The Ingenesist Project

Constellations Of Knowledge Assets:

The inspiration for this post comes from the April 2014 issue of National Geographic Magazine and the story of Cosmic Dawn; The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA).  ALMA is a constellation of dozens of separate telescopes working together to cancel cosmic noise so that a clear and focused vision of the deepest darkness of space can emerge.   The clinical term is: Astronomical Interferometer Radio Telescope.  

The analogy to the emergent world of cryptography, alternate currencies, intangible asset valuation, and predictive innovation may not be clear at first glance, even to me.  However, I suspect that the lack of clarity may lie in with insurmountable noise surrounding these new social innovations.  It is simply impossible to see a clear path toward how all the pieces are supposed to fit together.  As a result, the solution to the human condition continues to evade humanity.

Maybe we are going about things incorrectly; instead of creating more noise, we should find ways to cancel out any specific frequency of noise at any given time. Even better, we should be able to “move the sliders” around to focus on a particular signal and separate the noise that surrounds it.

As the open source community continues to develop Curiosumé, we are faced with structural challenges related to how we would induce a completely decentralized community.  For example, Curiosumé could not exist on our servers because that would be too centralized; merely duplicating the function of corporations and government.  On the other hand, Curiosumé cannot simply exist on everyones mobile device, because the noise would amplify rather than be reduced.  Further, computational responsibilities for creating matches and visualizations of the data would be impossible; much like the current state.

There needs to be a way to cancel out the noise in the past in order to see the future.  Isn’t that what astronomic telescopes do?  They look into the past to seek clarity of the future.

We are trying to deploy Curiosumé as a WordPress Plug-in of sorts. As such, any WordPress site can become an aggregator of knowledge assets relative to the context of that site and its relative position to other “antennae”.

Each site would pass or filter curiosumé objects for itself, and for others interacting with it.  The resulting combination of sites would measure into existence a vision of a variety of past position, the corresponding dynamic present, and accelerative future of a community.

Therefore; we announce Operation Cosmic Dawn to help build this community knowledge array.  We are seeking developers from all over the world to add to this open source project.  The incentive for the global developer is to become an Aggregator Galaxy in the Constellation of Knowledge Assets.  In other words, you’ll be building your own Ark. 

 Images courtesy of National Geographic Magazine and Wikipedia.  Please buy the April 14 edition and read up on this amazing telescope project

There is no shortage of articles waxing aloof about how Bitcoin is just another example of a very few people controlling a very large percentage of an impossibly scarce object.  Others argue that the carbon footprint of Bitcoin mining is so excessive that the last coin will require all the energy of the Sun to finally extract.  Finally, Bitcoin are not backed by real form of productivity, instead, they are backed by the “the full faith and credit of the issuing algorithm”…. and, we all know how that goes.

What if all three of these problems could be solved quickly, cheaply, and permanently?  Suppose then that every person was represented by his or her own colored coin?  As such, each person owns all 21 million shares.  Proof of work is, in fact, a real proof of having created something through thoughts or actions managed through smart contracts in the block chain protocol. 

You don’t need to understand the mechanics, except that your currency is backed by your true net productivity.  Simple.

But the plot thickens.  A person with 21 million shares can give those shares to another person in exchange for something valuable.  The holder of the shares now has it in their best interest that the issuer is successful in life so that holder may enjoy increased valuation as the issuer’s coin become scarcer.  Of course it would be wise to diversify one’s holdings so an investor would try to hold as many different coins representing as many different people as possible, you know, in case one of them gets hit by a bus.

Talking about busses, it would be in the best interest of society to make sure that public transportation is safe and efficient because at any given time, they carry a valuable collection of social agreements to their collective proof-of-work event – an social analogy to a block chain itself.   

Now if we were all issuing currencies to each other and it was in all of our best interest that the other is successful, then a “generalized reciprocity” of favors, exchanges, and values would emerge in society.  The value of one’s community would reflect on the value of one’s personal coinage and vice versa.  The incentive to innovate new ways to create value in a community would be staggering having an impact on everything from governance to medical care.  The highest impact humans would become wealthy as everyone invests in their coinage.  Volatility would be reduced as everyone learns to be high impact as well. 

Not unlike any talented actress or gifted athlete, a form of human agency would emerge where some people specialize in the support and representation of high impact persons.   Teachers for example, would forego tuition in exchange for a dividend in their student’s future productivity.  Mentors would “cash in” their world experience by teaching people how to be successful instead of competing to the death (literally and figuratively). The things that people would build and create will reflect things that are useful to their stockholders.   

So as we look at the Block Chain Protocol for social utility far beyond Bitcoin, consider that the current flaws may be the future cures in disguise for some of our own deepest societal failures.   Do not overlook the implications of an economy where the intangibles become tangible.  This fact alone will measure into existence trillions of “units” of invisible value that are nowhere to be found in current accounting balance sheets.   That may be the fastest and most practical way to pay off the debt we owe to ourselves and our planet.

