The Ingenesist Project

The Next Economic Paradigm

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The Tip of the Iceberg

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On September 20, 2023

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The Invisible Economy:

Nobel Laureate Dr. Robert Solow calculated that 80% of economic growth can be attributed to technological change. This is the domain of engineers, scientists, and technologists. Accordingly, knowledge assets and their derivatives are not actually “intangible” but rather, they are simply invisible and unable to be measured directly. Like the proverbial “tip of the iceberg” the visible part of the economy is supported by the invisible assets below the surface.

True to form, emerging technology now offers us the ability to quantify this vast reservoir of value. We now have the opportunity to unlock an economy many times larger than the one we currently grapple with – the one in which there is “never enough money” to care for our planet and meet the needs of our civilization.

The Innovation Bank:

The Innovation Bank utilizes game mechanics, blockchain technology, and Artificial Intelligence to measure the natural interactions of engineers, scientists, and technologists within a simulation representing this hidden economy. Novel Financial Instruments may then represent this new value.

What is an Ingenesist?

A “Capitalist” is a person who uses money to invest in trade and industry for profit. An “Ingenesist” is a person who uses ingenuity to invest in trade and industry for profit. Both operate in tandem to arrive at optimal solutions to market requirements.

Join Us:

The Ingenesist Project comprises the collective vision, intellect, and creativity of more than 250 engineers, scientists, and technologists who have collaborated across various industries over the past 30 years as a non-profit research and governance organization.

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The New Definition Of Social Capitalism

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On July 22, 2014

In General Information

About 3 months ago, I received a cryptic email from what sounded like a war-weary Wikipedia Editor pinned down in the trenches by enemy cross-fire.  His message was stark;  Wikipedia will delete “Social Capitalism”, you are in the best position to save it”.

Since the dawn of Social Media, many people in the Social Capital domain, including myself, had been contributing references, material, ideas, and theoretical constructs to the doomed Wikipedia article in naive optimism that Social Capitalism may indeed be a new form of social organization.  So, upon receiving the desperate plea from the front lines of Wikipedia D-day, I jumped in and submitted argument after argument to an already formidable defense deploring the powerful Wikipedia Editors to preserve the article, the idea, the possibility…

But alas, we failed.  Perhaps we did not have proper academic credentials. Maybe we were not widely cited by important people. Our oppressors eventually provided a weak explanation related to social systems and economics, etc., but in retrospect, I think the real problem was that we were trying to define something that did not yet exist despite nearly 30 million Google search returns.

I have to admit that I agree with the Wikipedia editors. In reviewing that experience recently, I turned to the definition for “Capitalism (disambiguation)” in Wikipedia:

Wikipedia defines Capitalism as an “economic and social system in which the means of production are privately controlled”. 

Factors of Production (from classical economics) are presumed to be something like “land, labor, and capital”.  Now, consider that modern day factors of production are increasingly cited as: “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and Creative Capital” of people and their relationships.  After all, these are the assets that are deployed in order to produce the proverbial “basket of goods” upon which most global currencies are compared.  

This is not trivial. Since these modern factors of production exist between the ears of each individual person, they are, by definition “privately controlled” and readily exchanged for economic outcomes among people in social networks.

If the US Supreme Court agrees that corporations are people, then it is equally valid that people are corporations too. Taken together:

Social Capitalism refers to the economic and social system in which the means of production are social, creative, and intellectual assets.  

However, (and a big however), in order for Social Capitalism to become the dominant form of social organization, quite literally, society must reorganize itself to account for exchange and trade of intangibles. Then, all the decentralized innovations that we call the “Social Capital Domain” can integrate, unify, and dominate. Everything will change.

SEE: Reorganizing For The Era Of Social Capitalism

Perhaps then we’ll finally have a Wikipedia article for Social Capitalism like those clear, present, and magnificently organized warriors behind such economic facts as  Corporate Personhood.

 

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New Value Movement Session Primer

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On August 4, 2012

In General Information

Thank you for participating in the New Value Movement discussions.

I have compiled this post to help our panelists refresh the basics of The New Value Movement. This is the body of content that we are trying to improve:

If you find them difficult to follow, then that is what needs improvement.  I’ll do a quick review at the sessions as well.

We need to tell an epic story.

New Value Movement Session Primer – Total viewing time is about 33 minutes.

***

SIBOS 2011 (6:39 minutes)  this video is the Launch presentation for the NVM delivered to financial industry professional at SIBOS Innotribe sessions in Toronto 2011.  It introduces ideas corresponding to the Zertify, Gamidox, and Exoquant applications.

****

This next video describes The Knowledge Asset Inventory (5:30 Minutes) and corresponds to the Zertify Application concept.  However, the actual methodology is masked and I have not published this openly the web – this is the only secret we keep at this point. The actual methodology will be revealed at the session.

***

The next video describes The Value Game; a system for accounting for new value (12:17 minutes); and corresponds to the Gamidox application. This was originally used to launch a start-up called Social Flights. However, there are several layers of informative examples in this video.

Next: The algorithm for monetizing (making tangible) of intangible value is described in the video below (5:30 minutes) and corresponds to the Exoquant Application.

Finally; predictions 2020 begins to lay out the scope of influence that alternate economics may have if done correctly. As such, this video (3:30 minutes) suggests the scope of audience that the New Value Movement narrative should access.

Again, thank you for your time, effort, experience, and intellect participating on this panel. Dear regular blog readers: please continue to leave comments or connect with me to get involved with the New Value Movement.

New Value Movement Session Primer

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With Respect To Time

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On May 18, 2012

In General Information

Yesterday’s post “This is what I believe” I make the following 4 statements:

  • Information is proportional to the rate of change of data with respect to time
  • Knowledge is proportional to the rate of change of information with respect to time
  • Innovation is proportional to the rate of change of  knowledge with respect to time
  • Wisdom is proportional to the rate of change of innovation with respect to time

In clinical terms, this is called a “Differential Equation”

I always get a lot of questions about these.  Most people’s eyes glaze over as their expression goes blank with far off images of high school Calculus class.  Few people realize that these relationships are so common and so intuitive that we are all  performing “Calculus” in many of their thoughts, words, actions, opinions, observations, and conclusions about the world around us.

