The Ingenesist Project

The Next Economic Paradigm

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Definition Of Innovation

By

On May 10, 2021

In Innovation Bank

Figure it out as you go along.
Image by David Mark from Pixabay

It is not as easy as it may seem to find a working definition of innovation. There are as many definitions as there are experts claiming to hold the secrets of innovation. The simplest definition of innovation that I could summarize based on top sources is as follows:

Definition of Innovation 1: A new idea resulting in an economic outcome.

The problem with this definition is that you cannot solve solve one equation with two or more unknowns. What is new? What is an idea?, and What constitutes an economic outcome? Finally, How can we identify innovation before it happens? These are significant barriers. I spoke with one VC about this problem and his response was:

Definition of Innovation 2: “I know it when I see it”

A definition is supposed to be distinct and precise. One should be able to predict, identify, or anticipate the object based on its definition. It appears that innovation can only be defined after the fact and not before, by most accounts. As a result, we treat innovation as if it were random or accidental or so unique that only a gifted few possess the ability to achieve it. This is important because innovation is the single most important determinant of achieving a sustainable economic environment.

Economics is the science of incentives. Calculus is the science of change.

When I was about 6 years old I got my first bicycle. It was a single data point sitting under the Christmas Tree. It came with a little pamphlet with lots of information on how to use it. My first attempt started just like the pamphlet described, until I crashed. The promise of stylish and speedy mobility was a strong incentive. Each time I crashed, my knowledge of bike riding increased at a very rapid pace as I developed new ideas about balance, coordination, and impact. I frantically innovated solutions to my problems until I was successful. As I progressed to bigger bikes and various motorcycles, I developed the ability to anticipate reactions to future obstacles based on a so called wealth of past experiences. I had developed Wisdom.

Toddlers can be readily observed innovating ways to carefully descend the stairs backwards on their tummy. This thought sequence repeats itself continuously throughout their formative years and into adulthood. A wise person is generally witnessed a great many outcomes and always seems to know what to do, when to do it, and why it should be done.

Hang on as this is going to get a little bit wonky:

Most engineers and scientists would recognize the following as a differential equation. The relationship between data, information, knowledge innovation, and wisdom are classic derivatives:

  • The value of information is derived from the value of the data
  • The value of knowledge is derived from the value of the information
  • The value of innovation is derived from the value of the knowledge
  • The value of wisdom is derived from the value of the innovation

This is the basis of the WIKiD Tools algorithm (Wisdom, Innovation, Knowledge, information, Data) developed by The Innovation Bank

Definition of Innovation 3: Innovation is proportional to the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time.

I certainly don’t expect a call from Merriam-Webster or widespread agreement from the innovation consultants any time soon. What is important is that this definition does not contradict any of the other definitions. And, it can be easily expressed as an algorithm suitable for machine learning, with data points that can be identified, measured, and validated.

We can now go about he business of creating conditions where knowledge is allowed to increases at a very high rate. Innovation cannot happen in a vacuum.

The Holy Grail of Finance

Predicting the fact of Innovation before it happens is the holy grail of finance. While many corporations and venture capitalists are somewhat successful at identifying a single product that will produce an economic outcome, they do it at the expense of foregoing the ecosystem from which that product arose. As such, predicting the Return on Investment (ROI) may be easily skewed by ignoring the broader social consequences of the product. Deficiencies in data, information, knowledge, and wisdom are the leading factors in start-up failures, not innovation.

Using a sports analogy, competition is a good way at arriving at the best solution to a specific objective. But in order to arrive at a single winner, you must first manufacture 10 times more losers. While conflict and competition is indeed entertaining, this is a very expensive and inefficient way to go about meeting the needs of consumers, let alone a crowded planet.

Intrinsic Value

Innovation is ubiquitous, interconnected, and interdependent on a sequence of factors shared across diverse people and places. Innovation is the intrinsic characteristic of our species and wholly responsible for the advancement of civilization itself. Everyone groans about how money is losing its intrinsic value because of inflation, corruption, or runaway national debt. As a result, cryptocurrencies conveniently drop the idea of intrinsic value altogether. People look to government, charismatic leaders, academia, and industry to solve staggering systemic risk and environmental collapse – to no avail.

Yet, all along, there may just be an extremely simple and inexpensive way to represent the intrinsic nature of innovation as the basis of value that we can quite literally pay for our own preservation. The following chapters describe this method. Please join us at The Ingenesist Project

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Commercializing Ancillary Innovation

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On January 23, 2020

In General Information, intangible

“Technological Change Must precede economic growth. We are going about the process of Globalization as if economic growth can precede technological change – this is not sustainable” – D. Robles

The Ingenesist Project is deploying our blockchain based ancillary innovation solution to important projects and institutions in the US. By representing intangible assets as tangible, and using a novel tokenization strategy, ancillary innovation can be equitably deployed thereby restoring the balance between technological change and economic growth.

Commercializing Innovation

The successful commercialization techniques of novel ideas or research has evolved over the ages into an elaborate techno-legal-fiscal monstrosity of regulations and gatekeepers.  It did not start this way and it may not need to continue this way.    

All innovation stands on the shoulder of some prior innovation – e.g., the wheel, wedge, and lever are still ubiquitous in modern life.  Innovation has always existed, but was greatly accelerated by the creation of the Scientific Method, considered as one of the most important advancements in human thinking.   The Scientific Methods required inventors to determine causation and enforce the discipline of disproving the null hypothesis as a condition of validity.    

The Patent system was created in the 1790 and is largely responsible for the industrial revolution by giving inventors a temporary monopoly so that they can develop their works.  The cotton gin, the steam locomotive, Portland Cement, the electric generator and propeller were patented during these times.  Eli Whitney, Faraday, Edison, The Wright Brothers, Henry Ford all benefited from the patent systems as did society as a whole.  

As secondary inventions were built over primary inventions, the velocity of innovation increased dramatically.  This cause a financial disconnect where the new inventions could not be funded directly from the revenue generated from prior inventions. Things became more complex in the age of computers and internet where all prior patents could be “re-invented” on a computer of over the Internet ushering an era of very rapid innovation across every industry. 

