Tag: Business Method Page 7 of 9

You’ll Know It When You See It

On October 20, 2009

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

By Admin

On October 16, 2009

In General Information

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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The Greatest Threat To Social Media

By Admin

On October 14, 2009

In General Information

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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Toyota Raises the Bar, Again

By Admin

On October 12, 2009

In General Information

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

By Admin

On October 12, 2009

In General Information

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?

By Admin

On October 9, 2009

In General Information

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

By Admin

On October 8, 2009

In General Information

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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Entrepreneurs or Social Media Riff Raff ?

By Admin

On October 7, 2009

In General Information

I am noticing a recent backlash at the social media experts that are not actually experts. In one such rant, a real social media expert proposes a few simple questions that can help separate the good from the not-so-good.

A few simple things:

Proof of experience and demonstrated results.
Business leadership, not necessarily thought leadership.
Dig deep into a consultant’s background and social media presence. Is he or she simply good at promoting him- or herself?

Bad Apples?

The chief complaint is that the bad ones are destroying the reputations of the good ones. It is no mystery that any fair and competitive market has a vetting mechanism and the hallmark of protectionism is in promoting the absence of such vetting… “except my own”.

Subjectivity or objectivity:

The Real Expert certainly means well, however, they are reflecting on the profession in their own image. This is entirely valid and correct, in fact, the CEO of the hiring firm is likely doing the same thing, saying to themselves: “Obviously, a social media consultant who is very good at promoting themselves would also be very good at promoting my company”. As such, the consultant that self-promotes is ironically casting the less selfish image.

A few not so simple things:

There is a dire shortage of social media consultants relative to the “adoption” rates needed to solve real problems.
Prices increase as demand increases and supply stays low.
There is too much social media work for the existing “good ones” to possibly do in their lifetimes.

What every expert should know:

Social Media is about engagement and sharing, inclusiveness, and empowerment.
Social media success is a function of critical mass – the more people doing it; the more social media consultants will be needed.
There are as many different levels of expertise as there are levels of need for such expertise. The ability to match the correct knowledge surplus to the correct knowledge deficit is the hallmark of an expert.
A social media expert for a construction company is a lot different than a social media expert for an advertising agency – and it is unlikely that either would think of the other to be an expert.
The world needs lots and lots of social media experts covering a wide range of disciplines real fast – no holes.

Will the Real Social Media Expert please stand up?

Where are the social media experts who are devising the curriculum, certification, structure and ascension plan for all the emerging consultants? After all, social media expertise is in itself the art and science of bringing mass quantities of people around a common goal, concern, message, or product, – quickly and efficiently using modern tools of mass influence – etc. What expert(s) is bringing together ALL social media “experts” under a vetting mechanism that serves market efficiencies not subjective efficiencies?

A kettle and a stove walk into a bar…

In other words, if they are so good, why haven’t they organized themselves?. The CEO says, “If they cannot organize their own “Social Network” industry, how can they organize mine?” Until then, the Riff Raff are entrepreneurs too and an essential ingredient in the development of innovations that will become standards that act in the best interest of the market, not necessarily in the best interest of the “real” Social Media expert.

Besides, who else would the Underdog go after?

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It’s Time for a Reputation Based Currency

By Admin

On October 6, 2009

In General Information

Many people know that the events that inspired what now has become The Ingenesist Project originated with my personal observation and experience of the Mexican Peso Crisis as a visiting professor. Very few people in America realize the implications of a real financial crisis and associated currency collapse. Unfortunately, many people in the World have – perhaps we should listen to their ideas.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

As recently as 1999-2002, Argentina experienced the type of worst-case financial collapse that America narrowly avoided only a few months ago – but that may eventually happen. The simplest reality is that when things go really really bad, people need to continue trading among each other for basic needs using a functional and relevant currency. When things are really good, people need a currency that reflects productivity, not debt – i.e., social capitalism priorities, not necessarily Wall Street capitalism priorities.

Ground Zero

It is not surprising to me that great applied currency applications would be coming out of Argentina today. The Whuffie Bank is an exciting new project that introduces a reputation based currency inspired by several science fiction authors of the past, specifically Cory Doctorow. Likewise, the founders of the Whuffie Bank demonstrate the perfect combination of humility, openness, and inquisitiveness that is required in the emerging social media space. Everyone realizes that the Whuffie is not a perfect currency, but the story has to start somewhere and TWB has something important to say.

It’s Time for a Reputation Based Currency

I’ll talk more about the Whuffie Bank as I learn more. First, it would be best to describe the origin of the term. I lifted the following description from Wikipedia:

Whuffie is the ephemeral, reputation-based currency of Cory Doctorow’s science fiction novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom. This book describes a post-scarcity economy: All the necessities (and most of the luxuries) of life are free for the taking. A person’s current Whuffie is instantly viewable to anyone, as everybody has a brain-implant giving them an interface with the Net. (Cory’s Blog)

The term has since seen some adoption as a synonym for Social capital, including its use in the title of the Tara Hunt book The Whuffie Factor.