But, just in case there is any doubt about the pervasiveness of differential equations in our culture and thinking, listen to the experts:

***

“Move fast and break things” – Mark Zuckerberg

The idea here is that it’s OK to fail because this is how learning happens (rate of change of knowledge) but make sure you do it fast (with respect to time) because the objective is to innovate, not to not make mistakes.

honor your creativity and you don’t ever ignore it or go against what that creative image is telling you. – Lady Gaga

Here she is referring to the proportionality component of creativity. The magnitude of the inspiration (rate of change of one’s knowledge of a matter) is greater than all other thinking moments, but it is constrained in time (with respect to time).

“The Googly thing is to launch [products] early on Google Labs and then iterate, – Merissa Mayer, Google VP

Marissa is talking about Wisdom.  While innovation is proportional to the rate of change of knowledge, wisdom is proportional to the rate of change of innovation.  The speed at which Google can innovate is how Google creates wisdom of what to do next.

***

Here are a few more. See if you can spot the differential equation:

“What Mark worries about the most is the lack of change, the lack of innovation” – Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook

“Every new thing creates two new questions and two new opportunities.”– Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com

“It’s always about timing. If it’s too soon, no one understands. If it’s too late, everyone’s forgotten.’” – Anna Wintour, Editor in Chief, Vogue Magazine

“All technology starts as a spark in someone’s brain”. – Nathan Myhrvold, Intellectual Ventures (hint: sparks travel at the speed of light)

“As people innovate and learn faster, they help generate new ways of performance improvements for everyone while progressing toward their own higher goals” – John Hagel, The Big Shift

Differential Equations are used to describe a vast array of phenomena in our physical universe.

These include the the forces of particles in motion, diffusion of medicine through cell walls, the decay of radioactive substances, and effects of gravity on bodies, weather, energy, chemical reactions, even the creation of money itself.  It should not be a shock then that bankers, CEOs, politicians, and all “investors” are not actually concerned with money, they are concerned with the rate of change of money with respect to time.

The question now becomes, why would their NOT be an algorithm for human values of knowledge, innovation, and wisdom when there is an algorithm for everything else with respect to time.  

Additional information can be fount here: Exoquant; an algorithm for Social Capitalism 

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This Is What I Believe

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On May 17, 2012

In General Information

  1. There is a tiny flaw in Market Capitalism that can be easily corrected
  2. Technological change must always precede economic growth; we are going about the process of globalization as if economic growth can precede technological change.  We got it upside down, that’s all.
  3. Anything that can be made by allocating scarce land, labor, and financial capital can also be made by allocating abundant social, creative, and intellectual capital.
  4. For every dollar of tangible value, there is at least 100 dollars worth of  ‘intangible’ value that is really just ‘invisible’.
  5. The global debt is trivial in comparison to the invisible value that exists with no accounting system to represent it.
  6. There should be no economic incentive for anyone to make anything other than what they are most talented, interested, and passionate about.
  7. Nobody knows everything.
  8. Everybody knows something they can teach any other person.
  9. Students, by definition, hold an equity position in their teachers.
  10. Therefore, teachers should hold an equity position in their students – this will fix a lot of things.
  11. Nothing economic happens until two or more people get together and build something.
  12. Competition is over rated.
  13. Collaboration is under rated.
  14. All monetary things are valuable but not all valuable things are monetary.
  15. There is a perfectly legitimate market for everyone.
  16. A new currency will be the last thing that happens, not the first.
  17. You can’t eat Gold
  18. Information is proportional to the rate of change of data with respect to time.
  19. Knowledge is proportional to the rate of change of information with respect to time.
  20. Innovation is proportional to the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time.
  21. Wisdom is proportional to the rate of change of innovation with respect to time.
  22. If you want to create wisdom, go increase the rate of change of innovation.  If you want to create innovation, go increase the rate of change of knowledge, etc. Now, flip over the series 15-18 above.  See, you’ll do just fine.
  23. Money represents past, present, or future productivity – otherwise nobody would work for it (think about that ).
  24. Therefore, a currency backed by debt and a currency backed by innovation would become the mother of all hedge funds.
  25. Securitization is a miracle of scale if done correctly, a disaster of scale if not
  26. Time is the only valid basis of a currency.
  27. My singular objective and greatest aspiration is to make “intangible” value tangible.  I am confident that my children – and yours – will know what to do next.
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Ideas Are The New Currency

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On December 20, 2011

In General Information

‘Tis the season for “The Year In Pictures” – the annual new year pictorial accounting of the events of the outgoing year.  Any rational collection for 2011 would include three events; Arab Spring, The Earthquake / Tsunami in Japan, and Occupy Wall Street. These three events eclipsed the Royal Wedding, Steve Jobs, the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the space shuttle retirement and even the end of the war in Iraq.

These three events tell a very interesting story of who we are and where we are going as a civilization.  

Classical economists such as David Ricardo and Adam Smith brought us the idea that a merchant class allocates land, labor, and capital in various combinations as “the factors of production” that match supply and demand for all that societies need via the invisible hand of market capitalism.

Yet, in a single hour, land, labor, and billions of units of Capital were wiped off the surface of the Earth by in Japan.   While we see the images of total destruction, there are hundreds of square miles that were untouched and where all seems quite normal – except for that invisible hand of radioactive cesium.  Land, labor, and capital failed as a an economic cornerstone for all those who had once called this land home.

In the Middle East, with few jobs and even fewer opportunities for youth, the quaint notion of “land and labor allocations” crumbled under the forces of people with mobile access to dynamic data, free information, community knowledge, innovation, and wisdom. Governments, with no relative shortage of money, were unable to challenge the opposing factors.  Again, the idea of land, labor, and capital as the economic cornerstone had failed.

Quite appropriately, Occupy Wall Street was executed on borrowed land, with borrowed labor, and borrowed capital.   The operation was peaceful so nobody died. The stock market did not even crash.  Politicians went largely unscathed and the attorneys stayed in their collective offices. Nothing physical was actually created, and therefore, nothing physical was actually destroyed.  However, a great deal was produced.

All three of these events had something in common – they all produced something very tangible.  They all produced an idea in the minds of others.

As we review the year we review it is increasingly evident that land, labor, and capital are inadequate to articulate what people actually produce.  It will be through these shortcomings of classical economics that a new economy will form.  The degree to which society actually produces the things that society actually needs, this new economy should not look much different.  The degree to which society does not actually need the things that capitalism produces, great new ideas will emerge.

What was once the land of opportunity can now become a planet of opportunity.