Today, the velocity at which total innovation occurs vastly out-paces the velocity of the mainstream financial means for funding – as was the original intent of the Patent System.  The result was an inversion whereas technological change once preceded economic growth providing a means to fund continued innovation.  Now “economic growth (capitalization)” must precede technological change in order to fund innovation.  This is an unnatural condition that gives rise to various debt related instruments and institutions such as “venture capital” who select winners and losers based on factors that may not be driven by the unity and advancement of society as intended by the patent system. 

Most new ideas are abundant, unable to be restrained, dynamic and interdependent. Most ideas include elements of human nature or intangible value that simply cannot be expressed in the legal terms of a patents.   There is now a very large gap between the patentable invention and the commercialized invention.  Nearly all of the activity in this gap is innovative and intangible in nature, that is; commercializing a novel invention is likewise novel.

Ancillary Innovation:

Where Secondary Innovation is defined as a new or deliberate application or modification of an existing ideas, methods, or device.  Ancillary Innovation refers to the provision of necessary support to the primary activities or operation of an organization, institution, industry, or system.  Ironically, ancillary innovation may be the greatest untapped opportunity for primary innovation since the invention of the Patent system. 

Commercializing Ancillary Innovation differs in many ways than primary or secondary innovation. 

For example, even if a marketing study demonstrates that a primary innovation will fail in a certain demographic, the ancillary innovators were successful regardless of the impact on the primary invention.  Killing a bad idea early is the hallmark of Capitalism.  In fact, the value of the Ancillary innovation staff becomes increasingly honed with each experience being applied to the next market study until the support professional is regarded as having wisdom. 

The nature of statistics is that an experimenter can observe a small sample of normally distributed events, and calculate the probability that the next observation will fall within a prescribed size, condition, performance, etc.  Managers are generally characterized by their experience and thus their wisdom I being able to, say, assign the correct allocation of resources or priorities, etc. 

Many accelerators, incubators, and venture capital firms serve in the capacity of ancillary innovation.  They are run by people whose past experience is sufficiently (statistically) populated with failures and successes such that the probability of success in the ancillary innovation process is increased when given a new set of circumstances. 

It is also worth mentioning that the value of the commercializing ancillary innovation far exceeds the value of the commercializing primary innovation, yet it is possibly the least understood.  Furthermore, an enormous amount of innovation never reaches fruition for lack of ancillary innovation resources.  It seems somewhat odd that so much technological innovation would be allocated to making a mundane passenger vehicle .5 seconds faster on its 0-60 time when the same technology could elevate entire communities from poverty.  The difference is the prioritization of ancillary innovation. 

Primary originators often receive a very small percentage for their contribution to the ancillary enterprise. The value of the commercializing ancillary innovation may be characterized by the quantity and quality of risk removed from commercialization; as compared to a risk-free hypothetical value of the primary investment alone. 

Reasons why most startups fail. 

The primary commercialization risks can be taken from a typical list of top reasons why startups fail.  The following example is from a VC firm Quake Capital https://medium.com/swlh/the-top-10-reasons-startups-fail-ab3196d70568

Each of these failure modes exist due to an absence of ancillary innovation of some kind.  Each requires a deep and highly specialized set of knowledge assets to mitigate.  No single experience set can mitigate all of them, and most inventors are lacking most or all of the skills required to cover the ancillary innovation roles.   

1. Lack of market need (42%): Metaphorically Is your product a vitamin or a Painkiller.   

2. Lack of cash (29%): Many startups run into money problems /short runway.

3. Wrong team (23%): Having a cohesive group of highly motivated, persistent, and diversely skilled people is crucial for startup success

4. Too much competition (19%): A second-mover advantage allows new competitors to quickly capture market share that you helped validate.

5. Pricing issues (18%): Figuring out how to price the product. 

6. Poor product (17%): founders sometimes release products that don’t fully appeal to customers.  

7. Business model (17%): Lacking a monetization strategy. Failing to find ways to scale. 

8. Ineffective marketing (14%): not understanding how to get one’s product into the hands of the target market.

9. Not customer-centric (14%): Many startups fail to obtain customer feedback and act on it.

10. Poor timing (13%): Airbnb’s success can be attributed to its impeccable timing, as it “came out right during the height of the recession when people really needed extra money. 

Conclusion:

The ancillary innovation process satisfies the demand of the scientific method by forcing the inventor to understand causation and disprove the null hypothesis of failure.  These ideals describe the role of the ancillary innovator.

The ability to assemble a specific combination of diverse knowledge assets deployed at the right time and the right place would not only mitigate risk, but if properly measured, would be able to quantify the value of risk mitigation in a tangible form that can be directly monetized.   

It is essential that the time required to deploy ancillary innovation is vastly decreased from current methods, systems, and institutions.  This is necessary in order to restore the natural and equitable intentions of the Patent system so that primary innovation can directly capitalize its own iterations. 

The Ingenesist Project is deploying our Blockchain Based Ancillary Innovation solution to important projects and institutions in the US. By making intangible assets tangible, ancillary innovation can be readily monetized therefore restoring the sustainable balance between technological change and economic growth.

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The Best Digital Currency

By

On March 26, 2015

In General Information

Nothing Economic happens until two or more people get together to make something useful.  This could be a house, a meal, a friendship, or an education. This has been true since the dawn of civilization and it is true more than ever today. Therefore, the best digital currency must facilitate and “account” for precisely this uniquely human activity – bringing people together in a useful way – not driving them apart. Everything else is a derivative.

The Best Digital Currency

Curiosumé is an analog to digital converter for knowledge assets. Curiosumé will rapidly scale and accelerate the matching and accounting for the best digital currency.  Everything else that would be needed already exists.  The working title of this currency is called Gen.  The asset that underwrites Gen is human productivity.

The difference between Gen and the dollar is that the dollar no longer represents human productivity.  Instead, it represents interest on debt, financial exotica, endless war, political influence, unsustainable consumption, etc.  These things are no longer useful to the majority of people.  As a result a lot of “economics” that should be happening, cannot happen. No current digital currency resolves that problem because they are all still derivatives of the dollar.

Gen is the digital currency of TIP (The Ingenesist Project).  Initially, Gen will act as the unit of account between technologists as they  trade Gen among themselves while collaborating on useful projects. For example, a mechanical designer would exchange Gen with a website developer to render a product to a community. Curiosumé resolves the dual coincidence restraint on traditional barter encounters.