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The Six Discovery Skills for Innovators

By Admin

On October 5, 2009

In General Information

Harvard Business Review contributing editor Bronwyn Fryer conducted a six-year study surveying 3,000 creative executives and conducting an additional 500 individual interviews. During this study she identified five “discovery skills” that distinguish them (reference article here)

The 5 Discovery Skills

1. The first skill is what we call “associating.” It’s a cognitive skill that allows creative people to make connections across seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas.

2. The second skill is questioning — an ability to ask “what if”, “why”, and “why not” questions that challenge the status quo and open up the bigger picture.

3. The third is the ability to closely observe details, particularly the details of people’s behavior.

4. Another skill is the ability to experiment — the people we studied are always trying on new experiences and exploring new worlds.

5. And finally, they are really good at networking with smart people who have little in common with them, but from whom they can learn.

Encourage Childhood Curiosity

The study was further associated with an enriched childhood experiences and early development of the child’s curiosity. It is difficult to disagree with any of these findings and it is of dire importance to duplicate at any expense these conditions for our children the sake of their future and the world that they will inherit.

What troubles me is the following:

The persons interviewed in the study were all outliers – the top .01% of success stories. These are innovators who had performed according to prevailing business theory for a 20th Century American definition of “innovation”. The probability that any single person has all 5 skills in synergistic quantity is extremely low.

The 6th Discovery Skill; discovering the missing pieces.

Suppose that a person has a high surplus in skill # 1, #2 and #4 and but an extreme deficit in #3 and #5 ? The profile can then be just as easily associated with a sociopath destined for incarceration. So what do we do with the other 99.99% of people? Are they incapable of Innovation? Are they not the ones to “bet on” in the race for a cure from ourselves?

Mirror Mirror on the Wall…

It is not surprising that Harvard, the bastion of top .01% humans would, in fact, find themselves in the proverbial mirror. However, they do leave us a hint in skill #5; the ability to network with smart people who have little in common but from whom they can learn.

The great opportunity for an innovation economy built on social media is the ability to purposely match most worthy knowledge deficit to most worthy knowledge surplus so that teams of people can be designed to simulate the ideal top .01% human and thereby vastly increase the innovation and entrepreneurial capacity of society.

Let’s rethink this

Such as structure for an innovation economy built on a social media platform is specified by the Ingenesist Project and others. It includes a revised definition for innovation, a knowledge inventory, a percentile search engine, a system for matching knowledge assets, and a feedback system to capture and duplicate desirable outcomes – all integrated and securitized in a financial instrument. Will the secret sauce resemble the 5 discovery skills that made the morning headlines? Who knows? After all, that’s exactly how I wrote this article.

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Dollar Pressures Force Talk of New Currency

By Admin

On October 2, 2009

In General Information

I am heavily quoting an article below from the DOW JONES NEWSWIRES written By Tom Barkley because this situation leads us into a discussion about alternate currencies in which Conversational Currency is applicable.

We predict that the structure for an innovation economy will be built on a platform of Social Media where conversational Currency is the currency of trade. We admit that this is a far cry from a declaration of government foreign or domestic, sorry about that. We also admit this is a far cry from what Corporations, Banks, Insurance Companies and traditional media barons would espouse, Ooops.

The best management policy is to accommodate what people are already doing. People are ADOPTING Social Media in a frenzy of applications which were not even predicted by those who developed the platforms – this is a reality, not a fantasy or a blip in the radar screen. Social Media will have an extraordinary role in the value of currency – if people don’t like it, they won’t trade it; Game over. The next Global Currency will be represented by human productivity traded in social media. The most productive country will hold the most currency – this is a game that the US can still win.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke waded into the international debate over the fate of the dollar Thursday, pledging to do his part to avoid what he sees as a longer-term risk to the dollar’s status as the world’s predominant reserve currency.

[China and Russia have been the major drivers behind calls for an alternative reserve currency, blaming the U.S. for the global crisis and worried that its growing debt load could pose a further threat to stability. That view gained some additional force this week when World Bank President Robert Zoellick predicted that the dollar would face increasing as a reserve currency and its status would depend on how well the U.S. can manage its debt.]

Here is the Social Media Pitch:

[The G-20’s plan to reinforce country measures to address imbalances through peer reviews “would perhaps strengthen the mechanism” for enforcement, he said.]

Social Currency?

At the end of the day PEER REVIEW will be the global vetting mechanism that supports the value of a currency. What part of Social Currency are we not understanding here?

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Marketing in the Age of Social Capitalism

By Admin

On September 30, 2009

In General Information

Family Recipe?

The recipe for selling great products to great customers in the age of Social Media resides first in helping people find their highest talent and passion. Advertisers need to offer something to the community that they target. The best place to start is in understanding the challenges and opportunities that a modern community faces.

The great innovations of our time were created by people doing what they enjoyed most by using their talents to the highest potential. Disney, Boeing, Apple, Mattel, and nearly every other ground breaking venture had the secret sauce of people doing what they were best at and most passionate about – and it was not about collecting “stuff”

The passion play

Computer Enabled Society is in the midst of a struggle to reorganize itself outside of the construct of the traditional corporation. It seeks to develop methods and systems that allow for the reallocation of social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital to match a person’s natural talents, passions, and abilities with those complementary to other people. This is as true for communities as it is for corporations. The result will be a profound new paradigm of Social Capitalism reflecting social priorities and community values.

