis of Social Capitalism.

Two American economists, Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson, who study economic governance and the way decisions are made outside the markets, were awarded Monday with the Nobel Prize in economics.

Ms. Ostrom, who teaches at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., is the first woman to win the prize.  The judges cited Ms. Ostrom’s “analysis of economic governance, especially the commons,” the way in which natural resources are managed as shared resources. Ms. Ostrom argues, “Over time, people often develop institutions, social networks and ways of interacting that solves the problem.” Even her critics agree that what’s important, is that Ms. Ostrom’s work points out the importance of the networks that many economists had ignored, in part, because they couldn’t come up with elegant models to describe how they worked.

On the other hand, Mr. Williamson, 77, who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley argues that some decisions are [best meant to be made within the corporate structure.  “What he found was that many economic decisions that standard theory said would be more efficiently left to the market place were actually better left within a firm.”].  In short, even competitors form tacit social networks to do what is in the best interest of markets.

The Nobel Committee Agreed, “Competitive markets work relatively well because buyers and sellers can turn to other trading partners in case of dissent,” the Nobel judges said. “But when market competition is limited, firms are better suited for conflict resolution than markets.”

The bottom line is that just because you we don’t know how to model economic phenomena does not mean that their impact can be ignored.  President Obama, whether you like him or not, has had a profound social and economic impact that is not yet clearly understood.  The objective then is to at least try and understand the impact of social media.

Given the statements of the Norwegian committee that awards the prizes, Alfred Nobel would agree that the currency, therefore, is the conversation.

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Coupon Search Engine – Are You Worthy?

 

Are you worthy ?

What if many companies dropped their advertising spend into a several different buckets of cash representing various lifestyle segments?  Now, suppose that the cash was distributed  to social media mavens corresponding to their social media reach in the lifestyle segments.  The advertisers and the amounts contributed to the buckets are fully disclosed.  The Social Media mavens are compensated by their Alexa rankings – again, fully disclosed and objective. The Social Mavens are simply paid to blog their lifestyle experiences with no contract or commitment to any brand, nor retribution for any assessment – just like always.

A new Financial Instrument

The debit card serves as a financial instrument modeled after the insurance industry that replaces traditional advertising with managed ROI risk. Of course, we are not the only ones trying to find a way to make the 300 Billion dollar per year advertising spend more efficient….

Sticky Coupons

The following Rueters article demonstrates that the coupon is not dead – nor is it paper anymore.  ASK.com will compile coupons and help people to find savings.  This is good for advertisers since more can be given away on the coupon because less is spent on production and traditional media.  This is also good for the consumer as more valuable coupons is more money in one’s pocket.

Feed the Entrepreneurs, feed the economy

Now we need to ASK – as the coupon value increases and the redemption time decreases and If the minimum wage is 8 dollars per hour – at what point can a person earn 8 dollars per hour cutting coupons?   Can a Social Maven, in fact, earn a decent living doing other people’s shopping all on coupons?  Why not?

***original article here********

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ask, the search engine owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp, unveiled a new service on Tuesday to help consumers seek out coupons for saving money when shopping online.

 

The new service, Ask Deals, helps users search the Web for deals available by aggregating the best offers to a proprietary database of more than 1 million offers from national and local merchants.

 

Ask’s management hopes by having a dedicated “deals” tab on its search engine page the feature will become a natural destination for consumers looking to save money with discounts on goods and services.

 

Ask has added features such as helping consumers share coupons and deals through email and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Users can also sign up for “Deal of the Day” emails.

 

The majority of Ask’s revenue comes through a search advertising partnership with market leader Google Inc, which brings up links of relevant advertisers in response to a user’s search query.

 

The Ask network was the fourth most-used search engine in the United States with a 3.9 percent share of all search queries in August, according to Web measurement firm comScore. Google had 64.6 percent market share, Yahoo had 19.3 percent share and Microsoft’s new Bing search engine had 9.3 percent share.

 

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke, editing by Matthew Lewis)

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1,000,000 More Become Invisible, Powerless, and Marginalized

The September Job Numbers are out and the trends are disturbing.  Millions upon millions of Americans are now wondering how they are going to safeguard the health and welfare of their families and property.  As these people lose their “money” they become increasingly invisible, powerless, and marginalized – except for one single, solitary, beacon of earthly influence.  Social Media.

Now, more than ever, we need to implement an alternate economy with an alternate currency.  I am not pitching some “anti-dollar-therefore-anti-American” platform, I am talking about what the hell will millions of unemployed people and their families do if they don’t have a functional currency they can trade for basic needs and services.

These same people have tons of practical experience, diverse knowledge, and worthy intellect – but no money?  It makes absolutely no sense that “productivity” should become so divorced from the value of a solitary currency.

We must come to the immediate conclusion that social media can be a fabric that binds the American economy.  If done correctly, Social Media can become the basis of an economy that rewards social priorities over Wall Street Priorities.  But ONLY if done correctly.

While the institutions around us falter, social media will increasingly duplicate – for all practical purposes – the functions of these institutions in our society.  As this transition takes place, we must lead social media in specific and intentional directions.  This cannot be a “traditional” market driven process – the market is what we’re trying to correct.  This cannot be a random process or else it will become reactionary and feed on itself.  Instead, Social Media needs to be organized in a manner that allows information, knowledge, and innovation – the basis of human productivity – to trade like a financial instrument.

What if I told you that it would be a lot easier than it sounds?  What if I told you that almost all of the components needed to build this new economy already existed in the social media landscape?  What if  I told you that Government, Corporations, and Wall Street will not do this for us.  What if I told you that the risk from not doing anything far outweighs the risk of trying to develop and implement an economy built on a social media platform.

Everyone must have a productive role in the next economic paradigm – employed, unemployed, communities, traditional media, even existing corporations and their advertising departments.  All of the existing infrastructure is in place – it only needs to be rearranged a little bit.  That is what The Ingenesist Project hopes to initiate.  We may not be 100% correct and the process that actually arises may be substantially different, but we need to start somewhere.

Meanwhile, here are the Jobs stats for September;

Headlines: 263,000 “jobs lost” and unemployment rate up to 9.8%.

That’s not good – there goes the “second derivative” argument. Weekly earnings are also down by $1.54, which is bad news too. But the Household Data is VASTLY worse than reported. Here are the month-over-month changes, and they’re in the realm of frightening.

Civilian Labor Force: 154,879,000 to 153,617,000 this month.

Employed: 140,074,000 down to 139,079,000 this month.

That’s a loss of 995,000 jobs, not 263,000, and the labor force contracted by 1,262,000 people!

THE INVISIBLE PEOPLE: The people “not in the labor force” rose by a staggering 1,516,000 in the last month (”unemployed” who have given up and exited the labor force).

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