As transactions become more complex, the Gen will begin to represent the generalized technological knowledge stored in infrastructure such as buildings, clean water, schools, and farms. Since these things are useful to a lot of people, those people would gladly accept Gen in exchange for their own useful non-technological services that they provide in a community.  In this way, everyone gets what they need using a currency that represents the utility of what they can produce together.

Economic incentives will be altered:

1. To produce useful things that people need.

2. To build high quality things that last a long time.

3. To preserve useful things for as long as possible,

4. To discard things and ideas that are not useful.

5. There is no incentive to cheat.

Don’t be fooled by crypto-hype, the best digital currency is between your ears and only you can hold the keys to that vault.

Curiosumé is an analog to digital converter for knowledge assets. The rest of the components can be found in technologies that already exist.  Let us know if you think that Curiosumé would be useful and we’ll build it together.

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An Analog To Digital Converter For Knowledge Assets

By

On January 21, 2015

In General Information

Curiosumé is an analog to digital converter for knowledge assets.

The single most destructive characteristic of the Market Capitalism is the dependence on resources extracted from the Earth to fuel constant economic growth. Natural resources are finite while constant growth model is infinite.  There are several ways to manage this disparity; the first is to expire Capitalism, the second is to base that dependence on an infinite resource. Given the shortcomings of most viable alternatives to Capitalism, the latter is likely more plausible than the former.

Many perils to society that manifest today have their beginnings in the thesis by Adam Smith called “The Wealth of Nations”. In this document Mr. Smith outlines the conditions of Capitalism where a merchant class would arise to efficiently allocate land, labor, and capital in various combinations in order to produce all of the useful things that society needs. The working class would hold the system in balance; too much growth would result in a shortage of labor that would constrain capital through higher wages (supply and demand). Government would be hardly necessary in a self-balancing system. Ironically, A great deal of innovation has arisen from the prospect of eliminating labor, which allowed growth to continue beyond the natural constraint.

Karl Marx identified the inevitable situation of constant struggle between the working class and the merchant class. One group strived for greater wages while the other strived to lower wages. From this struggle arose a spectrum of adjustments ranging from labor unions and calculated government regulations (Socialism) all the way to full State allocation of public resources (Communism). Herein lies the dawn of geopolitics and competing ideology.

It is fairly easy to see from this short history where hierarchy, competition, politics, exploitation, environmental crisis, and monetary corruption are intimately related. Today, these elements are enshrined in our culture in B-schools, sports, warfare, education, 2-party representation, etc. The result is that people are forced to compete with each other for jobs, money, food, water, air, education, civil liberties, etc.

But it does not have to be this way. A relatively simple modification to the existing paradigm can realign the economic incentives, and therefore social priorities, from consumption to preservation of our planet without necessarily triggering a collapse and subsequent reboot.

Consider the proverbial “basket of goods” – an economic standard used in a variety of analyses including Relative Price Index, Forex, Gross Domestic Product, etc.  The basket of goods consists of unit quantities of tangibles such as food, housing, energy, transportation, etc.  Now consider the human knowledge required to produce that same basket of goods. One can easily imagine economic standards articulated as either the tangible basket of goods or the intangible basket of goods. Both have the same outcome.

Yet, knowledge is an infinite resource that can underwrite so many more dimensions of human existence than a select basket of goods.  The problem is that there is no accounting system for intangibles as there is for tangibles. There is a reason for this – it is called control. Therefore, to create an accounting system for knowledge assets is to take control of productivity and the currency that represents it.  That is the evolution we ought to focus on.

This is a much simpler challenge than trying to solve every problem that our civilization faces individually. This is a much easier problem to solve than trying to change the minds of entrenched ideologies. This is a much easier problem than changing all the laws and institutions that exist to make the old game as fair as it can ever possibly be.  In fact, the solutions for our most complex problems as a civilization are stunningly simple to create.

Did I mention that Curiosumé is an analog to digital converter for knowledge assets?

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A Practical Guide to The Big Flip

By

On October 4, 2013

In General Information

We have an opportunity to propose a panel for one of the most important futurist financial summits in America, if not the World.  The Future Of Money and Technology Summit IV, brings together the brightest minds in financial technology innovation at the beautiful Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco.  This year’s event will be held December 9, 2013

***

Anyone can imagine the worst case scenario for economic collapse.  But we are interested in understanding the best case scenario for the diversification from fiat currency.  TIP loosely envisions a Big Flip; when so-called “intangibles” become the new “tangible”.

The Ingenesist Project is proposing the following panel for FOM&T

A Practical Guide to the Big Flip

The specter of economic calamity is rearing it’s ugly head once again, but for many, the end game came in 2008.  Innovators have spent the last 5 years developing new systems and methods to survive in a collaborative economy.  While community currencies are an excellent representation of material productivity, they are not readily convertible beyond small groups.  On the other hand, innovations such as Bitcoin are readily convertible globally, but are not necessarily backed by material human productivity. What if alternate economic systems used current or future generations of crypto currency to articulate community productivity? Could this combination finally solve the riddle of capitalization in non-fiat money?  Could this combination become the mother of all hedge funds during the Big Flip?  This panel will explore such frameworks for collaborative capitalism in the years to come. 

But We Need Your Help!!!

Please send us ideas about what new innovations have occurred since 2008 in response to the economic crisis – I’d like to mention them in the discussion.

Please send us ideas about what parts are still missing in order for an integrated alternate economy to emerge.

Please send us what innovations – if combined or in some way integrated – would serve a greater good than the sum of their parts.

Looking for fireworks.

There would be four panelists and myself as moderator. While we already have several people in mind, no commitments have been extended, so please also do let us know if you have anyone to suggest for this panel. We are looking for a MOST diverse group specifically targeting as many corners of the ideological spectrum as possible – in just 4 people. 

An amazing summiting experience

I have had the extraordinary opportunity of being invited to speak at FOM&T several times.  As a result, I have met some truly amazing people.  I have seen magnificent careers launched, international speaking opportunities arise, and we have found missing pieces in our own project – all at this magnificent event.  Many of my most trusted tech friends came from this conference. Of course, one relationship leads to another….and that is what is the Bg Flip is really all about.