One of the more interesting definitions and implications of BitCoin comes from Stephan Molyneux in this video.  His key points include:

1. Definition of BitCoin: a protocol for the synchronization of information.

2. The BitCoin block chain ledger can contain ANY information such as contracts, user agreements, DNA sequence, Patents, time stamps, contingency claims, even other crypto-currencies, etc, etc, … via scripts.

3. The greatest innovations will be in the development of these scripts as society re-organizes itself displacing banks, lawyers, conflict, and poverty to more productive enterprise.

With the reinvention of money comes the reinvention of productivity.  Each and every person now has the ability to become their own “corporation” by creating scripts that embed knowledge in the form of a tangible asset.   

The Ingenesist Project has been working in this area for a long time and we will unveil Curiosumé at the Future of Money and Technology Summit in San Francisco on December 9, 2013. The following images explain the Curiosumé protocol.

Curiosumé is an open source development project designed to replace the résumé as a means for describing one’s interests, skills, and abilities

Private / Anonymous / Cryptographic / Mobile / Personal API

 Demo Video and Specifications,

Video Introduction; Collaboration Nation

Original Specifications for Curiosumé (was called Zertify)

Discussion:

Curiosumé is an analog to digital converter for knowledge asset objects. By moving away from a semantic résumé and moving toward a personal digital API, the trade and exchange of knowledge assets may be machine enabled for matches, proximity, relevance, weight, and probabilities of achieving various outcomes.  As such, economics of “intangibles” will become more efficient.

By making knowledge assets visible in an economic system, social entrepreneurs may readily trade and exchange intangible assets much as they do with tangible assets.   Curiosumé will facilitate trade of intangibles through a unique distributed structure of objects and assigned attributes.  Results can then be anonymized and processed in a machine enabled and mobile environment.

Key Features

There are several very specific features that must be integrated in the application in order for Curiosumé to perform its relatively small but important task.  These include:

1. Transportability and “Ownership” of the personal API

2. Anonymity until point of transaction

3. Deploying multiple personas

4. Combining multiple personae

5. Measuring proxies for economic output, matching, assessing, scenario testing, etc.

Use Cases:

The use cases for Curiosumé will be a numerous as the number of entrepreneurs who can articulate the protocol in a market.  Since Curiosumé eliminates “Competition” from the onset,  there is little or no economic incentive to lie, deceive, or cheat.  This allows the market an opportunity to defer vetting mechanisms to downstream applications that can compare (for example) a submitted persona against a control personal as a cryptographic key to unlock a transaction or block chain, etc.  In essence, making cheating too expensive to sustain.

• Individuals may overlay their own persona on any dataset to visualize and discover adjacencies, paths, and connections.
• Individuals may interact with the web using a Personal API
• Protegé and Mentors may find each other in close proximity in community or within an organization.
• People with special skills can find worthy and productive collaborations in communities or within the organization.
• Trade in knowledge assets is facilitated through “anonymous until point of transaction” protocol.  People will provide better data knowing that they have complete control over their personal identities.
• Build Social Currency; multiple personas may combine Curiosumés to establish the knowledge inventory for a team or to discover the probability that a group of friends may produce any mutual affinity efficiently together.
• Any product or service may be described in Curiosumé format and compared to a community listing to discover customers, partners, and employees.
• Curiosume data is pre-normalized allowing any user to make predictive assessments about any collection of personas relative to a project, product, event, itinerary,  or interaction with any physical asset.
• Cryptographic; a personal API may be used as a private key in unlocking smart contracts on the block chain protocol
•  Toll Booth on Big Data; marketers, employers, or data aggregators would pay individuals for access to their persona.
• Instead of advertising to a demographic, marketers may identify specific knowledge assets and may offset prices based on the social values or proclivities of the persona.
• Economic development agencies can take a knowledge asset survey of a region to identify what institutions or industries they have a strategic advantage.  Or, they may retrain or import specific knowledge assets in order to grow into new industries – with great precision.
• Philanthropic  institutions can assess need and impact prior to committing to directed giving by assembling strategic knowledge assets around a specific philanthropic goal.
• Corporations may assess their ability to enter a develop a new products or enter a new market based on a Curiosumé survey
• Competitors may assess the ability, and cost to defend against their competition disrupting a new product initiative.
• Corporations can better tailor their products to what customers actually want to buy rather than trying to “market” what the company already knows how to produce.
• Corporations can make hiring vs training decisions with better clarity based on a Curiosumé survey.
• The college “degree” system may evolve in favor of boutique personas designed for innovation in an industry.
• The financial industry (from the NYSE, Banks to VC) can determine the probability that a company may be able to execute a business plan given their Curiosumé survey
• The Insurance industry can mitigate risk exposures by assuring that the right collection of knowledge assets are deployed to, say, a construction project.