Do no evil:

If marketers have the foresight and talent to “get ‘em while they’re young” or to “sell ‘em what they fear”, they certainly also have the foresight and methods to “develop ‘em to their highest potential”. Advertising agencies are full of real smart people who know how to deliver a hidden message – why not use that talent to empower people?

Instead, mass marketing pays mass money for mass audience from which to draw mass revenues – the message gets debased to play on mass fears, anxieties, and insecurities because this is the least common denominator. As a result, actual products are designed to be marketed, sold, and thrown away; not to be particularly useful, productive, or even healthy. Unnecessary innovation wastes human effort and natural resources while mass marketing of unnecessary innovation wastes the time and bandwidth of those for whom the product is irrelevant. Yes, the majority of advertising is just Spam.

Advertisers as community organizers?

Few realize that advertising can become a highly useful component of the Innovation Economy. In many professional practitioners look forward to hearing from vendors, educators, and fellow practitioners for trends, news, and developments that can strengthen their community. Bad products are rejected quickly and good ones are elevated quickly. This is how the great innovations are found. This is where the early adopters congregate. This is where brand loyalty is unyielding. This is where wealth is created. This is efficiency that society wants and needs. Social Media can deliver this audience but advertisers need to adapt by losing the CPM (cost per mille) model (more on that later).

Marketing to communities is fluid, dynamic, specific, and it takes some work. The dynamics of communities will replace the statics of demography and CPM. Fulfill those needs of a community and your products will win forever. It is not difficult to see the future, only to act on it. That is innovation.

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Building a Better Entrepreneur; Google 10^100

By Admin

On September 27, 2009

In General Information

Google 10^100 award voting is Launched. There are two sectors that we believe would have the greatest impact on the greatest amount of people; building a better banking system and funding social entrepreneurs. You can’t have one without the other – if Google funds these two sectors in concert, the outcome would be incredible.

Build A Better Bank

In the old banking system we assume that we have the knowledge to execute a business plan and we go to the bank to borrow the money. In the new banking system, we will assume we have the money and we go off in search of the knowledge. Social Media is an excellent “public accounting system” for knowledge assets.

Our current banking system has gotten it backwards.

Technological change must always precede economic growth. The supranational currency may be backed by productivity and not debt. Social media provides an excellent platform upon which to design such a banking system. People trade “social currency” at a tremendous rate. This is evidenced by the amount of destructive innovation is occurring in many legacy sectors due to social media.

Better Banking Tools for everyone

“Partner with banks and technology companies to increase the reach of financial services across the world. Users submitted numerous ideas that seek to improve the quality of people’s lives by offering new, more convenient and more sophisticated banking services. Specific suggestions include inexpensive village-based banking kiosks for developing countries; an SMS solution geared toward mobile networks; and ideas for implementing banking services into school curriculums”.

Suggestions that inspired this idea

1.   Enable prepaid cell phone bank accounts for millions of people working in the informal economy
2.   Create a community-level electronic banking system for rural areas
3.   Build IT-enabled kiosks which provide access to financial services
4.   Create a single world bank or supra-national currency, uniform rules and transparent public accounting

Fund Social Entrepreneurs

Venture Capital is ridiculously expensive. Corporate innovation serves shareholders value over social priorities. Some say that the financial risk of funding innovation is too high. The top ten reasons why start-ups fail are due to knowledge deficits, not money deficits. A new banking system that trades knowledge as currency would solve this problem.

The key is to match most worthy knowledge surplus to most worthy knowledge deficit. Google is perfectly able to build a search app for knowledge assets if there were an inventory of knowledge assets. With the most worthy match, Risk can be reduced and new financial instruments can be developed such as the innovation bond, innovation insurance, tangential innovation markets, and destructive innovation transition contingency options, etc.

Help social entrepreneurs drive change

Create a fund to support social entrepreneurship. This idea was inspired by a number of user proposals focused on “social entrepreneurs” — individuals and organizations who use entrepreneurial techniques to build ventures focused on attacking social problems and fomenting change. Specific relevant ideas include establishing schools that teach entrepreneurial skills in rural areas; supporting entrepreneurs in underdeveloped communities; and creating an entity to provide capital and training to help entrepreneurs build viable businesses and catalyze sustained community change.

Suggestions that inspired this idea

1.   Provide targeted capital and business training to help young entrepreneurs build viable businesses and catalyze sustained community change
2.   Create a non-profit, venture capital-like revolving fund to invest in high-impact local entrepreneurs
3.   Send young American entrepreneurs to underdeveloped communities to help create small businesses that would economically benefit those communities
4.   Create schools in rural areas to teach local people how to become entrepreneurs
5.   Create a private equity fund to help immigrants in developed countries finance business development in their countries of origin

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Good Blogging is Good Business

By Admin

On September 24, 2009

In General Information

Bankers do not care about money, they care about the rate of change in money – Interest Rates, ROI, and CAPM make the world go around.