THANK YOU!!

Please contact me through this site, or Twitter handle @ingenesist

 

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Look Who Is Stockpiling Knowledge

By

On November 15, 2012

In General Information

Preppers were once considered among the more radical fringes of American Society, but now they are coming up with some of the more interesting ideas in sustainability.

Suppose that some financial calamity were to bring the economy to a standstill,  would  your education, intellect, wisdom, civility, and knowledge evaporate along with it?  Of course not, but that is exactly the danger that we face.

The inability to access, coordinate, and deploy our vast endowment of American knowledge assets may be the cause, not the effect, of that proverbial breakdown in social institutions for which the Preppers prep.  

Why wait?

While today’s Preppers are busy stockpiling survival gear, food, water, ammo, fuel, and even gas masks, the rest of us should be asking “where are we stockpiling community knowledge?”  Who will keep the water clean?  Who knows how to restore electricity or grow food? Who knows how to protect citizens?  Who knows how to remove a set a broken bone? Who knows how to teach children to read? Who knows how to fix stuff?

The Sequestration of Knowledge

The greatest danger to human survival may be the corporate sequestration of knowledge assets.  For example; corporations hold “knowledge” behind trade secrets, arcane job titles, and rigid processes where nobody from the outside can ever find or apply it.  Obviously, a company without knowledge cannot produce anything so understandably – whether we realize it or not – our most productive knowledge assets are locked up pretty tight behind the guilded walls of Wall Street.   This is not anyone’s fault – it is just the way we are organized.

It is time to evolve.

On the surface, a company that makes airplanes and a company that makes electric cars have very little in common.  An airplane company could never hire an engineer from a car company (and vice versa) because the job descriptions, production processes, and definitions of responsibility are cut from entirely different performance regimes.  Yet, as far as the engineer is concerned, the methods, systems and techniques for creating, say, graphite composite structures, are identical everywhere on Earth. If many industry could share engineers, not only would a great deal of diversity of new ideas be exposed, but cyclical layoffs could be avoided.

The Knowledge Commons:

What if a central knowledge inventory would represent all skills, talents, passions, and intentions of a community?  What if companies were to index their own skills ontology to a public knowledge commons instead of isolating their workers to the silos of internal processes?  Employees and companies would be more mobile and collaborative instead of secluded, protective, and competitive.

Social Equity Swaps

Suppose that a community could analyze their knowledge commons such that people could swap jobs so that everyone worked in the most qualified job that was also closest to their own home?  Billions of dollars worth of productivity could be preserved, billions of dollars worth of infrastructure could be preserved, and billions of units of energy could be saved.  Worker retention would rise and community unity would improve.

Free Market Enterprise

Suppose a company could read the knowledge commons of a community and produce the things that a community is naturally talented and interested in producing?  Quality would improve and costs would be reduced.  Innovation would increase and strong community collaboration will discourage competitors.

Everyone is an entrepreneur

Suppose that people (and companies) could locate to areas where there is a known deficit (or surplus) in their particular interest and passion? Risk and financial volatility would be reduced where people know that they will have a prosperous and interesting career / workforce.  Population density could decrease as people and companies locate to rural settings.  Countless billions will be saved on infrastructure as food and energy production can coexist with enterprise centers.

How to change everything without changing anything

These are just a few of the advantages of having a knowledge commons that is open sourced and readily accessible to markets instead of sequestered knowledge assets that force people to question their ability to survive in the future economic environment.  The next several blog posts will specify a possible system and structure for a public knowledge commons.

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Evading The Antigen

By

On August 31, 2012

In General Information

Over the last 20 years or so, I have spoken all over the United States and many parts of the world about the idea that there may be a single and relatively easy way to correct very evasive flaw in market capitalism.

Fixing this flaw could correct many of the biases and divisions that plague relationships and communities in an otherwise functional social organization system.  The work of the Ingenesist project, of course, is precisely to correct the flaw.

From past experience, I always get one of three reactions to our work:

  1. Some people get it immediately, and engage deeply.
  2. Some people don’t get it and ignore completely,
  3. Some people attack it, sometimes dangerously.

I learn a great deal from each type of response.  In fact, the vast majority of ideas in the Ingenesist Project come from hundreds of brilliant people who have participated in one of these three ways.  The first two types are self-explanatory. This post is about the third type – I call them “the antigens”. As the term implies, when an Antigen perceive a threat to the existing body they react strongly to neutralize it.

The Flaw in Capitalism is well protected

The antigen is not just a person who disagrees with a fact or feature of our work.  They hold a deep visceral objection that is personal, emotional, physical and always disproportionate to the level, scope, or even the topic of conversation.

Much to our astonishment, the antigen is always someone who would be expected to embrace our work and ideas.

The problem, I have come to realize, stems from the suggestion that the Zertify knowledge inventory strategy seeks to increase the efficiency of matching the supply and demand of knowledge assets in a community. The antigen has a vested interest in this same goal and does not believe that there could or should be a better broker than themselves.

If it’s not Broker, don’t fix it

Several examples of antigens that we have encountered:

One was the economic development agency for a less developed country.  Our proposition was to present their engineers as world class quality.  They saw this as an emigration threat more than an off-shoring draw, and shut the program down.

One was a celebrity author and lecturer that champions the cause of the common man against the oppression of corporate tyranny.  This individual makes his living selling books, lectures, and endorsements. His scathing misinterpretation of our work hurt us badly.

Another recent  antigen was a person who runs an “accelerator” for start-up companies whose passion is to identify promising start-ups and match entrepreneurs to funding in the spirit of high tech titans of the past.  He saw us as a threat to his “God’s Eye” approach to the garden of money.

On the surface, it would seem that these people or entities would embrace a comprehensive knowledge inventory and machine enabled means of matching supply and demand for knowledge assets.  Instead, they saw us as a threat to their vested interests.

It’s not about right and wrong

The point of this article is not to make the antigen wrong about their response –  it is quite natural and we have all done it.  The Flaw in Market Capitalism is the antigen behavior/reaction itself – not the person demonstrating it.  Our challenge for the future will be to amplify mavens and community organizers to become better at connecting people in collaboration with each other while also identifying and redirecting the antigen response before it is activated.  Because once it emerges, it cannot be put back in the bottle.  