The Resumé Must Die

What if there were an accounting system that was built on collaboration rather than competition?  What if “semantics” could be largely eliminated by public agreement, so that we all knew what everyone else knew?  How would this change what, when, where, how, and why we produce and consume things?  

With the help of many amazing, intelligent, passionate, and committed people from across the world, I am profoundly honored to bring this work forward to the Ingenesist Blog.  Please watch these two short videos about Curiosume.org; the Curiosity Resumé

Consider how much it costs just to “sustain” the great basketball game of Market Capitalism where the gross domestic product is precisely 99 losers for every winner, and growing.

First, we’ll need to include the cost of the referees; judges, lawyers, and a vast legal system that keeps the game fair.  Second;  we need to account for the dedicated civil servants who keep the peace in the stadium and a vigilant military to stem any outside disruption of the game.  Afterwards, we need to manage the humanitarian elements of feeding, educating, and housing the retired and vanquished players.

Again, I am not passing judgement – at the end of the day, I’m just a lowly engineer riffing on relatively obscure blog.  However, on the basis of a very simple calculation of dividing total output of the system by total input to the system, the numbers just don’t seem to crunch like they may have in the past.  

There does not appear to be anything wrong with the players. Everyone I know is really nice. Everyone that I encounter seems quite content to collaborate at Trader Joe’s or driving on the freeway, or helping out in the schools. We even live in a kinder and more tolerant society than when I grew up. Not even the majority of people that we blame for winning the game can be directly faulted.

The problem seems to arise from the fact that we compete rather than collaborate. And, perhaps collaboration is more efficient than competition. That observation does simplify the solution a great deal, I’d think.

What if there was an accounting system that was built on collaboration rather than competition?

Here is a link to the demo and instructions for use.  Seems to work best in Firefox. Please provide feedback directly to me or through comments.

KnowledgeInventory-Instructions

 Demo site

Big social changes are always controversial; industrial revolution, voting rights, woman’s rights, civil rights, etc – each were truly radical ideas in their time.  Social scientists suggest that such changes have three oppositional features;   

1. They had advantages and disadvantages
2. They were good for some people and bad for others
3. They impart some initial costs before providing substantial benefits

Social Capital; a label for many different things.

We are all familiar with physical capital such as a tool into which we invest our energy in order to fix things better.  We are also familiar with the idea of human capital; the investment in education and training so that people can use the physical capital to become more productive.   Likewise, Social Capital includes those features in our community that make us more (or less) productive.  

There is nothing strange or different about this type of capital and there is no less of a need to invest in developing high social capital environments.  In Fact, may very familiar ideals have social capital as their foundation, such as collaboration, teamwork, resilience, communication, connections and generalized reciprocity of favors, empathy, and mutual best interests.

Social Capital In the Construction Industry

So when we introduce an innovation to a market, such as we are doing with The Value Game in the condominium reconstruction market – physical capital and human capital are obvious requirements of engineers and tradesmen.  However, the explicit introduction of social capital to the construction industry may have significant consequences as outlined in steps 1 through 3 above.  What are the advantages and the disadvantages to introducing this social change to the construction market?  To whom is it beneficial and/or detrimental – the resident or the contractor?  What are the initial costs and what are the expected future benefits?  

Case Study:

Our current case study involves the repiping of a 25+ floor high rise condominium.  The trick is to replace the potable water system while the building is fully occupied maximizing the uptime for all residents and absolutely NO overnight shut downs for anyone.

Our solution is to build a parallel water system right next to the old one, and then switch them over condo by condo.  In order to accomplish this, the contractors need to pass through the structure floor by floor at least 3 times.  First to install access doors; second, to replace the risers; and third, to plumb each individual unit, etc.  Now, try to imagine the permutations of connectivity required to minimize disturbance to affected units – as well as the non-affected units!!!

Capital accounting;

Obviously the physical capital includes a lot of plumbing tools and fixtures.  Indeed, human capital is intact where all the plumbers are certified and all the engineers are licensed.  However, this problem is still 90% social capital.  That is, those features in our community that make us more (or less) productive.

Bringing social change to a construction project will be controversial as people will need to collaborate with their neighbors and several crews of plumbers.  Some people will take easily to the requirements, others will not.  Initially, there may be a significant amount of discomfort.  However, when this project is complete, the community will be own something as important as life water itself;  new discipline will be born which improve and accelerate future collaboration thus paying dividends to an everlasting endowment of social capital. 