Photo Credit: David Shankbone via Mashable 

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Supply and Demand for Knowledge Assets

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On October 12, 2011

In General Information

If we follow the Wall Street accounting model, the supply and demand for knowledge assets are cast against the factors of production; land, labor, and capital.  The typical corporate human resource department looks to the community for labor units within commuting distance to a factory, and who are willing to rent their time in exchange a minimum amount of money.

But Land is Obsolete

Technology has made the idea of “land” as a factor of production almost obsolete.  Knowledge assets travel over the Internet and can be deployed and organized in many ways across long distances without a factory.  Indeed there are server farms and automation houses where things are made if needed – but these are hardly factors of production as they once were.

What exactly is a Labor unit again?

Machines have replaced much of what we once called “labor”.  I am sitting at Starbucks where a smiling robot is the only thing missing from the age of automated lattes.  The social, creative, and intellectual capital required to create, design, maintain, and serve the technology is what ushers us into the knowledge economy and the associated innovation economy.

Capital is arbitrary

Everyone knows that money is created out of thin air when someone allocates their future productivity to the bankers balance sheet in exchange for a place to sleep.  When this game loses its entertainment value, “capital” as a factor of production will also become obsolete.

The Supply and Demand for Knowledge Assets:

Knowledge assets are deployed by teachers and replicated by student.  Teachers represent the supply of knowledge and students represent the demand for knowledge.  In between these two extremes are collaborations – that is, varying combinations of teaching and learning that ultimately results in a productive outcome such as a latte, automobile, or computer program.

If we sample a population of knowledge assets across some geographic area (Land) we would expect to find something that looks like a bell curve.

If the bell curve has a different shape, this tells us what things can be made and what things cannot (Labor).

So when people allocate their own productivity, they are in effect assigning their productivity to a community balance sheet (Capital).  They are saying “this is what we are willing to make because we have the freedom, liberty, and we intion to pursue our happiness”.

Hardly a Wall Street model.

The result is that the social, creative, and intellectual assets of people must now replace Land, Labor, and Capital as factors of production in the new value economy.  Trying to produce anything less would be inefficient in a Capitalist system – perhaps some may have noticed as much lately.

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A Better Way To Occupy Wall Street

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On October 10, 2011

In General Information

What if I told you that we could occupy Wall Street without actually camping out there?  In case you have not noticed, Wall Street occupies your house without you ever seeing any suits milling around your driveway.  So what’s the plan?

In the Age of The Internet, redistribution of wealth should not be a very difficult thing to do, yet the approach is surprisingly low-tech.  Just look at the pictures; if this is going to be our approach, then we’re in deep trouble.

Here’s the trick. Wall Street is built on a foundation where the factors of production are land, labor, and capital.  All we need to do is shift the factors of production to something else. We don’t actually need to shift Wall Street, we need to shift ourselves.

The reality is that the today’s economy is built on social, creative, and intellectual factors of production – these are the factors of production of that so-called 99% of the value of our economy.  It’s a knowledge economy, remember?

Now, notice how land and labor are constrained by geography, property laws, political districts, and “national borders”. Also notice that the accounting system (capital) is as anonymous as possible, if not shrouded in secrecy.  Do you remember how Steve Jobs told us that it’s OK to copy good ideas?

First, we need to build a knowledge inventory of all the useful stuff in our brains and integrated by geographic proximity so we all can find each other.  This is how we’ll mimic land and labor.  Next, the knowledge inventory must be anonymous until the point of transaction – this is not for privacy concerns, rather, we need to do this to create scarcity (nothing personal, Zuck).  This is how we mimic “capital”.

At the end of the day, your knowledge inventory is your personal API – you create your own value and integrate with others or withhold it as you wish…just like Wall Street. Of course, everyone would then need to become a corporation so that we can pay our fair share of taxes (but not a penny more). That’s code for “too big to fail”.

Have you forgotten about Wall Street yet?  If so, it’s not too early to coin the term APIcracy.

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What Is An Ingenesist?

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On December 22, 2010

In General Information

Eric Rosenblith 1920-2010

I have been putting off writing this blog post until I could find a simple answer to the question “What is an Ingenesist?”.  I invented the term “Ingenesist” to capture the creative, intellectual and social nature of human ingenuity without falling back on current definitions and the silos that perpetuate them. Something has gone wrong with the world and the solution could not be found in the current world view – I needed a new word for my work.

Ingenesist comes from the Latin (ingeniare), French (ingénieur), and Spanish (ingeniero) word for Engineer.  These words, of course, were created long before an engineer was defined by such alphabet soup as BSME. MSCE, IEEE, ABET, NCEES, EIT, PE, etc…  The term ‘Ingenesist’ was meant to represent people whose ideas and actions increase the productivity of other people.

A friend of mine lost his dad yesterday.  I read the obituary and could not help but realize that this person lived through what were likely the darkest and the brightest hours of modern human civilization.  He was an artist and a teacher.

Then I hit the quote in Mr. Rosenblith’s obituary:

“We truly need to be thinkers, poets, painters, engineers, and philosophers.’’ – Eric Rosenblith

And that is how I found my simple answer.  With humility and simplicity, he captured the creative, intellectual and social nature of human ingenuity. The least I could do was finally write this blog post.

My sincere condolences to Alan and his family.  Please support the Symbionomics Project on Kickstarter

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Symbionomics And The Space Between Things

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On November 18, 2010

In General Information

Each stage of economic development in human history was derived from the prior stage by integrating the tools developed in that prior stage; The agrarian era, the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, the information era, the knowledge economy all followed this pattern.

Whatever happens next will be extremely interesting.

Today we are rapidly emerging era of human history where there is great cause for optimism. The tools developed from the Knowledge economy are truly remarkable.  For the first time in modern history, Value is not represented by things, it is represented by the space between things.

Symbionomics

The Symbionomics project is produced by world class film maker Alan Rosenblith and visionary Sustainable Community Developer, Jay Standish.  Their objective is to reveal the next great truism in the context of human economic systems. Please watch the following trailer and please support this essential project.  The hardest secret to keep is the truth.

LandingPage from alan rosenblith on Vimeo.

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Death By Résumé

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On September 19, 2010

In General Information

Résumé: A French word for separating the body from the brain

We are entering a renewal in the work force. The global imperative is for the United States to become an innovation economy now. This is an entirely different animal than the Industrial revolution; I have long argued that the résumé system is by far the most archaic knowledge management “currency” of trade in use today.