The corollary:

Those who would embrace this work likewise have little or no vested interest in “controlling” others and would therefore appear to be the least likely to accept our work.  So by definition, those who accept the ideas that we present are those who would perform well in such an environment.  This further demonstrates the counterintuitive nature of The Ingenesist Project.

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How To Overhaul GDP

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On June 20, 2012

In General Information

Self-imposed exile, or land of opportunity?

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) refers to the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a given period.  Simon Kuznets first developed the concept of the GDP for a US Congress report in 1934.  He immediately said not to use it as a measure for welfare. He later elaborated:

“Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.”

Sheer Madness at best

Today, the concept of Gross Domestic Product is vastly flawed to the point where the tail now wags the dog.  GDP now determines what we produce, who produces it, where it is produced, when and how it is produced.  Further, GDP snuffs out vast amounts of intangible value simply because it cannot be measured as GDP.

Global Policy is not enough

Recently, The G-20 meetings resolved to a very interesting point; to redefine GDP by a new set of metrics.  This will be a long hard journey if done solely in the political domain.   However, if we can make a business case for it, the entrepreneurs will jump on board.  Then, and only then, can the landscape change as rapidly and drastically as will be required to turn civilization around equitably and peacefully.

Corporate Policy is not enough

The irony is that those who perpetrate GDP metrics may be those who would benefit the most from dumping it.  In the following article from FastCompany, How Intangible Corporate Culture Creates Tangible Profits, companies who learn to transform intangible assets to tangible value become more competitive over companies that do not.  The article cites Southwest Airlines as the first airline to strip down all “tangible” amenities, yet they succeed by replacing them with intangible value such as superior customer experience.

Policy, Corporations, Culture and Entrepreneurs need to act as one:

Interestingly, the FastCompany article talks a great deal about culture.  They also use the terms; “information, knowledge, innovation, and wisdom” liberally throughout the text.  This is very inspiring to us at The Ingenesist Project because we use similar language to design and deploy business methods in industries as diverse as Aviation, Construction, and Philanthropy that readily convert between tangible and intangible value.

For Example:

  • The objective of Zertify is to replace the competitive incentives among communities and replace them with a knowledge inventory that matches mentors to protégé.  Teachers and students do not compete, they collaborate in order to be successful.
  • The Value Game creates an environment where one acting in the best interest of their collaborator, acts in their own best interest of value creation.
  • Our Exoquant algorithm provides a direct relatedness between information, knowledge, innovation, and wisdom.

The New Value Movement

When we talk about the New Value Movement, we are trying to specify a new class of business methods that can literally “manufacture” the things that people actually need without any distinction between tangible and intangible.  People need a game that they can win playing by the same set of rules. People need food as much as the need love – there is no walled garden of human needs, except the planet we share.

Then we can measure what people actually produce with it

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The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth

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On September 26, 2011

In General Information

Engineers are notoriously bad at organizing themselves – or maybe not. 

Engineers tend to stay to themselves and are rarely mentioned in the domains of media, politics, Hollywood, banking, medicine, or law.  Traditional engineering societies are weak and sparse.  Nobody even thinks about paying them royalties for the satellites that carry our smart phone signals.

Some say that Engineers can’t see the forest through the trees.  Others say that Engineers have little tolerance for banter, conjecture, diatribe and all the triviality of mixing with the rest of the world.  Yet, few can argue that Engineers are the ones we all need to show up every day to keep the water clean, the airplanes safe, the code logical, and the law enforceable.

Money is backed by productivity, otherwise, nobody would work for it – think about that for a moment. 

Why would anyone work for something that does not represent what he or she creates?   However, few people notice that productivity is the domain of engineering.  The machines that they create, the bridges that they build, the code they write, and the infrastructure they lay exists for the sole purpose of supporting human productivity.

Whose money is it?

So why are most engineers strangely silent in the emerging discussion about new economies, alternate currencies, and the New Value Movement?  Who are these people and why should we care about them?  I attended a lecture with Charlie Munger, CFO of Berkshire Hathaway who stated in reference to the Enron collapse “it’s bad enough when we lose the accounting profession, but dear God help us if we lose the Engineers”. Charlie cares.

We call them Geeks – but what is really going through their minds?   What would happen if they did organize – or are they already?  Where will they hide all the Value that bankers can’t find anymore? Or has the game already changed? Remember who inherited the hamlet of Hamelin.

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The Reality of Social Networking

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On April 6, 2011

In General Information

Nothing Economic can happen until people get together and build something, period.

Social Network services are not that.  Social media gives people the impression that they are getting stuff done – but they are not.  Nothing economic is happening on Linkedin or Facebook or Twitter.  Rather, the impact of these services is derived only from what people accomplish in reality.

Yet so many social media services sell advertising.  The objective of an advertising site is to keep you in your seat where you can view more advertising.  The objective of advertising as an industry is to influence you to do something other than what you already want to do.   Each of these things impacts people’s activities, and therefore, much of the crap that people share on social network services.

Race to the bottom

This self–depreciating cycle does not actually create very much nor does it arrive at anywhere interesting or important.  The content that keep people coming back to Social Networks is produced by a relatively few number of entertainers – people who separate themselves from consumption of the medium and instead produce content for consumption by the medium – instead of “For” the medium.  Again, the objective is to keep people in their seats watching more advertising.

Did I mention that nothing economic can happen until people get together and build something?

We are in the middle of creating a different type of social network in Social Flights.  We are billing it as “The Social Network where people actually do stuff” because the objective is to get people out into their community looking for other people who can help them build something.  We’re still experimenting so please be patient if it still seems a little clunky.

The Last Mile of Social Media

The idea is to form travel communities in relatively small geographical areas and enable them to share an airplane to anywhere where there is another travel community.  We call the The Last Mile of Social Media – empowering neighborhoods not Hollywoods.

There is no advertising on social flights; however, local vendors are encouraged to place discount coupons in direct response to a community travel objective.  There is no airline schedule because the objective is for people to share an asset – the airplane. This means that the passengers tell the plane where to fly and when, not the airline.