By deploying Intangibles, The Ingenesist Project offers a simple Value Game worth upwards of 100 billion dollars.  This value is currently underwritten by the insurance industry as water damage risk that can be reassessed at pennies on the dollar and transformed to liquidity in the real estate market.

***

The Problem: 

The condominium maintenance and reconstruction industry is enormous.  Condominium associations are challenged to manage modern maintenance and construction practices. The insurance industry covers perils such as water damage through the roof, building envelope, ground water, or plumbing system.  Many of these critical systems are coming of terminal age. 

Magnitude of the problem:

In 1990, there were about 4.5 million condominium units in the US.  41% were built before 1980.  The US has added approximately 1,000,000 condominium units per decade.  Water intrusion failures can cost up to $10.00 per square foot per exposure.  The insurance industry covers over 10 billion square feet – a $100 billion risk pool.   

Innovation:

The vast majority of water failures can be avoided with minimal and timely engineering interaction for a wise and engaged community.   Unfortunately, this is not the natural course of events in shared asset communities.

The Value Game can help the condominium community to self-manage as a collaborative social network instead of a collection of competing interests.  This may eliminate negligence, substandard maintenance, construction defects and associated litigation. Arguably, these are the most significant cause of water intrusion failures.

Technology:

The Value Game, in essence, creates a social network for the building.  The Game creates a system of incentives where stakeholders are rewarded for acting in the best interest of the shared asset.  Players include residents, engineers, maintenance personnel, insurance carriers, bankers, real estate market, as well as the larger neighborhood community.  All collaborate to preserve the asset.  The Value Game is infinitely scalable using existing Internet technologies. 

***

100 billion dollars is the amount of money on the game table being adjusted, pooled, and diversified against risk exposures.  The value game causes the “plays” to be modified by any of the players.  When hedged with Real Estate valuation, liquidity can be substantial for all of the players changing incentives strongly in favor of collaboration rather than competition.

My greatest doubts about The Value Game stem for the evidence that our scarcity based competitive economy is so deeply rooted in our being, that we would be unable to extract ourselves from our self-inflicted wounds.  What if we have crossed some unknown threshold and it is too late to turn back, to learn, to improve our understanding of the impact of social value?  This thought crosses my mind more that I am willing to admit.  I am afraid.    

I have spoken recently about our work deploying The Value Game to the construction industry where we have been contracted to replace the plumbing in an occupied high-rise condominium building.  Here is a recent post discussing the work

Keep in mind that this is only the beginning and I am just probing the environment for pulling together a broad and comprehensive Value Game.  So far, it seems like this will not be easy.  I struggle with deep internal distrust among many of the key players.  Trying to get them to share more information with each other has been very difficult. 

When Players Don’t Trust Each Other – it’s called gambling

The construction management firm that I am using has a deep, almost obsessive, fear of litigation.  They are paralyzed by the possibility of getting sued.  They are very careful to not take on any liability, to distribute liabilities among other people, they keep secrets and seal up their contracts, while also brisk to collect as much money for themselves as possible.  They will not submit themselves to audit by anyone.  In doing so, they create a distrustful environment with me.  

Fully 2/3 of the contractors that I encountered heard the word “Condo” and immediately declined my invitation to bid on the project.  But they did not stop there; many proceeded to tell story after story about failed governance of condos, litigious attorneys, flaky bankers, and years of their lives wasted fighting over pennies.  The emotion in their voices told a story of anguish and resignation that I have never heard.  They don’t trust their fellow citizens.

The back stabbing among contractors is fierce.  Everyone seems to have worked for everyone else at some point in the past.  They know each others’ financial situations and problems and they are willing to throw each other under a bus. I tried to contact the material manufacturer, and the wholesaler stepped in and curtailed my discussion – presumably to protect commissions and territory.  The distributor railed one contractor over an old debt. They don’t trust their collaborators.

The homeowner’s association is very lucky to have a wise and strong leader guiding the project; other than that, there is no great social fabric the community.  Like most HOA’s meetings can often devolve into arguments or chaos and uninformed members feel left out by others who are forceful.   People are certainly cordial, but largely indifferent to the project and the impact it will have on each other.  There is no great urgency to get involved or deep curiosity about this important project.  They don’t trust their shared asset community.

I called several Real estate agents to see if they would like to place their advertisements on the website in exchange for touting the new remodel project; I have not received any calls back.  Vendor interaction has been sparse and stingy. They don’t trust any process other than their own. 

The project is taking the form of a strict and linear monetary transaction.  That means that no social value is inferred or implied by the participants and that value not articulated by money does not exist, or it is intangible.  They Dollar extracts trust form the community.

Reality Check 

We are performing a full re-pipe of the drinking water system of an occupied structure.  Water is a life source. People will be asked to leave their homes for short periods of time, we will be tearing up walls and corridors, and bathrooms in order to replace plumbing.  The entire structure will be completely shut down to water service for several hours at a time many times for almost a year. This project will cost each resident over $10,000 dollars each.  This is serious disruption to happen without trust.