Static web presence is getting squashed by dynamic content. The best party has the best conversation. It’s not the quality of life, it’s the quality of living. Countless expressions in business and culture reflect this idea.

I would like to thank John Ryan for this analysis:

***

More proof that blogging is smart business. Just make sure that whoever is blogging is a good writer and is committed to being consistent.

Otherwise, it will be a waste of time. You can either have your developers include a blog in your web experience or use free tools like WordPress to link to your website.
From Hubspot:

If you blog, you know that it’s good for your business.

But how — and how much?

To answer to those questions, I looked at data from 1,531 HubSpot customers (mostly small- and medium-sized businesses). 795 of the businesses in my sample blogged, 736 didn’t.

The data was crystal clear: Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has:

* 55% more visitors

* 97% more inbound links

* 434% more indexed pages

Why are website visitors important? Because more visitors mean more people to convert to leads and sales.

Why are inbound links important? Because they signal authority to search engines, thus increasing your chances of getting found in those search engines.

Why are indexed pages important? The more pages you have on your site, the more chances you have of getting found in search engines.

****

Thanks again John. The value of any innovation is in the transformation. Starbucks transforms 25 cents worth of milk, beans, and water into a 2 dollar cup of coffee = 800% return. The laws of leveraging conversation applies equally effectively in conversation as in finance where astonishing returns are not uncommon. We really need to start thinking about Conversation like a financial instrument capable of all the capitalistic magic that derivatives, bonds, options, and securitization methods offer.

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Unspoken Communication and the Bottom Line

By Admin

On September 23, 2009

In General Information

As a community developer for several websites, I go through lots of different information sources. I am looking for stories and nuance that demonstrate how conversation behaves like a currency. The more I look, the more I see. The strength of the analogy is quite remarkable.

Unspoken Values

I can also see how the unspoken communication stores as much value as the spoken communication. In the U.S. , there are race troubles, financial troubles, trust troubles, and confidence troubles. Many fears and anxieties can be accelerated by Social Media in unpredictable ways. First, information riles people up quicker than facts can follow, and second, the shelf life is much shorter as issues are dissipated by new ones. Much is left unprocessed.

The Micro-Trauma

What happens when important issues in life go unresolved? The life of a soldier may offer some clues where events can happen faster than the mind can process them. Perhaps the life of a child offers some clues where every day brings so much new information that all new events are processed in terms of basic necessity. Perhaps any traumatic event such as a divorce, loss of a family member, or victimization places us in the realm of the unspoken communication. This is a protection mechanism, not a delivery system.

As the World Churns

Billions of people hustle off to work and spend their day producing stuff in order to earn imaginary money so they can spend imaginary money. This helps things move from the forests to the dumps. They have no idea the sophistication of the micro-trauma delivery system that acts on how they process information.

The unspeakable drives our fears, interests and concern and influences how we process future information. I am amazed at how two people will arrive at opposite conclusions from the same data and the inability for those two people to speak to each other rationally. Advertisers, politicians. PR firms, and traditional media can deliver bits of information and dissipate them quickly leaving an unprocessed data-packets behind.

Opting Out:

I just closed my land line, canceled cable TV and purchase a subscription to on-line music radio that I play constantly. I “hide” the fringe mongers on my FaceBook, and get my news from Google alerts, feeds, and sources that align with what I am able to process mentally and emotionally. What I cannot process, I have a network of trusted friends who can process the information and guide me through the issues. I am quite happy, in fact, as many areas of my life are improving; health, friends, family, productivity, and finances…etc.

There is a tremendous opportunity available in delivering the right information to the right people with the intent of helping them to successfully and completely process information. This is more work up front, but the loyalty in the long-run is exactly what politicians, marketers, and news sources are competing for. Instead they are killing the patient to cure the disease.

In order to monetize in the new economic paradigm, help the unspoken communication become speakable and then listen to your friends.

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Do the Laws of Persuation Hold in Social Media?

By Admin

On September 21, 2009

In General Information

Anyone who has ever shopped for a car is familiar with the tried and true negotiation methods. With the advent of social media, negotiations are happening more and more in social space and in combination with in-person events.

Time pressures, price pressures, asymmetric information, location, vetting, and abundance of alternate solutions are breaking the rules of negotiating. Meanwhile, retribution for deals gone wrong has swung in favor of the consumer. Here is a list of methods sourced from Robert Cialdini for negotiating and a few point about how things have changed.

1. Law of Advocacy; Introduce a third party: a salesperson can tell a prospect he “needs to talk to the manager” From that point forward, the prospect views the salesperson as an advocate.

People don’t need an advocate. Social media provides a written record of a past transaction as well as a snapshot of supply and demand in a market. People check FB while salesperson is off checking with manager. Customers have checked prices elsewhere and are only calculating the cost of time to scroll down the street for the deal they want.

2. Law of Urgency: Top negotiators create a sense of urgency by specifying which terms they’re willing to agree to, then setting a firm deadline, after which the deal is off the table.

Twitter sets a new standard for urgency. Cause and effect are reversed as people respond to social media news to initiate the process. “Off the table” means off the screen and on to the next vendor. Next prospect is warned not to fall for the urgency trick.