The entire premise of the résumé is destitute, if not destructive, in the modern world. Words on a computer screen are a very low level ‘media form’ being used to describe a very high ‘media form’; social, creative, and intellectual capital. It’s like using crayons to design an aircraft.

If the key words are so important, why have any other words?

A manager always hires people that remind them of themselves. They estimate the future success of a candidate based on their own limited, and often static, past experiences. The world is moving so fast and has become so complex that no manager can possibly know enough to capitalize the future based on a viable statistical sample of past experiences – we’re all holding on for dear life in a hurricane of change. The problems and opportunities of the future are so huge, so important, and happening so amazingly fast yet the allocation of human resources is worse than random for a candidate pool.

Here are a few comments that I’ve picked off some recent Human Resources Community Blogs:

***

1. And our future goes with it:

“Most recruiting systems I’ve seen screen out innovators. Any résumé that is unique, different or convention-defying gets surreptitiously put in the junk pile.”

2. Start by looking in the junk pile:

“The Innovation Economy requires that the talent that creates the most value for an organization must rise to the top. Innovators are playing an increasing role in creating shareholder value – one might argue that they create the most shareholder value these days – and figuring out how to find and attract this very different breed of talent is one of the most critical initiatives you can launch within your organization.”

3. What part of “share holder value” are we having difficulty with?

“The most innovative people I have ever met don’t follow conventions in their experience or in their résumé. Or, they get bored very quickly when they can’t innovate or are forced to focus on operations, and efficiency. Most might look like (and even be) job hoppers”

4. Here is my favorite comment – I wish I could hug this person:

“I think it takes more than a résumé to screen an Innovator in or out. As blogs, blog posts, social networking, more powerful search tools, personal websites, the emergence of video on the web, talent platforms that offer CRM, etc. etc. etc. continue to become additional tools for an employer to consider in making a hiring decision, is the résumé still a currency for a candidate?”

***

We have an inventory and CAD model of every nut, rivet, and panel that goes on an airplane – why would we try to build anything without one?

So Please, let’s evolve out of the revolutionary times and develop a real community knowledge inventory. It must be computer enabled and based on a taxonomy that everyone knows and understands. It must be read, analyzed, sorted and vetted by social networks and communities of practice. It must integrate with knowledge assets from anywhere in the world.

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Social Capitalism And The ROI For Social Media

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On September 9, 2010

In General Information

Social Capitalism can be summed up as Classical Capitalism except with the factors of production swapped from “Land, Labor, Financial Capital” to “Social Capital, Creative Capital, and Intellectual Capital”.

This video introduces a new way of looking at social media valuation. It should be obvious by now that people create value in social media – otherwise they would not do it. The monetization paradox is stuck on “how can this value expressed as a financial instrument”?

If you engage your clients in the same currency that they are trading among themselves, the greater the likelihood you will realize the value of the new media phenomenon.

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Social Capitalism: Meet The New Intangibles

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On July 26, 2010

In General Information

Today, land, labor, and capital make up the “Tangible” assets allocated by entrepreneurs in the production of all products and service.   Meanwhile, Social Capital, Creative Capital, and Intellectual Capital of people and communities are called “Intangible Assets” on the corporate balance sheet.

As soon as you leave the Corporation, this condition reverses.  What if the new generation of corporations were built on this reversal?

Suppose it is already happening.

The next economic paradigm will be built on Social Media as soon as people start getting together to build things.  Social Capital, Creative Capital and intellectual capital will be allocated by entrepreneurs in the production of all products and services.  Meanwhile land, labor, and capital will be the intangible assets.

This may not be so far out.

LAND: with Social media, Mobile internet, geolocation applications, mobile applications, and speed blogging – most activity is independent of physical land.  Instead, Public “land” or private “land” behave as the intangible component where people assemble and produce things.

LABOR: no longer means that two physical parts are assembled into a machine.  Instead two ideas are assembled into a third idea and redeployed as data, information, knowledge, innovation or wisdom.

CAPITAL: Seriously; what exactly is Capital these days except the thing that banks play with and politicians argue about? Capital is created from debt.  The continuation of Capital Markets as we know them exists more as the absence of a reasonable alternative than an actual proxy for true value or productivity.

Instead; 500 Million people flock to Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linkedin, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc., to collect options and store social value.  Uhm…Why?

The next phase for social media will become user generated productivity.  That is when people get together outside the construct of government and corporations to build something.  If we are lucky, this transition will happen before we are forced to “rebuild” something.

***

The Ingenesist Project specifies an Innovation Economy built on a platform of social media as the next economic paradigm.  Material based on video series here

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What is Social Capitalism?

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On July 19, 2010

In General Information

July 8, 2014 Update:

Wikipedia defines Capitalism as an “economic and social system in which the means of production are privately controlled”. 

 Factors of Production (from classical economics) are presumed to be some proxy for land, labor, and capital.  Suppose, however, the factors of production for modern society were something like “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and Creative Capital” of people and their relationships?  After all, these are the assets that are deployed in order to produce the proverbial basket of goods upon which most currencies are compared. 

Since these factors of production exist between the ears of each individual person, they are, by definition “privately controlled” and readily exchanged among other people in social networks.   If the US Supreme Court can rule that Corporations are people, then it is equally valid that people are corporations. Therefore, Social Capitalism refers to the economic and social system in which the means of production are social, creative, and intellectual assets.  

In order for Social Capitalism to become the dominant form of social organization, quite literally, society must reorganize itself to trade “abundant intangibles instead of scarce tangibles”. Then, all the decentralized innovations can integrate. The following video describes a system for reorganizing society so that the new economic paradigm; called Social Capitalism, may emerge.

Reorganizing For The Era Of Social Capitalism

Social Capitalism is similar to Material Capitalism with the exception that society would trade in abundant intangibles instead of scarce tangibles….and, everything changes.

***

The Article below is from 2010 – more than 4 years ago – when Social Capitalism was just beginning to enter the lexicon of the social media practitioners.  This article below quotes the Wikipedia Article on “Social Capitalism”.  That article has since been removed by Wikipedia for failure to be a real -ism; I suppose.  That is, Wikipedia does not yet recognize the movement as a real form of Social Organization.  It is interesting, if not historic, to watch the progress of a social movement from its tenuous inception:

The Adaptive Cycle: Holling, C. S. 1986. Resilience of ecosystems;

Social capitalism is an old idea taking on an new form in the age of social media where social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital are deployed outside the construct of the prevailing corporations or governments.