The opportunity to create social value is immeasurable, but nobody sees this.  Nobody sees a huge shared asset.  Nobody sees mutual best interests.  Nobody sees market value responding to social value.  Instead, they see a  collection deeded cubes in the sky sandwiched between hypothetical concrete walls.  They see that they need to go to work everyday to find dollars in order to pay the HOA dues.  They see the day before and the day after the project – but not the process of engagement itself.  

Social value lives in the present – it lives in the moment of discourse and engagement; when people feel a shared emotion, a shared condition, a shared asset. Social value then opens up opportunities to not work so hard, to laugh more, to be treated better, to have friends, to love.  It would be a shame to let this opportunity pass without extracting the social value that these magnificent people owe to themselves.

I would lying to say that I did not consider at many times that our society was beyond saving – that distrust of each other has reached a point of no return.  Mutually assured distrust seems to form a stasis in time when people just endure their life rather than live it; “to take it like a man”. The opportunities to engage each other and to build resilient communities pass us by without a wink – and we let it.  Life is a game – it is fun, why would anyone squander that!

What if the human species was SUPPOSED to evolve to a social organization system where everything that we now call ‘intangibles’, were in fact ‘tangible’; and, everything that we now call ‘tangible’, were in fact, ‘intangible’.  What would that world look like?

This not so far fetched actually because our species has already created an incentives based economy that rewards people who act in their own best interest.  We also created Calculus – one of the greatest achievements of the human mind – to keep track of all the moving bits of an integrated economy.  So, why is the world falling apart?

In the following video, I am interviewed by Jay Deragon for Smarter Companies Productions where we begin to unravel a new form of capitalism where everyone acting in their own best interest is acting in the best interest of everyone else in a community.  In effect, tangibles and intangibles are swapped.  

Tangibles and Intangibles

 
Please feel free to contact me with any comments.

You don’t need to know Calculus to catch an Apple. Not surprisingly, when I tell people that The Value Game is a multi-agent algorithmic game derived from a 5-order differential equation – their eyes immediately glaze over … as if I just hit them over the head with an apple.

In Practice, value games are extremely easy to create and once the observer sees how easy it is to envision value games, a whole landscape of opportunity opens up before their eyes in that proverbial Ah Ha! moment of the entrepreneurial spirit.  

In this post, I will try to explain The Value Game in the simplest words possible, but be forewarned; you can’t read a blog post about riding a bicycle and then hit the tracks on one.  The same is true for The Value Games – practice, iterate, start again, iterate, practice, etc.    

All value games must start by identifying a tangible asset that people share.  This could include a building, a road, a school, a teacher, energy production, food production, etc.  Or it can be a car, bicycle, lawnmower, civil service, or anything that can exist in a modern market.  A value game can also be build for a corporation or a department within a corporation.  If people share it – then it can become the object of The Value Game.

The next step is to identify all of the people for whom it is in the best interest that the asset is preserved rather than consumed.  For example; a fitness trainer could be an asset to a community in a value game.  Obviously, the people seeking fitness would benefit from the asset, however, so would health food markets, clothing stores, health insurance providers, sports equipment vendors, recreation purveyors, employers, and even extended family members. 

Driving Economic Incentives

The local Whole Foods Store spend 20% of their revenue on advertising and can realize a net gain on subsidize the Value Game.  Clothing Stores compete vigorously for customers, insurance companies profit from lowered risks, Ski Slopes, bowling alleys, and sports equipment manufacturers all benefit from the preservation of the healthy and active community.  Most players would be more willing to support the aerobics instructor than pay taxes or jump into bed with Facebook because their taxes would become more relevant and their Facebook exposure would become free as a result of supporting one aerobics instructor.     

The next step is critical:

Today we build websites for people, products, “influencers”, and ideas. Media barons build social networks around advertising, and companies violate people’s privacy to steal their information for direct targeting.  This is oppressive and destroys social value – it does not create social value.  

Instead, we must now build the social network functionality around the shared asset – not the people who share the asset.  This is the critical  missing piece to the next level of value creation. 

Now, as all of these players interact with the shared asset, they will be interacting with each other to preserve and improve the asset because it is in everyone’s best interest to do so.  In this process, they create something called “social value”.  This is a broad term that includes all of the most desirable aspects of social media; influence, resilience, activism, trust, cohesion, co-creation, knowledge, innovation, and wisdom, etc.  These things cannot be bought at any price.  Yet, in The Value Game, social value converts back to financial value as more assets are pulled into the game or as various games begin to merge.  A virtual circle is formed creating “New and Abundant Value” as everyone seeks to maximize their benefit in relation to the shared asset. 