3. Law of Authority: Using statistics to establish why you offer the best value on the market. It’s a way of saying, “You have more to lose here than I do.

Facts are increasingly easy to check. Undisclosed facts are easy to discover. Statistics can be read many ways in social media. Is the negotiator ready to be accused of warming the planet more than the next guy?

4. Law of Social Proof: Credibility is king in negotiations. Presenting testimonials from best-in-class companies lets prospects know the best in the business choose to do business with you.

Some references may in fact be liabilities. Best in class companies (such as Whole Foods Market) can get in trouble real quick. Is the negotiator ready to keep this list “twitter ready”? Testimonials come from the bloggers, not the PR department. Ouch.

5. Law of Reciprocity: Shrewd negotiators establish a quid-pro-quo early on, so prospects understand it works both ways.

What can a negotiator offer in an environment where the customer has the same information they do? The customer is more able to put a fair market value on the “quid” thereby eliminating any arbitrage advantage.

6. Law of Commitment and Consistency: By getting the other party to agree to the “no brainer” terms gets them in the habit of saying “yes” and they are less likely to say “No” to a deal that is 99% done.

Customer is more empowered to say “no” to the terms that matter. They have studied the case studies of others who have gone down the same path. Social interaction is desensitized especially of the negotiator does not appear to be tech savvy – commitment and consistency is easily lost.

Traditionally the negotiation process starts in the advertising campaign. Get it?

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Why Are Leaders Failing?

By Admin

On September 18, 2009

In General Information

People look for leaders that inspire them to achieve innovative breakthroughs. People trust, or so we think, CEO’s to effectively lead their organizations so that employees can continue to get paid.

The confidence in leadership is waning and a new “leadership” is emerging. The new leadership is from and by the people. The reason for a shift in leadership is as follows:

1. Politicians have failed us with self interest and politics as usual. Usual no longer works for the people

2. CEO’s and management have failed to listen to the markets of conversations

3. Greed is out, efficiency is in and the old market is not adapt at “lean, mean and fast”

4. The people has lost trust in media, politicians and old management schemes

5. Advertising and marketing methods of the past are dead. 96% of the online ads get no responses. A rate of 3% at best is the return on direct mail, coupons and broadcast ads.

6. The market is no longer listening to the old market rather the market is listening to the people

7. People have been empowered and engaged to create their own markets and they follow a new kind of market leader. A leader who enables them to learn, grow and share with others whom have an affinity to their interest and beliefs.

8. New leaders are now conversing with their own audience and there are many of them. There are also a few leaders who are enabling many to engage, converse and build our own audience.

9. Conversations have never been so fluid, so reaching and so powerful. The irony is that the power of speech has always been and will always be disruptive. History proves it so but we are in an era of making history that reinvents itself daily from the conversations.

10. Old leaders either adapt very quickly or die. The old game is over and the longer you try and play it the more it will cost the market, your investors and the people whom supply the market with commerce, the people.

Admit It, You are Out of Touch And Blinded By The Past

For politicians and corporate leaders the downfall of your empires is directly related to markets changing and you denying the change. If you haven’t noticed markets are now transparent. There is nothing you do that the market won’t notice and freely comment on, good, bad and indifferent. When you do good the market with follow you. When you do bad or do the same thing the market will leave you. Unless you recognize this shift your dead in the water.

Time is your enemy and denial is your your deathbed. Being dead in the water means the next wave will topple your boat because its force is too big, too large and you can’t move fast enough to navigate around or over it.

Then again you may simply not have time or attention to even recognize that it just may be true and real. In that case, move over for the new leader to replace you sooner than later. Leaders are failing because they fail to change and fail to listen. Sorry for being so frank but I don’t have time to be politically correct. Get it?

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Gnomedex 9.0 Seattle

By Admin

On September 16, 2009

In General Information

I attended the Gnomedex 9.0 Social Media Conference in Seattle. While it was wonderfully informative and every single person that I met was engaged, interesting, and accomplished in some productive way related to social media, I was left with some troubling observations as well as some very inspiring moments.

Observation:

1. Trillions upon trillions of dollars are being transferred to Social Media with the persistent extinction of old media dinosaurs – does anyone care?

2. Advertising concerns, print media, corporate HR, were strikingly absent from the corporate vendors on site and in among the sponsors – they should have been hovering over in helicopters.

3. There were ONLY a few hundred people in attendance – there should have been a few hundred thousand (6619 Tweets sent).

4. This event should have been gold plated – it was not, which leads me to some of the inspiring moments.

Inspiring Moments:

1. Many of the presentations reflected social priorities like the environment, using social media to empower yourself and the people around you, and empowering less developed nations.

2. Relative absence of commercialization

3. Gnomedex 9.0, means that 9 have occurred and this is what it has “evolved to”. As a worthy social experiment in itself, this shows us what social media WILL evolve to

4. Building trust was a predominant theme

Read Between the lines:

Social media reflects social priorities, not Wall Street Priorities – in fact, the table has turned. For example: Twitter will be charging Corporations to view social media – after corporations failed to get people to pay them to view social media.