Throughout human history, societies have reorganized themselves in response to tyranny, innovation, environment, new wisdom, etc.   I believe this to be the root of what Social Capitalism is, and therefore, how it should be defined.

In The Shadows:

The dominant definition of  “Social Capitalism” from Wikipedia reflects a social cause cast against the backdrop of market capitalism.  This definition acknowledges that economies work better when everyone participates; specifically, the so-called tier 1 and tier 2 people.  Tier 1 individuals have steady financial incomes that allow them to function without private or government support. Tier 2 individuals cannot meet the prevailing standard of living and rely on private or government support. Therefore the prevailing definition of Social Capitalism often refers to efforts to bolster tier 2 persons as a means of reinforcing the economy for everyone.

Conflict:

There is an inherent conflict where tier 1 is held responsible to support tier 2 as a means of protecting their tier 1 status. Traditionally tier 2 included poor families dependent on food stamps; children who depend on public education; elderly people who are no longer able to work, and low-income criminals who require police intervention, etc.

Ideally, getting more people from tier 2 into tier 1 is the desirable objective.  Indeed political division is marked by the theories and practices on how exactly that objective would best be accomplished.

A worst case:

What happens when tier 2 is simply forgotten; they are simply allowed to fail in the mainstream economy?  What if the government becomes too weak to bolster their economic prospects?  What happens when a critical mass of tier 1 people involuntarily enter the tier 2 environment bringing along their substantial knowledge inventory.  They are otherwise very productive people that had been laid-off, outsourced, underemployed, or otherwise marginalized.

The Special Case:

What happens when Tier 2 deploy new technologies that responding to their priorities, not necessarily Wall Street priorities.  What happens when tier 2 people trade a social “currency” among themselves? What happens when tier 2 swells to a size and scope that they are able to bear broad political and economic influence.  Many great human struggles emerged from under the hand of a Tier 1 constraint using their own manner to store and exchange value  (currency) represented by their own knowledge inventory and productivity.  Why would that not happen internally in American Society?

Structural Capitalism:

Social Capitalism is where factors of production in an economy are purely human and technological and less structural:. Specifically, social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital deployed outside the construct of the prevailing corporations or governments.  Maybe it should be called “structural capitalism” because that is what is actually changing. We are at an extraordinary time in history where an extraordinary structural reorganization is taking place.

That’s Social Capitalism as it’s always been.

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Video: Taxonomy for Community Knowledge Inventory

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On February 1, 2010

In General Information

Any taxonomy that is used to classify information is a candidate for the classification of knowledge. This is because knowledge is related to information in a differential equation that also includes data and innovation (another blog post).

The trick is that everyone needs to be using the same taxonomy so that we can all access knowledge inventories of the people around us as easily as it is to access books on Amazon.com. This will lead to a trade in knowledge assets formally the sole domain of corporations through the process of industrialization (yet another blog post) .

Please enjoy these videos, use them as you wish and let us know what you think.

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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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The Monetization Mystery

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On January 14, 2010

In General Information

OK, the social media buzz is getting a little stale folks.

  • Yes we know that social media is valuable.
  • Yes we know that lots of folks are doing it.
  • Yes we know that the predictive web is predicted.
  • Yes we all know that all this activity will mysteriously “monetize”

Show me how everyone is related and I’ll show you a new economic paradigm. Here is how they are not related:

  • They are not related by “earning” people’s trust today so you can shove your product down their throat tomorrow.
  • They are not related to collecting thumbnails.
  • They are not related to giving the g00gle alg00rithm an 00rgasm.
  • They are not related by “The 6 Steps to [Fill in The Gap]”.

The next economic paradigm is related to transformation.

  • People transform data into information
  • People transform information into knowledge
  • People transform knowledge into innovation
  • People transform innovation into data

Under a set of fundamental assumptions that:

  • All people are socially talented
  • All people are intellectually talented
  • All people are creatively talented
  • All people are good at something
  • Nobody is good at everything

This is how value is generated. This is where the mystery of monetization hides.

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Community Currency; Ithaca Hours

By

On November 6, 2009

In General Information

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

by Paul Glover

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

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

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Change You Can Bank on

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On June 5, 2009

In General Information

The Earth changes – it always has and it always will.  The most interesting thing about Earth is not rock, it is rate of change of rock. Yet it is this rate of change in rock that created oceans, continents and geographical features.  The rate of change in the landscape is what created and affects all humanity; global warming not withstanding.

In fact, the rate at which things change is the root of all financial deals, social interactions, creative discovery, intellectual pursuit, even criminal activity.  All value is created and destroyed in response to the rate at which something changes.  Since change is relative to time, the rate of change is something, like death, and taxes, that you can bank on.

Money, Knowledge, and Power

As a corollary; the ability to measure rates of change in things is the ability to measure value.  The ability to cause rates of change is the ability to create or destroy value.  It is therefore in our interest to try and express our world in terms of rates of change.  For example:

1    Money, interest, and stock price are deeply related.  Therefore, the rate of change of money is related to interest.  The rate of change of interest is related to growth rate.  The change in growth is monetized through a public market for its stock.  Stock price affects money and the cycle continues.

2    Information, knowledge and innovation are deeply related.  Therefore, the rate of change of information is related to knowledge.  The rate of change of knowledge is related to innovation.  Innovation creates new information.  And, the cycle continues

3    Attention, attraction, affinity, audience, and action are deeply related to each other.  Therefore the rate of change of attention is related to attraction.  The rate of change of attraction is related to affinity, etc., until finally, the rate of change in action gets everyone’s attention.  And the cycle continues.

Achilles’ Octopus

There are a few problems however.  If you remove, corrupt, or disengage any of the components, the cycle fails.  To complicate matters further, our three examples are also related: money, knowledge, and audience; stock price, information, and action; etc.

Points of failure can occur at any part of the cycle and it is often difficult to identify which failure caused what effect.   Does a stock price fail because the public lost affinity or because information was corrupted?  Does an economy fail because there is no money to invest in innovation or because our society outsources its knowledge economy?  Does a school system fail to deliver the right knowledge to society because the stock market failed or because there is no public action?