This is the new Capitalism.

There are literally infinite ways to play The Value Game – as there should be. Each person’s unique knowledge inventory qualifies them for their own value game and subsequent prosperity. All of the social media tools exist today.  The art and science of social networks applies directly.  Existing financial and accounting systems can  articulate the Value Game profits at the bottom line.  The Value Games can be deployed by anyone and merged with other value games organically.  Value games can be iterated continuously. 

The Ingenesist Project is a pioneer in the development and creation of value games. We have deployed Value Games in industries as diverse as Aviation, Construction, and Education. Let us show you how to build Value Games in your community, institution, or corporation.  

The Financial System is vulnerable only to human adaptation in creating a replacement. The white paper attached below, Hacking The Financial System, describes how this may happen in the near future.

Money is the medium by which people store and exchange the value of physical objects – we call these object ‘tangibles’.  Money does not articulate ‘intangible’ value very well, except as a proxy for the physical things that people make and exchange for money.   The intangibles community is quick to point out that there is no currency that directly represents intangibles (hence the term ‘intangible’)….and,  that there should be. 

Actually, there is a currency of intangibles – it’s called “everything that happens inside a corporation”.  The corporation converts intangibles into tangibles, which are then exchanged for money.  As constraints in the global monetary system amplify – it is not surprising to see so much political reverence paid toward corporations for performing this essential conversion. 

What if so-called ‘intangibles’ could be articulated in its own currency, without the over-reaching construct of a corporation?  What if this new currency were fully convertible with the dollar, not unlike gold, oil, or Yen?  Could markets become more efficient?  How would such a currency impact financial institutions? 

It’s a very simple idea, but with profound consequences.   The following white paper begins to form a construct for a social currency based on how all currencies are formed.  After reviewing this white paper, it is not a huge leap to argue that the next generations of Social Media tools may be forming the infrastructure upon which a fully convertible social currency could be established.

In addition, the reader may notice that it is not hard to see that fluctuations in the “tangibles” currency would have inversely proportional reaction in an “intangibles” social currency.  In other words, they hedge each other.  Whoever figures out how to introduce a fully convertible social currency to global production markets will undoubtedly release extraordinary wealth by any measure.  

White Paper:  Hacking the financial system with Intangibles

(The Value Game is a powerful tool for deploying Intangible Capital to distorted, corrupt, or dysfunctional markets.  The following case study describes a current project that our team has won against substantial mainstream competition.  This case study is about real money, real projects, real people and real markets where the Value Game converts social capital directly into financial capital and converts financial capital into social capital – without the construct of an over reaching corporation.)     

Application Of The Value Game to the Building Reconstruction Industry

For many condominium associations, the maintenance, repair, and reconstruction industry has devolved into a minefield of distrust and dysfunction.  Countless lawsuits have taken the industry to the point where many contractors simply walk away from condominium projects for fear of litigation.  The worst form of “capitalism” ensues where everyone acting in their own best interest is in fact acting in the counter-interest of their community.  The Value Game promises to upset this negative incentives condition while enhancing community resilience.

Here’s How The Problems Start:

The board of directors of a homeowner’s association is entrusted by the residents to hire a contractor to perform a complicated reconstruction project.  Unfortunately, condominium board members are not very good at writing contracts or issuing requests for proposal or collecting bids.  When a contractor is selected, the scope of work is often poorly established.  The expectations between the community and the contractor begin to diverge.  Soon, a law firm is engaged by some residents to sue the contractor for damages.  After a long battle, a settlement is awarded, but it is not enough to fix the problem after paying the law firm. 

A chain reaction:

Fortunately, the contractor in the suit was insured, but this does not cover the personal, professional, and opportunity hardship of defending against the suit – “it’s just not worth the trouble”.  The insurance company then jacks up the premium for condo projects.  As the pool of available contractors dries up, and the price for reconstruction increases, many condos are forced into deferring maintenance in a distorted market. 

Cascading failures:

After a while, a condominium springs a few leaks in their piping system.  Each leak results in relatively small water damage claim.  When the insurance company notices several claims in the same building, they begin to fear that a mainline is about to rupture next and threaten the condominium with cancelation of their policy unless they replace the entire system immediately.  Now the insurance industry is in a double jeopardy: they force the contractor out of the market and they force the condo out of the market to basically avoid suing their self. 

The dysfunction deepens:

Banks will not make construction loans to condominiums that are not insured.  Likewise, they will not make mortgage loans to buildings that are not insured.  The property values plummet and the owners are sent under water.  Soon they begin to default on the mortgages that the banks already hold.  More maintenance is deferred as buildings fall apart and become unsafe.  Banks pull out of the market to avoid defaulting on their selves.

The wider community suffers.