Every single business transaction is subject to a similar “reversal” relative to social media space. The World has no idea what’s coming down the tracks.

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Will Facebook Currency Intermarry with the US Dollar?

By Admin

On September 15, 2009

In General Information

Facebook is testing a virtual currency, because it’s cool and they can do it. They are not alone, the gaming industry has been at it for a long time for people who want to be more “productive” in the game space.

There is no mention, however, whether a Facebook currency could be used as a medium of exchange in the event of hyperinflation and the crash of the US dollar. I can find nobody, writing anywhere today, that is willing to cross this proverbial line in the editorial sandbox.

I personally witnessed a devaluation in Mexico. Like a tsunami, the “adjustment” happens relatively fast as values ’snap’ fluctuate relative to other currencies. Then very interesting things start to happen in the community. People will literally empty WalMart because most goods will be cheaper today than tomorrow.

As with other hyperinflation events, black markets form around various items such as gasoline, cigarettes, or Levis as people require some medium of exchange in order to buy necessities such as groceries and cooking fuel.

A Facebook currency may just be what communities will use to get through the event. However, a Facebook Currency would likely be temporary because it could not be used in Banks to capitalize assets – or, by government who can’t figure out how to tax it.

Now the question becomes, what type of social currency could be intermarry with dollars?

Here is a hint; the dollar is backed by debt which is a promise to be more productive in the future. Conveniently, “innovation” is also a promise to be more productive in the future. Two such currencies are of the same species and can intermarry yielding new economic life.

The degree to which any ‘virtual’ currency is interchangable with the dollar is the degree to which it represents human innovation. Chew on that, Facebook.

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Twitter Vetting = Twetting?

By Admin

On September 14, 2009

In General Information

Picture Credit

There are 3 characteristics of financial instruments which make them tangible in a market: They live in an inventory, they are exposed to vetting mechanisms, and they are subject to constraints.

Tangibility of knowledge:

Here at Conversational Currency we are constantly seeking examples where human knowledge behaves like a financial instrument because a true innovation economy will arise when all 3 characteristics are true for the ‘human knowledge’.

We believe that the platform for the Innovation Economy will be Socialized Media; not corporations, or government. So we get excited when we see posts like this from Brian Solis via Matt Marshall regarding Twitter’s monetization plans.

Twitter to becoming the vetting mechanism for business intelligence.

Think about the credit score; a list of independent variables run through an algorithm that correlate with the likelihood that you’ll fulfill a financial obligation. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination…read between the lines:

************

By Brian Solis:

Over at VentureBeat, Matt Marshall is reporting that Twitter will introduce its first revenue-generating series of premium services.

In an interview with co-founder Biz Stone, it was revealed that Twitter is in the initial phases of introducing commercial accounts to businesses seeking detailed analysis of activity in and around the brand on the popular network as well as other data not available to Twitter users directly.

In the next phase, Stone indicated that Twitter may also debut a new set of corporate-specific API’s that would allow the company to insert a customer layer over the profile and other aspects of the network to more effectively engage with the community, while increasing strategic visibility.

Stone revealed to Marshall, “Twitter will still be free for everybody and we’ll still tell them to go crazy with it. But, we’ve identified a selection of things that businesses say are helping to make them more profit.”

He further elucidated, “We want to build statistics or analytics that let users know — ‘How am I doing on Twitter?”

This news is the latest in a short series of information bursts following the company’s announcement that it is rolling out a new set of APIs to integrate geo-location into Tweets, mostly likely to contend with rising competition of geo-location networks such as Loopt and Four Square and also as a potential generator of hyper-local advertising revenue.

************

Ponder this:

Social value lives in an emerging inventory that is ever increasing in granularity. Corporations have very little control over public opinion – except in retrospect – which amounts to a constraint on social value. Now, Twitter is the vetting mechanism. Wow, we’re getting closer to the next economic paradigm every day.

The implications are vast. Now we shall ask a few question:

At what point will Corporate Innovation reflect social priorities over Wall Street priorities?

At what point will Wall Street Priorities reflect Social Priorities?

If the Wall Street Manifesto is to “return shareholder value” and Twitter is vetting “social values”, what is the value of Twitter and who is really holding/voting those shares?

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Set the Data Free, Please

By Admin

On September 11, 2009

In General Information

The following commentary was posted last week in Wall Street Journal Op Ed. This is an opportunity to consider the term “Conversational Currency” at it’s most literal meaning. People pay money to talk to each other. Other people want to control how when and how much people can talk to each other. The battlefront is technology, like rockem-sockem robots, technologies duke it out in this trillion dollar struggle to control our conversations.

Who benefits … shareholders?

The irony is that each and every titan is the beneficiary of conversation. The 135 year old Alexander Graham Bell era is about to End. Will patricide or scionism prevail? Will unified voice systems integrate all mediums and devices into a single channel? Will the elimination of conversation “frictions” also eliminate innovation “frictions” (you know, all those things that make innovation impossible to capitalize by regular people; Patents, risk, velocity, market intel, 1000% VC, etc.).