Social Media and the next paradigm of economic development

Social media allows us to express the dynamics of our world in real time and at great speed.  Feedback loops are shorter and cause and effect can be more easily differentiated.  The data that will be generated through the integration of social media will allow entrepreneurs to identify rates of change of the rates of change! Armed with computer enabled search and analysis algorithms, they can mange these complex new relationships to create value for themselves and their community in a new era of social capitalism.  Social media is a higher order calculus.

It will take everyone to accomplish this together but we can create a new landscape for our Earth, ourselves, and our children’s future.   This is change we must bank on.

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Who Owns Your Content?

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On February 21, 2009

In General Information

The epiphany:

Something very interesting happened when Facebook changed their terms of service.   People who use the Facebook platform (for free) organized themselves using the (free) platform to threaten the core validity of the same (free) platform.  This could not happen in any other industry.

Saving face?

Ownership is largely characterized by the ability of one party to restrict the access of another party.  Judging by the results of this uprising, it seems that for all practical purposes, the users own their content and their impressions no matter what the TOS says.  This is a very strong argument for the tangibility of social, creative, and intellectual capital.

Ownership Economics:

The fact that people own and care for their content is what makes Facebook work.  Ownership is an extremely powerful force that drives intense participation and  innovation.  People will attend to their property, improve it, make it valuable, and create value for themselves and those around them.  Really, when was the last time you washed a rented car?

Historical perspective:

Most history books present the Homestead Act of 1862 as the product of a wise and benevolent government seeking to reward worthy citizens of a great young nation for populating the vast Western territories.  But that is not really true. Most of the land was already occupied by squatters who arrived disheveled, found a nice spot, built their small cabin, and farmed or hunted to sustain themselves.   They could not be evicted or charged with trespassing because a “jury of their peers” was also composed of squatters.

Problems arose when squatters could not borrow money to improve the land because they did not hold a title to it.  Legitimate landowners could not value their property if the land next door was untitled.  Border disputes resulted in gun battles.  Stealing was rampant. The children of squatters could not inherit the land without proper title. There was little incentive to produce anything beyond sustenance. When services and capital projects were required to support the increasing population, there was no tax base.  Not unlike Facebook, this new frontier could not be monetized.

Wisdom in Government; not always an oxymoron:

Perhaps the greatest moment in government came with the realization that it is impossible to change the behavior of people, rather, the best strategy would be to accommodate what they are going to do anyway.  So they legalized the squatters and gave them deed to their land. The occupants could sell or capitalize as they wished.  Investment capital flooded the region and entrepreneurs improved the land and created enterprises.  The government could then collect taxes proportional to the productivity of the citizens. The result was the development of the Western States as economic powerhouse that we know today.

Use it or lose it:

A very similar opportunity is presenting itself to Facebook and now the road to monetization should be crystal clear.  They should go out of their way to create terms of service that protects the rights of each and every member to own and control their content in its entirety, forever.

Next, Facebook should develop applications that allow advertisers to bid for impressions directly with the users compensating them for their time.  Users will build profiles that attract those seeking opinion, knowledge, feedback, wisdom AND SALES related to their products.  Users should be able to control every aspect of their content including any means that they can dream up to legally create revenue from their social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital.  Facebook should develop a knowledge inventory of what users know and make it available to others like a “Public Library or knowledge assets”.  Then they should develop applications to match knowledge surplus to knowledge deficit, etc. Let the trading begin.

The answer in their face:

If smart people can make money using Facebook just by doing what they are going to do anyway, they will flood the system with the most tangible forces in nature; social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital. If Facebook can’t figure out how to monetize the asset staring them in their face, they will soon encounter a more powerful competitor – their own users.

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Web 3.0; An Elephant Never Forgets

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On December 18, 2008

In General Information

The opportunity for America reminds me of the elephant that is convinced since birth that the slender rope tying him to the fence post is stronger than he.  When the elephant grows up, he still believes the rope is stronger even though the elephant now has gained the strength to pull the whole building down.  Americans are the 8000 pound elephant in the middle of the room.  The question on everyone’s mind is: what will the elephant do next?

Throughout history, economists have determined the structure of business, enterprise, and commerce and wisely the government complies.  With remarkable success over the last 150 years,  corporations had been the source of most innovation sufficient to support the value of a currency.  Fortunately, the corporation had become the center of economic policy while the knowledge inventory within them have been fenced inside the accounting term: “intangible assets”.  Unfortunately, our corporations can no longer innovate efficiently enough to support the debt. Witnessing GM facing up to this very question, while the government manufactures money like taffy, seems a lot like feeding sugar calories to an elephant that is too big to fit out the door, dead or alive.

What the economists and many of the great visionaries of out time do not anticipate is the emergence of computer enabled society and the tangibility of knowledge outside the corporate structure through developments of social media.  Web 3.0 is supposed to bring us a semantic web – a computer program will be able to read the elephant story above and determine whether it is about education, zoology, macramé, Interior decorating, taxidermy, building demolition, or cliché old business metaphors.   Perhaps this is our little rope tied to the post as we wait for Mother Corpora to provide solutions.  Get a grip, the only computer that can read, classify, and extract a thousand words for any photograph is between our collective big floppy ears.  Web 3.0 will be semantic alright, except by the integration and capitalization of human knowledge through social media.

We spend billions on a human genome project to inventory our DNA, but nothing to inventory the knowledge as it exists naturally in society.  We will build statistical models to forecast weather, elections, click-throughs, insurance, demographics, and mortgage risk; but nothing to predict the value of various combination of social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital in society.  We have search engines that match most worthy blog to most worthy keyword, but little to match most worthy mentor to most worthy apprentice.  The top reasons why start-ups, businesses, innovations, and markets fail are due to the wrong knowledge in the wrong place at the wrong time. It seems that if we solve the knowledge inventory problem, then we can solve the innovation risk problem.  That, in turn, will solve the money problem which solves the elephant problem.  We need to release the great “intangible asset” into the wild world of tangibility and trust that it knows where to go.

Sometimes it just takes someone to give us permission to do things differently.  So here I go: human knowledge is the most perfect, predictable, flexible, and valuable capital asset in our world.  Knowledge can become far more tangible than anyone could have ever imagined. Information, knowledge, and innovation are profoundly related – separated they are useless, integrated they are wisdom.  Everyone on earth innovates every day, period. The vast majority of people will do the right thing given the right incentives.  With the next development of the Internet, we will have the tools to organize ourselves in a far more efficient manner than the command and control structure of a traditional corporation.  Management can be outsourced too. Corporations respond to corporate priorities, social networks respond to social priorities.  Which one sounds like a business case to curb global warming?