In the end, Social Flights rewards people, venders, and aircraft operators for interacting with their communities in real life and real time – instead of their computer screens in virtual time.  Now, the social network, laptop, or mobile device becomes a real productivity tool.

Back to economics:

Most logical people will ask “where do I get the money to travel to new places with new people?  The answer is simple: “That is precisely why you need to travel to new places to meet new people”

Nothing economic can happen until people get together and build something, for real.

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The Value Game Plays The Valley Game

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On February 26, 2011

In General Information

(The following is a draft of the unveiling presentation for The Value Game at The Future of Money and Technology Summit in San Francisco on February 28th 2011)

Hello;

The Ingenesist Project is developing a new class of business methods that convert social value into financial value, and vice versa.  The premise is that when people cooperate to do useful things, they can also create an amazing amount of social value.

Historically, we have seen how each of the great eras of human civilization was derived from the prior era when the tools of that prior era became integrated.  Like when the wheel, wedge, and pulley integrated to become the printing press.  Great social transformation followed.

So it is that integration of tools that we are most interested in.

Today, we can see this drama playing out across the Globe as people integrate the tools that were created over the last 30 years. People are reorganizing and in doing so they are directly challenging the power of financial currency with equally powerful social currency.

So it is inevitable that a conversion factor between social currency and financial currency will arise.  And that, we believe, will mark the next economic era.

So we developed something called The Value Game that we believe will help build the social infrastructure for the creation, storage, and exchange of social value.

The Value Game is a new class of business methods designed to specifically create social value.  The rules of the Value Game are very simple.  The Game Starts and Ends with money but all of the new value created in the game is denominated in Social Currency.

A Value Game is created by assembling 3 or more communities around a single shared asset in such a way that their interaction with each other relative to the asset creates social value.  In this form, social value can then be more readily converted to a financial value.

To demonstrate this, we helped launch a new company called Social Flights.  The objectives of Social Flights are to aggregate a large fleet of Private Turbine powered Aircraft and deploy them to the Social Graph instead of the Hub and Spoke system used by the Commercial Airlines.

The Shared Asset is the jet.  Player 1 is the traveler community.  Player 2 is the community of private aircraft operators. ,  Player 3 is the community of entrepreneurs at the flight destination.  The True Value Calculation compares the true door-to-door cost of using Social Flights versus other alternatives such as commercial airlines.

For example, flying between two smaller cities like Bellingham Washington and Vail, Colorado.  A Commercial flight would take close to 14 hours traveling through two hubs.  A fully utilized private flight would cost about twice as much but can make the flight in 3 hours.  So right off the bat, the True Value Calculation issues a par value between alternatives.  So if your time is worth less than, say, 70 dollars per hour, you are better off taking commercial airlines.  But if your time is worth more than 70 dollars per hour – for whatever reason – then you should take the private flight.

Now, a hotel in Vail may say – wow, here is a group of 10 people staying 5 days. They can divert advertising budget and issue a 100 dollar “discount coupon” to everyone in the group. Now the par value of the private flight is reduced to 60 dollars per hour. Next, Ski slopes, restaurants, bars, and services will deploy Coupons against the airplane lowering the par value toward closer to middle class incomes and certainly well within the business class of a commercial airline.

Things will get really interesting as people start gaming the game. The more demographic information that the traveler provides, the greater the likelihood that more and more vendors will issue them a discount coupon – which they can even resell on Craigslist.

In effect, why would someone let Facebook sell their information when people can sell it their selves?  Why would vendors pay for advertising when they can find the perfect customers directly?  Why would a manufacturer pay a retailer when the community can sell it for them?   Here we see a great deal of financial value can also be articulated in a Value Game.

Theoretically, we could build a Value Game around any shared asset from zip cars, public infrastructure, energy production, education, natural resources, even the totality of human knowledge, etc.

But for now, let me introduce Allen Howell, Chairman of Social Flights who will discuss how this new business method is developing in practice.

Social Flights should be very interesting to many of the people here because it integrates several of the hottest properties in the Valley; Travel, Coupons, Gaming, and Social Media.  Each of these communities have seen astonishing valuations lately so it will be interesting to see what happens when they, in fact, become integrated.

So please welcome Allen and I can take questions while he sets up.

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The Innovation Banker

By

On September 22, 2010

In General Information

Future of Banking

When I use the term “Innovation Bank”, people conjure up the image of a cheery place where anticipation reigns as starry eyed depositors arrange their intellectual property in neat cubby boxes, Patents fly like cash register receipts and companies troll the halls looking for a cure for their bottom line blues.

This is not exactly what we have in mind, nor is it too far off either. An innovation Bank is simply a knowledge inventory that contains knowledge assets that exists in the format of a financial instrument and can be deployed for the purposes of increasing productivity.  In the process, it makes 10X more of itself every time it is deployed.  It mints its own money.

The Innovation Banker

This is not much different than a financial bank. In fact, in the financial bank, everyone assumes the borrower has the knowledge to execute the business plan and the bank lends the money. Oh, by the way, the money makes more of itself  10X over (fractional reserve system) every time it is deployed.

With the innovation bank, everyone assumes the entrepreneur has the money to execute the plan, and the seek to borrow the knowledge. Other than that, they can be considered identical. The key is in the scope, depth, and format in which the knowledge assets live in a community as well as the ability to track and preserve the creation of new knowledge in a community.  An innovation banker is a knowledge banker

A Virtuous Circle

Together with the financial banking, these two system engage in the dance of the virtuous circle of innovation enterprise. Apart, they collapse into the swirling cesspool of eternal debt and infinite interest (pun intended).

Ingenesist.com

Music by Phil Felicia

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Non Quantifiable Exchanges

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On April 29, 2010

In General Information

I had a personal breakthrough recently at the Future of Money and Technology Summit. I sat on an excellent Panel discussing non-quantifiable exchanges for an audience of about 70-80 very intelligent people.

Non Quantifiable Exchanges
Moderator: Tara Hunt, The Whuffie Factor
Chris Heuer, Social Media Club
Dan Robles, The Ingenesist Project
Micki Krimmel, NeighborGoods

I will write a post for each of these incredible panelists in the near future because each are building out the infrastructure of the new economy just by doing what they like to do most.  Soon everyone will be doing the same.