It’s about the data, stupid

Mr. Kessler proposes a National Data policy – after all, voice, text, video, etc., are simply different forms of data and should be treated as such. Any device should work on any network and data should flow freely. What’s with owning airwaves? Who came up with that idea ? – it creates more interference than it is touted to solve. Ditto for exclusivity contracts – who needs them, except those who stifle innovation. And finally, the mother of all frictions, restricting speed and bandwidth. Sure, I like driving with the emergency brake on – it improves my eligibility for “cash for clunkers”.

Resistance is futile

The truth cannot be hidden by economic tyranny. Noble institutions like journalism, education, and entrepreneurship are being sacrificed in the name of shareholder value. People communicate freely and freely they shall communicate. These are the profound questions of our era that play out every day in the news. Please read this and our other posts at CC with great optimism that a new paradigm is arising where an innovation economy will be built on a social media platform outside the construct of corporations:

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The New Reverse World Order

By Admin

On September 9, 2009

In General Information

The New Reverse Order

If someone can track your spending, they can predict your behavior. It is also true that if someone can track your behavior, they predict your spending. The next economic paradigm is simply a higher order of the same.

On the next higher order, if someone knows your “Knowledge Inventory” they can predict how you will manage changing conditions – that is, how you will innovate. Likewise, tracking how people innovate exposes the development of new knowledge assets (the ‘gold-standard’ of conversational currency).

Everyday some new headline shows that we are getting closer and closer to that point – for better or worse – where humanity learns to manage an innovation economy.

Profound Issues Arise.

The following article about Wal-Mart adopting the debit card (Wal-Mart to Staff: Bye-Bye Paycheck, Hello Debit Card) as a means of issuing paychecks represents a quantum leap in the monetization of knowledge assets. We expect many more will closely follow in one of the most important financial developments in financial history – virtual currency. If food stamps can be delivered on a debit card, why not frequent flier miles, Disney Dollars, coupons, rebates, tulip bulbs, beanie babies, or a new global currency such as the Rallod?

A Vetting Zoo

The only questions that remain are related to Vetting. By all accounts Social Media is developing into the mother of all vetting mechanisms. Who controls the card? What system is it replacing? Who can pull money off? Who charges fees to whom and why? Who gets the business intelligence? What is the PR spin? Can advertisers interact with the card to apply discounts and rewards? What types incentives motivate what types of people and can it go on a debit card?

A Steep Departure

Each of these questions, and the companies they spawn, will live or die by Tweet and Blog – this is a steep departure from the past. For example; 30 years ago, if every American were told that their social security number would be tied to a credits score that is tied to their driving record, employability, insurance premium, health care, mortgage rate, and, yup, their debit card – the cities would have burned in protest.

Nobody could have seen this future except those who designed it. Today, the designers are you and I – see the future now, see the future here at Conversational Currency.

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Creative Capital; The Hidden Hero

By Admin

On September 7, 2009

In General Information

Social capital, intellectual capital and creative capital are the factors of production for the Innovation Economy; next economic paradigm. Few people realize that Silicon Valley arose from a perfect storm of social capital from the 1960’s, the music and arts scene of the same era, and the proximity of academic centers Stanford and Berkeley. The Bay area corporations may have been the beneficiaries, not necessarily the originators of innovation.

Creative Capital remains the least understood, yet most important element of the Next Economic Paradigm. As we continue our march into the regime of social media it is imperative that we understand, support, and develop this critical factor. We cannot “take it for granted” that creativity exists and will always exist. It must be recognized, developed, and integrated into the fold of Social Media.

Here are some stats:

Wikipedia:

Social Capital has it’s own page with 6816 word article
Human Capital (Intellectual Capital) has it’s own page at 2597 words
Creative Capital does not have a page of it’s own on Wikipedia

Twitter:

I found 20 Tweets referencing “Social Capital” in the last HOUR
I found 20 Tweets references to “Intellectual Capital” in the last 6 HOURS
There were 20 Tweets that referenced the term “Creative Capital” in the last WEEK (mostly as a trade name)

Facebook Groups:

Social Capital Groups: 2000
Human Capital/Intellectual Capital Groups 1000
Creative Capital: 412

Linkedin Groups:

Social Capital: 69
Human Capital (intellectual Capital): 272
Creative Capital: 12

While the ratios vary, the trend is fairly clear. Creativity is not often interpreted as a financial instrument otherwise it would be associated with the term “Capital”. There are other factors as well that may play into this. Artists are often self-actualized outside of the trappings of material possessions and therefore less visible as economic or political power brokers. As a professional class, they may be under-represented in social media space. In addition, creativity does not punch a clock and is likely not working for wages as such. Or they may be running around dressed up like Engineers

I’ve made the point that was intended so now I’ll leave the remaining analysis to a person who has done a great deal to advance the modern understanding of the field of study related to creative capital; Richard Florida – an unsung hero for whom Wikipedia does have a page:

Richard Florida (born 1957 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American urban studies theorist.

Professor Florida’s focus is on social and economic theory. He is currently a professor and head of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, at the University of Toronto. ^[1] He also heads a private consulting firm, the Creative Class Group.