The Ingenesist Project specifies three web applications which if developed and deployed to social media will allow social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital to become tangible outside the construct of the traditional corporation and inside social networks.  Just because people have never organized themselves in an open sourced innovation economy before, does not mean that they never will.  But once they do, well, let’s just say that an elephant never forgets.

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The Great Convergence

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On December 8, 2008

In General Information

Hey Kids, It’s 3D:

The objective of this article is to discuss the Great Convergence of computer enabled society. Social media must not be allowed to converge to a single apex – rather, it must converge to 3 distinct and tangible dimensions.

The factors of production for the industrial economy are land, labor, and capital.  If you lose one, you can’t use the other two to build an SUV, for example.  The factors of production for an innovation economy are social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital. All production in the new economic paradigm will result from the allocation of a “secret sauce” of social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital.  Again, if you lose one, you can’t use the other two to build anything meaningful.

The congregation of congregations:

In order to find The Great Convergence, we simply need to examine Social Media to discover where social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital tend to congregate.

One of the more obvious illustrations appears to be playing out between LinkedIn, Facebook, and Myspace.  Many people use Linkedin for professional contacts (intellectual Capital), other people use Facebook for friends, family and more diverse associations (Social Capital), while many others use MySpace to post videos of their rock band, Artwork, or to discover the latest Mash up (Creative Capital).  Of course there are many more social networks, lots of cross talk, different demographics, rants and raves, etc.  I intentionally leave this analysis sparse as these conditions simply reflect the nature of The Great Convergence.

The Next Economic Paradigm:

We need to watch The Great Convergence with laser focus and deep personal interest because it will be extremely important for the development of what comes after the knowledge economy.   Whatever form this next economic paradigm takes, globally and locally, will depend upon The Great Convergence.  The Innovation Economy is the only wrench left in the toolbox for resolving the vast global problems that we face today.

The Innovation Economy must end global warming, restore financial accountability, enact sustainable enterprise, and institute renewable energy – or not.  This is a huge burden to ask of the next “greatest generation”.  It is clearly in everyone’s best interest to identify, encourage, and support The Great Convergence to form in 3D, before the old single-apex game “resets” and starts all over again, perhaps for the last time.

[The Ingenesist Project discusses this concept at length and identified various predictions, methods, and scenarios, including specifications for an Innovation Economy.]

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Finally, A Definition for Innovation

By

On December 5, 2008

In General Information

Innovation: The rate of change in knowledge with respect to time 

[In earlier post we identified the 5 essential elements of a market economy. What would be the currency of an innovation economy? Currency is anything that serves as a medium of exchange, a stored value, and a standard of value. Basically we are asking; What are those things that people are out in the World trading among each other today?]

Today, innovation is repeatedly cited as the only thing that can get us out of the financial/environmental/sustainability conditions that find our ourselves in, yet the most common definitions for this term are deeply and tragically flawed.

Most definitions for innovation boil down to: “a new idea introduced that has an economic outcome” or “something new that is useful”. While these definitions match some observations, they are reflective and “You know it when you see it”. As such, there is little to define innovation before it happens or to make more of it from this definition.  It is like defining “Art” as the thing that people stare at.  Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of our troubles.

“Innovation is a new idea introduced that has an economic outcome” is impossible.

This definition defines one unknown quantity (innovation) with four other unknown quantities: what is new; what is an idea; what constitutes “introduced”; and what is an economic outcome?  From High School Algebra we know that you cannot solve one equation with two unknowns – let alone four.  There is little that you, I or anyone else can do to satisfy this definition.  Therefore, it is not useful.

Granted, this definition sells plenty of ad copy as the guru of the week wax-poetic over those four pesky unknown thingies.  I found one consultant who claims that innovation has 51 variables and only he can solve that matrix – for a price.

What is the truth about the phenomenon of Innovation?

A useful definition must clarify the subject in a manner that is repeatable and measurable.

If we look at history we know that economic “benefit” and innovation are mutually dependent – you can’t have one without the other.  Wealth has been created by increasing human productivity through innovation in agriculture, manufacturing, computers, etc.

Next, we observe that information, knowledge and innovation are also mutually dependent – you cannot have one without the other two.  Wealth is created by integrating information, knowledge and innovation.

Next; look at our society; everywhere we turn, people are collecting information from each other, building their knowledge, and innovating together, i.e., coming up with better ways to do things. All of these little exchanges obviously add up to something because things like IPods and Airplanes get built and lots of stuff rolls off assembly lines.

Innovation is anything that increases human productivity

Next we can say that information, knowledge and innovation can be related as follows:

  • Information is defined as facts and data

This should not surprise anyone.

  • Knowledge is proportional to the rate of change of information (facts and data) over time.

This is a little trickier to grasp. But any good teacher knows that information must be introduced in a certain order and at a certain speed before the information can become knowledge – this is called learning. Learning is a mental process for turning information from a book, a lecture, or personal experience into knowledge that can be used later.  Therefore, knowledge is proportional to the rate of change of information and can only exist inside a person’s head.

  • Innovation is proportional to the rate of change of knowledge over time

trickier still, but for example; everyone has had an ‘Ah-Ha!’ moment during a brainstorming session, some incredible event that we witness, or even after some real bad mistake that we made. The Ah-Ha moment is a spike in our knowledge that happens in a very short period of time. Innovation is related to this high rate of change of knowledge.  Then we blurt it out, or write it down, or make a sketch, give a lecture, in the form of information, etc.

Definition of Innovation:

a. Innovation is anything that increasing human productivity.
b. Innovation is proportional to the rate of change of knowledge and information.

Admittedly, not as sexy in the sound bite but this definition does include all conversations, sketches, dreams, and ideas of all people on Earth and allows them to combine with the sketches, dreams, ideas, of all people on Earth to become designs, methods, and processes which further combine to become products, systems, and institutions, etc.

Let entrepreneurs worry about the economic outcome

Since innovation can be difficult to observe directly. Our new definition allows us to use a proxy that is easier for entrepreneurs to see. For example; if you want to identify innovation as it is happening, simply look for high rates of change of knowledge in a community. If you want to create innovation, do things that create high rates of change of knowledge. Likewise, if you want to identify knowledge, look for high rates of change of information.  If you want to create knowledge, do things that create high rates of change of information.