The Value Game   

The Ingenesist Project is currently deploying a Value Game to the condominium reconstruction market with remarkable success. The Value Game is a new class of business methods that alters the incentive structure of a distorted market such that everyone acting in their own best interest is, in fact, acting in the best interest of the community. We are currently at about 30% game time and about 50% implementation in the case study described below.  

Here is how the Value Game is formed:

The first thing is to identify the shared asset.  This is the single thing in which it is everyone’s best interest to preserve.   In this case, the shared asset is the physical condominium building. 

If we look at each of the players individually, we see that it is obviously in the best interest of the residents to have a safe and well-maintained home.  It is also in the best interest of the contractors to have a successful and profitable interaction with the building.  It is in the best interest for the Insurance industry to reduce the risks that they underwrite.  The banks also benefit from a viable, organized, and disciplined community with strong real estate valuation and complete insurability of assets.  Finally, the broader neighborhood benefits from the presence of a viable condominium community.   It is in everyone’s best interest that the others are successful. 

About the game board

The first rendition of the Internet was populated by static websites built for a person, or to sell a product, or to deliver entertainment, or to provide information.  The next level of the Internet included social media where users actually create the content that populates a website such as Facebook and Twitter, etc.  The third level of the Internet is a Value game where a social network is built ABOUT an asset that communities share.  For this project, we set up a website for the physical building with its own social network where all of different players interact with each other to preserve their best interests.         

Case Study; The Value Game. 

The current case study is a condominium re-piping project in the Pacific Northwestern US.  The community consists of about 200 units (400 residents) who occupy a single high-rise tower that must undergo a major reconstruction project that will impact everyone.  The total value of the project is about 3 million dollars.  This is real money in a real Value game.

The first thing is to reduce the likelihood of diverting incentives that can result in litigation. This may be accomplished by introducing strong community building management. In this particular case, a professional engineering firm was hired to represent the best interest of the asset. Together with The Ingenesist Project, they represent the needs of the HOA, they select construction technologies, define project scope, write the RFP, write the contracts, select the contractors, and manage the project.

The Social Network Dynamics

The website used in this case study is a common open-source Word Press platform with a Buddy Press backend to provide “Facebook-like” features – except private.   The engineering firm submits all reports, surveys, test results, assessments, photographs, schedule, pipe products, accessories, and plans onto the website for all members to see equally (there are some exceptions to protect financial data).  Very few secrets are hidden from view and everyone is encouraged to discuss the project among each other.

Individual residents are invited to form “groups” and start “threads” in topics for which they have an interest or a concern.  People naturally migrate toward other people with similar interests and they build relationships. 

Contractors are able to see all of the assessments, conditions, and work scopes directly from the website instead of paper submittals.  They can ask questions and post ideas of their own for community review.

The engineering firm can monitor discussions and collect ‘frequently asked questions’, which are posted in an FAQ.  Everyone gets the same correct answer to their questions without rumors or speculation. 

When community meetings are held, there is no bickering or infighting because everyone is educated and prepared to ask unique and relevant questions of the presenters.  When a community is unified, they can easily come together to make important decisions that impact the quality, cost, and schedule of the project. 

The insurance company is given limited access to the website which demonstrates that the community is acting to mitigate the risks that the insurance company underwrites – this keeps the policy in force. 

With website access, the insurance industry can also see that licensed engineers professionally manage the project in a vibrant community.  This greatly reduces the likelihood of litigation.  The insurance industry can now classify this project among “commercial” insurance pool instead of the litigious condominium insurance pool. 

Contractors feel comfortable with this professional engineering management and insurability, which brings more contractors to market thereby increasing the talent pool and reducing costs.  At the end of the project they get 400 likes on Facebook, YELP!, and Angie’s List

The bankers will have access to the website to monitor progress.  With insurance policies fully enforced, banks will lend favorably to the HOA who needs to fund a major reconstruction project.  Banks will also lend favorably to mortgages in this structure because it is well maintained.   

It is in the best interest of the community to be civil and thoughtful in their discussions knowing that they are being observed by some of the other stakeholders.  This eliminates the incentive to be disruptive and increases the incentive to be engaged and productive in the project. 

Over time, the website becomes a forensic record of all matters associated with the project.  Everyone knows who said what, when, where, and why with an electronic time stamp.  There is little to be disputed. 

Interaction with the Wider Community:

Real estate agents always describe property in poetic hyperbole.  The RE market rarely tout the improvements that a community works so hard for.  The website could be a place where a real estate agent can advertise their services in exchange for a promise to mention the re-piping project and intangible values of the community.  The market will respond to a well-maintained building and an engaged community (ref: Jane Jacobs externality), which will drive real estate valuations up. 