My experience

For one hour, we engaged in a remarkable conversation together. For me, it was a watershed event – I grew personally, socially, and intellectually.

Throughout the 16-year history of The Ingenesist Project, my challenge has always been to explain and demonstrate how the simple act of a conversation among informed people does, in fact, create value in a process that extends back to an intensely complicated production system. The value contained, stored, and exchanged by people is a direct result of their accumulated past and the interaction with their own environment. Until this summit – those two ends would rarely meet.

For example:

Reaching into your wallet and pulling out a dollar bill to purchase a can of tuna fish may seem like a very simple transaction. It is, in fact, intensely complicated from the funding of the fishing vessel, compliance with international law, packaging and distribution, all the way to the creation of the dollar in your wallet amplified through the miracles of the fractional reserve system. It is deeply complicated.

When we bite into our tuna sandwich, we take this complexity for granted. We are in fact, consuming the strenuous articulation of a financial system disguised as the simplicity of the checkout stand, the application of mayonnaise, and aroma of toasted wheat bread.

Similarly, for any meaningful conversation, the events prior and the effects after the conversation, for bettor or worse, reinforce the system through which future conversations will be shared.

While it would have been inappropriate to deep dive on this panel – I was able to transact effectively in this conversational currency system. I was able to come closer to communicating this comparison between the financial transaction and the knowledge transaction in a public forum than likely ever before. For this, I am deeply grateful.

No matter how you slice it:

1. The vast majority of value of an exchange has a history far greater, and future effect far longer lasting, than the transaction itself.

2. When the production systems become more integrated with markets value is created, huge shifts in value can be transferred.

3. Conversation is currency

This, I believe is the future of money and technology

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Future of Money and Technology Summit

By

On April 23, 2010

In General Information

I was invited to present at the Future of Money and Technology Summit in San Francisco on Monday April 26. Representing The Ingenesist Project, I’ll be seated on a panel with two very important futurists; Chris Heuer and Micki Krimmel discussing non-quantifiable exchanges. The ever esteemed and respectable Ms. Tara Hunt will be moderating the session.

From the FMTS website:

The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution providers, service providers, and organizations who work with them at the convergence of cash and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving money ecosystem in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment.

What I find especially interesting is the incredible collection of technologies for the storage of value and the amazing group of entrepreneurs corresponding to the exchange of value in future markets. The definition of currency is something that is used as a medium for the storage and exchange of valuable. As such, it would be quite the understatement that the FMTS will be a valuable experience.

A great deal of thought, planning, and money has gone into these ventures and now they are together in one room. This can only be attributed to the increasing inability of the current financial system to function as an equitable means to store and exchange value that drives entrepreneurs to new conclusions.

When I witnessed the Mexican Devaluation, the social reaction was to empty out the local WalMart. Those “goods” such as clothing, appliances, and furnishings became an intermediate currency that stored the prior day’s peso value for exchange with tomorrow’s market. The same is true for most financial crises with significant devaluation events in recent history.

The clear and present difference is Social Media.

We now see people busy at work to replace the old currency with improved systems and tools for the storage and exchange of value before the actual calamity arrives. In effect, the new systems are hedging the old one.

It will take many years for the implications and importance of events such as the Future of Money and Technology Summit to make it into the case studies of the major B-school curricula. Ironically, that does not mean that real history is not being made – or shall I say, old history is not being re-made.

So please consider joining us at the conference (details). If you are attending, please, please, please, find me and let’s talk about everything. As always, thank you dear reader because ultimately you are the only reason that people want to talk to me 🙂

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What is the Secret Sauce of Innovation?

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On February 16, 2010

In General Information

Most studies on Innovation study the to 99th percentile human in the hope of discovering the “secret sauce” of wealth creation. One such study identifies 5 discovery skills and conclude that the top innovators are also in the top percentile for all these skills. What a surprise that the top university would conclude that they – and people like them – were the secret sauce of all wealth creation.

But what about the rest of the world? What about the individuals and teams of people who actually carry out the plans of those great people? Are they relegated to the footnotes or is there a way for two or more people to simulate the attributes of a 99th percentile person?

This video argues that a 6th discovery skill is the ability to recognize one’s weaknesses AND the strengths of another person. This takes humility and an knowledge inventory of one’s community. Given the ubiquitousness of the persistent economic crisis, ostensibly managed by those paragons of intellect, the masters of the 5 discovery skills – we may need a new way of building so-called “consensus” about what innovation is and who the innovators are.

(I did fail to point out in this discussion that the ability to network with similar people is a distinctly different than the ability to network with dissimilar people. As such, the 5th discovery skill and the 6th are distinct)

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Social Currency And The Innovation Bank

By

On February 13, 2010

In General Information

The real estate market is trashed, money markets are unstable, commodities are in the tank, the banking system is corrupted to the core, inflation is looming around every corner, and the politicians are engorging themselves in a game of Cerebral Gridlock.

Literally, there is no safe place to put your money. Instead, people are investing their productivity in social media – social media is simply a storage device for knowledge assets. Soon it will become a stock exchange for knowledge assets. Investors should not take this lightly – the best place to store your money is in the real productivity of real people.

People are trading knowledge assets in social media. This exchange is denominated by a conversational currency. If we consider the structure of conversations and compare that to both the structure of social networks AND the structure of our financial system, we see a huge opportunity to develop an alternate financial system that can capitalize and securitize knowledge assets in social media.

Ingenesist.com

Music by Phil Felicia

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A Community of Knowledge Assets

By

On February 11, 2010

In General Information

Our culture organizes itself around winners and losers. Corporations reflect this competitive nature to the core of their Capitalist doctrine. Sports analogies abound across the enterprise straight through to the HR department always on the lookout for the most amount of superstar for the least amount of money.

Social media has every industry trying to understand the concept of community. Among the most difficult ideas to grasp is that knowledge assets in a community live on a bell curve, not in winner and loser columns. Everyone is an expert at something and nobody is an expert at everything. Someone who is not performing adequately is simply a misallocated asset, not flotsam subject to jettison at the next layoff or outsource “opportunity”.

