If I was a very wealthy person and I wanted to put my money in a hedge fund that protects me from all possible future outcomes or perils in the financial industry – I would be looking for a fund denominated in social currency. Should things go wrong, the only place you can go for support will be your immediate community. After all, you can’t eat Gold.
The Cradle of Civilization, again?
Egypt has demonstrated with astonishing clarity in a remarkable twist in human social evolution how this game plays out. The dictator may have all the money, but the military has all the social currency – domestic AND international. What do you think every dictator wishes that they had more of right now: guns, money, or social currency?
What would happen in the U.S. if…
…government austerity measures stop funding education, health care, police protection, and the legal system?
Social media applications will move in to fill the void.
….if inefficient industries like the travel industry, publishing, advertising, politics, academia, and financial services hold their customers hostage by acting as the gatekeeper?
Social media applications will pull the gate down.
…if government, industry, and academia can no longer innovate ways to increase the productivity of people in their community?
They will become irrelevant as people will adapt to manage their own productivity on a platform of social media.
The Great Conversion Factor
Off on the horizon, a truly remarkable new financial system is taking shape. This system will accomplish one very important task – it will provide a conversion factor between financial currency and social currency.
Every political gridlock, corporate controversy, wikileak, and dictator challenged by their own people is adding one more piece of infrastructure to this new financial system. Each piece will soon join together to complete the chain required to define the social currency and the form of human productivity that will support it. Hang on grandchildren, we are getting close.
The effectiveness of this currency will not be in it’s ability to replace the dollar, rather, it will be in the ability to convert between Dollars … and Yen, Euro, Pounds, Renminbi, Dinar, Rupee, etc., in the same Game within which world currencies exchange with each other today.
May the best currency win.
(Editors note: The above post is #5 in a series [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] introducing The Value Game to a new class of business methods. The first real world application is Social Flights; a collaborative production / consumption game being deployed to the market. If this works, the new business method class will be generalized throughout the economy to catalyze the convertibility of social currency. Please join us at The Future of Money and Technology Summit in San Francisco on february 28th 2011 where we will unveil the work to the technology community)