Hotels, restaurants, theaters, art galleries, service groups and civic organizations all benefit from prosperity and resilience in their community.

In the end, the shared asset is preserved and everyone is profitable. 

The Ingenesist Project is currently in the middle of this above case study / scenario.  Real money is being exchanged in a real project with real players.  It is a significant fact that our team won this contract and is being well compensated.  We are deeply confident that The Value Game can be easily built and deployed throughout a 200 billion dollar condominium reconstruction and maintenance industry at great benefit to communities, insurers, bankers, contractors, and homeowners using existing technology and community sourced intangibles values.    

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I was recently interviewed by Dr. Amy Vanderbilt for the TrendPOV show.  The question was “Is The Patent System Relevant”.  The directness of the question is interesting; where the null hypothesis is that the Patent System is irrelevant.  Second; it is interesting that she would interview me! After all, I own no successful patents, not for lack of trying and perhaps as a result, I commit my work entirely to the public domain.   Also surprising is that I neither encounter other people’s patents nor do I require patents of my own for what I do.    

Here is a link to that Interview with Dr. V 

The following are some supporting research and preparation material that I put together for the Interview

As a matter of perspective;  The software industry claims to have a net negative monetary relationship with the patent system.  While my work is not directly associated with software, it is directly associated with the “soft” assets such as knowledge, innovation and wisdom of people and teams of people which are served by “software”.  Maybe this chart explains a few things.

Here’s a growth plan; Let’s Argue!!

There are many arguments for and against the patent system, the most compelling argument in favor include the notion that in a Capitalist system, the guaranteed monopoly is somehow an incentive for entrepreneurs to innovate. 

Arguments against the patent system include the idea that unfair advantage is given to wealthy corporations and has little to do with innovation; except innovation in the means and methods of stifling both competition and collaboration.  In many industries such as automotive and aviation, everyone is suing each other uniformly.  One would suspect that collaboration must be more efficient.

It’s especially worrisome when you hear both arguments stated by the same person.  Most corporate CEOs will fight valiantly on the field of patent litigation in protection of profits.  However, the source of those patents – the creative people who actually invent things are given the choice of either abandoning their IP rights or their jobs, in perpetuity.  It is important to consider the incentives.

Incentive to Dictate, not Innovate

The idea of a monopoly position is clearly more consistent with the art and science of dictatorship and oppression than any recognizable form of Capitalistic incentive to innovate.  I say this somewhat in jest, because corporations are a very important for of community organization for producing things that people need (or not).  However, corporations may no longer be the only form of social organization that can produce things that people need.  

Patents are important for transforming intangible assets into tangible assets.  Tangible assets are a class of financial instrument that can be capitalized, securitized, diversified, and used as collateral on debt.  Patents are also dependent on a functional legal system and associated enforcement tools – which are ALL public institutions funded by intangible asset production.  Funding of patents is dependent on money; which is also a “public traded” institution.

The irony is that patents support tangibility of intangibles, but those intangible are what actually support the patent system.  Herein lies the vulnerability of the patent system as we now know it – whoever figures out how to bypass this loop will release value directly into an economy eliminating friction and delivering immense efficiencies of scale.  As soon as someone figures out how to transfer intangibles directly into a value creation framework, then the idea of a corporation, and the assets that they securitize will be altered forever.   

So what if people could organize themselves?

Like the first Goddard Rocket, Occupy Wall Street was a trial run at the moon landing.  All the tools and technologies are emerging in social media like scaffolding.  Open source innovation is hanging all the parts on this scaffolding that emulate the functions of corporations.

The Ingenesist project has developed a novel business method called the value game which flips Capitalism over on it’s back.  It’s still Capitalism because everyone is playing to win an outcome in his or her own best interest – but flipped none-the-less.  The primary difference is that the competing elements of capitalism are simply converted to cooperating forces of Social Capitalism.  The resources wasted in producing losers, is converted directly to efficiency gained in net productive output.

Converting social capital to financial capital; and vice-versa

This is significant.  We are currently deploying a value game to a high-rise condominium renovation project where the home owners, the contractors, the engineers, and even the neighborhood are interacting in a value game where it’s in everyone’s best interest that the others are successful.  The project is valued at 2.5 million dollars so real money is in play and real people are playing what would formally be called a Multi-Agent, Algorithmic Game. 

The Value Game sets up a new body of incentives that drive data, information, knowledge, innovation, and wisdom towards preservation of a shared tangible asset.  When everyone depends on everyone else and they share data instead of trying to form some sort of monopoly, they create “the secret sauce” that “produces” things.  This is the exact same outcome as a corporation except without the corporation….or all those pesky patents. 

This is real, this is happening today, we have been able to convert social capital directly into financial capital and convert financial capital directly into social capital – now listen closely; we do this ALL without an overreaching corporation in place.