A Community of Knowledge Assets

Like most assets, there is a perfectly legitimate market for everyone in a community – nobody need be excluded, marginalized or laid off. Social Media is turning the tables on the hierarchy and old winners who don’t play by the new rules quickly become the new losers. Maybe we ought to run our economy like a community instead of losing so badly at trying to be a winner.

A Community of Knowledge Assets

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Social Media as a Vetting Mechanism

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On February 9, 2010

In General Information

Where the vetting mechanism fails, the system fails. This has happened in countless instances from the current financial crisis to nearly every product, market, environmental calamity, or political failure in recorded history – the referees who were supposed to keep their eye on the ball, did not. Likewise, where a vetting mechanism is effective, the system is efficient.

EBay does little more than defend the vetting mechanism (feedback system) and entrepreneurs do the rest. The credit score allows companies and people to capitalize and securitize assets. The US legal system keeps the game of commerce as fair as practical. Police officers and school boards keep our society safe and smart. We often overlook the importance of vetting in our communities.

Today, we find severe problems in finance and government and people are investing their knowledge assets in social media as the place to “store and exchange” their present and future productivity – instead of debt. As such, social vetting is taking many different forms to validate, qualify, and quantify those assets.

While the progression may not be noticeable, there will be a tipping point where the medium has built enough trust that it can support a currency. This new currency needs to be only a little bit more “trustworthy” than the currency it will replace. This is the point where knowledge becomes tangible.

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Where is The Knowledge Inventory?

By

On January 30, 2010

In General Information

There is no knowledge inventory of our communities. The is a STUNNING omission for a country whose only hope at climbing out of economic hardship is sequestered within the innovative minds of its people.

If done correctly, knowledge can behave as an asset of trade. This must first start with a comprehensive knowledge inventory. Like the human genome project, the knowledge inventory project must be a sustained effort.

Link to specification document

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Open Letter to all Deep Web Researchers

By

On December 12, 2009

In General Information

This Open Letter is directed to all Deep Web researchers, authors, developers, practitioners and people who have a great interest in what lies beyond the popularity contests playing out on the ‘surface web’.

I submit this letter in appreciation for the work that you do I also want to present an important application to your research for which you may not yet be fully aware.

As they say, beauty is only skin deep and the hard work of organizing the Deep Web offers an astonishing opportunity for the next economic paradigm. Very few people are aware of this.

Who are we?

I am the director of The Ingenesist Project, an obscure Think Tank in the Seattle area modestly funded by visionaries. Our job is to specify an alternate financial system that we loosely describe as an innovation economy built on a platform of social media.

Consequently, we also specify a new currency backed by innovation instead of debt. Innovation currency is very similar to debt currency since they both ‘represent’ future productivity. As such, these two currencies would be readily “convertible” in exchange – something that we all may need in the not-too-distant future.

Where do you fit in?

Essential to this concept is the relationship between data, information, knowledge, and innovation which we express as a differential equation. Here is a quick explanation – please bear with me:

We can predict the value of innovation by observing rates of change of knowledge. We can predict the value of knowledge by observing rates of change of information. But the most critical element is the ability to predict the value of information by observing rates of change of data. The most critical element in the next economic paradigm is the human interaction with data.

With that missing piece, a new financial system can then capitalize and securitize these “predicted future values” much like Wall Street does with social debt. Deep Web Researchers literally hold the key to ending the oppression of debt economics worldwide. No kidding.

What’s in it for you?

This is where your work gets us really excited: Google induced economic incentives that drove millions of entrepreneurs into the work of creating new information – and yet direct widespread monetization remains elusive. In contrast, human interaction with the Deep Web will unleash economic incentives that will drive millions of entrepreneurs to create databases. The difference is that new Data are the only thing that a market is willing to pay for – not the popularity contests. And wow, is there a market waiting for you.

I understand that you are all very busy given the magnitude and complexity of your work. If this letter speaks to you, then please speak with me. Let’s discuss how your work would be applied to this very important effort. I’m easy to find in the datasphere.

Thank you

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Gross National Happiness

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On December 7, 2009

In General Information

Continuing our series on the Search for the Next Economic Paradigm, we feature an unlikely authority on Economic development. The Gross National Happiness Metric hails from the Himalayan country of Bhutan listed by the UN as a “Least Developed Country”.

The linked presentation below reports on the GNH (Gross National Happiness) conference. Yes, people are getting together for an annual GNH conference just like the famed GNP (Gross Domestic Product) conferences elsewhere.

Hypothesis: Paradigm shift related to global societal development

• ‘Economic growth’ as the dominating paradigm of ‘progress’ is increasingly under challenge
• Growth of GDP is unsustainable and does not lead to more happiness
• We are in a process of Redefining Progress and Global Transformation
• Needed: Multi-stakeholder, multi-cultural and intradisciplinary as well as participatory public support networks for an emerging new development paradigm

The Production of Happiness

Read More

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The Social Media Paradox

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On December 2, 2009

In General Information

The very nature of the traditional corporation is called to question by the Social Media Paradox:

Definition (by me):

Social Media Paradox: The degree to which the act of engaging in the social media paradigm reduces one’s ability to engage in the pre-social media paradigm; and vice versa.

Success in social media requires humility, authenticity and commitment to the medium.  Like a tattoo, that impression defines the person and is not easily removed – after all, everyone’s got to have some skin in the game.

Social media rewards people for doing what they are best at and saying what they feel to be most true. Furthermore, brands need to trust their employees to represent them – this means that they need to give up control of the message.  The more they try to control the message, the less effective they are in a social medium.

Sounds like a great idea, but is it practical?

Many people still need to work for a living often find ourselves at the mercy of corporations for an actual paycheck.  Social Media provides a free source of reference material on a new candidate.  If a person is seen as edgy, ‘counter culture’, or defiant by any number of risk averse HR gatekeepers, one’s “old-paradigm” employability can be affected.  The subtle irony that the those who best understand the medium can make themselves unemployable as a result.

The opposite is also true:

Read More

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When Capitalists Are Really the Socialists

By

On November 7, 2009

In General Information

Yikes…

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

Mediated Reality:

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

Read More

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Building a Better Entrepreneur; Google 10^100

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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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The New Reverse World Order

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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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