He is best known for his work in developing his concept of the creative class, and its ramifications in urban regeneration. This research was expressed in Florida’s bestselling books The Rise of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class, and The Flight of the Creative Class. A new book, focusing on the issues surrounding urban renewal and talent migration, titled Who’s Your City?, was recently published.

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You Can’t Eat Gold

By Admin

On September 3, 2009

In General Information

The following is a question and answer that I responded to on a Linkedin economics forum. This question still occurs in so many forms when it is also abundantly obvious that Social Media is driving so much value in so many directions. The irony is that the question is asked within the currency that it fails to recognize.

Art credit

Question:

Fiat money is the cause or always the main cause of financial crisis. Reverting back to gold standard can give stability. How can this be implemented?

Answer:

It cannot. Everyone agrees that money needs to be backed by something tangible. However, gold has a host of problems as well that are discussed extensively on-line and cannot be ignored.

A successful and stable currency must be backed by the productivity of the [citizens of a country] users. So these two words should be interchangeable; i.e., a country spends productivity to fight a war. A country spends productivity to fund universal health care, etc.

The cause of financial crisis is when the money becomes divorced from the productivity. Debt is a transaction that exchanges current productivity for future productivity – assuming that productivity will increase at least by the so-called ‘risk’. CDOs and other exotic financial instruments further obscure true productivity until money becomes driven irrationality and emotions completely separated from productivity.

If people lose trust in the currency, they will no longer trade it – they will find something else. Your hope is that they will find Gold.

Note clearly that innovation is also a transaction that exchanges current productivity with future productivity (due to the innovation). As such, a currency backed by innovation is of the same species as a currency backed by debt. Therefore, the entire financial system does not need to be torn down and rebuilt to serve a new non-debt backed currency.

The answer to your question is to look toward the places where extraordinary innovation is occurring today, right now. It is clear that social media is developing this new currency. The problem now is fairly simple; making human knowledge tangible. This is where the innovation is. Here are some resources of people working on this problem:

http://ingenesist.com

http://relationship-economy.com

http://conversationalcurrency.com

Our deepest concern should be to feed the Goose what’s been so good to the Gander all these years. Of course one argument in favor of gold is it’s scarcity. However, it is difficult to imagine that in an era of scarcity of so many resources, the basis of a currency ought to be more scarcity. Knowledge, conversation, and innovation are scarce relative to the problems that they must be deployed to solve. We’re in this together.

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When The Kids Arrive – from MySpace

By Admin

On August 29, 2009

In General Information

Several articles have come out refuting the death of MySpace as researchers try to make sense of the continued persistence of what many people consider last-year’s news. Here is an interesting article by Misiek Piskorski from Harvard Business Review answering the question “Where are all those My Space Users”?

“Both traditional and social media have declared MySpace dead. Even a brief scan of articles reveals that media mavens “don’t know anybody who uses MySpace anymore,” which reportedly is not a huge loss as the site “is ridden by spammers” and “its atrocious HTML, bLiNgY graphics, and horrific backgrounds” are offensive. Many of you reading this post probably do not know anyone who uses the site either.

Yet MySpace is the 11th most visited site in the world, with unique 60 to 70 million U.S. visitors every month. Even though the site is not growing, it is a far cry from “dead” if you ask me.”

But wait!

Notice how the “Media Centers” Los Angeles, Chicago, New York are in Facebook territory. Also note how the technology power centers; Silicon Valley, Seattle, and Boston are also in the Facebook territory. Academics from Harvard, Yale, Stanford are taken by surprise in Facebookville. The great financial centers; Wall Street, LA, SF and Chicago are all Facebook. Maybe the prognosis for the future of social media is skewed by the proximity to major media, academic, and financial centers. Centralized power is the antithesis of social media, Right?

Looking for Disassociation.

Here at The Ingenesist Project we have long been looking for a disassociation between main stream media and social media. MySpace may be the social experiment that indicates a deeper and most promising trend. Is it a requirement that a social media analyst be located in Silicon Valley? Do celebrity endorsements really mean anything tangible? Does editorialized news always provide what people need?

MySpace Demographics:

The resulting sample is representative of the MySpace population. 53% of users identify themselves as women. Of all users below the age of 50, half are 21 years old or younger, and 30% are between the ages of 22 and 30. Everyone knows that Kids don’t Tweet and late adopters to Social Media are also later-in-lifers. The population of the world is finite, so when will Facebook level off as Twitter has?

Looking for reversal:

Next, we are looking for a reversal where Social Media drives s0-called traditional media – not the other way around. Can a blogger in Arizona drive the great branding strategies of the future? Can a Webinar from Montana introduce the next age of enlightenment? Can Nashville become the next great Venture Capital hub? Can a community of children in Florida band together to sustain the next great social movement. Will democracy, voting, and public opinion be driven by youth culture? Will corporate innovation respond to social priorities rather than Wall Street Priorities?

Ideas whose times are coming:

There are many examples of the above miracles of social media, however, a disassociation and reversal with traditional media will be an event of flip-floponomics of great significance – a watershed moment in the history of the next economic paradigm. Traditional media, understandably, may inadvertently be assigning a premature death to many great ideas yet to come.

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