We need to give the entrepreneur a game they can win. The key is that everyone must be included in the game. This is a definition that can be used by anyone and everyone, in fact, it already is.

notes:

[Anyone familiar with differential Calculus can see an equation forming where Innovation is the derivative of knowledge and knowledge is the derivative of information. Calculus is the study of change like geometry is the study of space. Since the mathematics is beyond the scope of this article, I’ll finish with the following analogy for defining information, knowledge, and innovation more intuitively: “Information is to knowledge is to innovation what distance is to velocity is to acceleration”]

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The Next Great American “Hail Mary” Pass

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On December 2, 2008

In General Information

The Game

The knowledge economy will be outsourced to low cost countries. There is little rational analysis that suggests otherwise.  Information, knowledge and innovation are profoundly connected – lose one and you lose the other two … and so goes our innovation potential. The very technology invented and developed by American knowledge workers is the exact same technology that now constrains them.  This is not the fault of corporation or of the financial system – they are behaving exactly as expected; a dog will hunt. This is the limitation of the knowledge economy itself – let me explain.

It is very easy and inexpensive for the rest of the world to just watch what the United States does, copy what works and reject what does not work, and then effectively compete.   The rest of the World now speaks English so they can now jump on the Internet and learn everything they need to know about us while we are largely unable to reciprocate.  In addition, money is global and does not need a visa to work in another country.  All of these things stack up against both the US knowledge and foreign knowledge workers.  If left alone, these conditions will not go away any time soon.

As a nation, America is either at the edge of something really good or something really bad.  We need to do something so radical, so audacious, and so creative, that the rest of the world will shake their heads in disbelief at how America always comes up with an unbelievable play just when the game looks like it is over.  It’s called The Great American Hail Mary Pass.

The Competition

First we must realize that America does not have anyone else to copy or compete with in order to climb to that next rung on the economic development ladder except ourselves.  Many Americans are in denial that we too must also develop just like we claim other countries must do.  In the past, we have relied on shocks to the global system in order to move forward; usually in the form of wars, but obviously, as a modern innovation strategy, warfare has severe limitations.  Maybe we just don’t know how to develop on our own.  Perhaps the current financial crisis may be the disruption that we need to see those next few critical steps that we need to take.

The Field

Here are some other historical facts to consider.  Like all previous development phases, the next economic paradigm will be derived from the earlier economy by integrating the tools of that earlier economy – in this case, the knowledge economy.  We have painfully learned that intellectual capital can be found and duplicated almost anywhere on Earth.  However, social capital and creative capital cannot be easily sourced elsewhere.  Both China and India have political or cultural constraints on social capital and creative capital – so they cannot compete with us here.   This is where the next Great American Hail Mary pass needs to go.

The Team

America has a distinct comparative advantage over most of the World in our cultural diversity, global language, and freedoms of assembly, expression, and association.  In addition, and likely as a result, America is inventing one of the most profound technological advancements in human history.  One which has the potential to secure American economic prosperity for many generations into the future.

The Play

Social Media has the potential – if we are clever – to allow human knowledge and interaction to become tangible outside the construct of a corporation.  The new economic paradigm will have factors of production of social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital, instead of the classical land, labor, and monetary capital model.  That means that a team, community, or a social network can be capitalized directly much like a corporation, or any financial instrument in itself, as a means toward increasing human productivity.  Admittedly, and as space allows, this is a very vague definition of an innovation economy, but the implications are sweeping and vast.  A more detailed structure and description is specified at https://ingenesist.com.

The Ball

It is imperative that knowledge workers recognize this opportunity.  We must have a national conversation about the next great leap and not just dwell on the current quagmire or roll over while the dark ages set in.  It is essential that we recognize our responsibility to ourselves, our communities, and the planet to build a sustainable economy that reflects long term social priorities rather than short term profit taking – this is ultimately in the best interest of even the short term profit takers!  Finally, it is our responsibilities to continue developing this great Internet technology that the generation before us created for peaceful, open, and productive means; and obviously never intended to enable a race to the bottom.

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Social Media; The Opportunity of a Century

By

On December 1, 2008

In General Information

The Perfect Storm:

We are at an historic time in human history; one that may never repeat itself again. The current financial crisis may provide just enough disruption for a completely new economic paradigm to emerge; the Innovation Economy.  We cannot squander this moment arguing over common logon for our Twitter and Facebook profiles; a far greater integration is required from Social Media.

Advertising is not the correct revenue model.

It is astonishing that Social Media, in general, has not figured out how to make money.  Social Media IS money.  All wealth on Earth was created from the social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital of people – wealth creation is already crowd sourced.  Now, there is an opportunity for Social Media to harness this engine of economic growth and wealth creation – if they could only see it.

The problem is simple: Globalization is proceeding as if economic growth can occur before technological change. Some time in the past, we got these two things up mixed. It does not take money to make money; it takes innovation to make money.  Technological change MUST ALWAYS happen before real economic growth can occur.  Anything else is a transfer of wealth, not the creation of wealth. All that is unsustainable today – the economy, the environment, natural resources, energy – is due to this itsy bitsy anomaly of current market economics.   Today, we can easily correct this little flaw with almost a flip of a switch – but the window of opportunity will be short – and we need to be clever.

The idea that human knowledge is tangible and behaves individually and collectively like a financial instrument is still considered impossible.  The ability to place a market value on the social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital of a team, community, or geographic population of people – let alone a social network – has never been accomplished.  This idea remains the Holy Grail of finance and one that Social Media is uniquely positioned to capture.  If the finance industry can invent “tangible derivatives” out of thin air paper, then we ought to be able to do the same with knowledge assets that live and breathe tangibly all around us.

If it looks like money, it will behave like money, guaranteed:

First, we need to build a knowledge inventory system that includes everyone; and which can be anonymously codified and amalgamated with logic in machine readable format (the Universal Decimal Classification System is a good candidate). Second, we need to sample our inventory in a community using the proverbial “Bell Curve”. Third, we need to develop a search engine that returns the probability that a strategic combination of knowledge assets can execute a given objective. Fourth, we need an innovation Bank that will “pull” knowledge surplus and “pull” knowledge deficits together from diverse communities.   (Please see the IEc101 at https://ingenesist.com)

This should not sound too weird; it is the same game that Wall Street plays.  The switch is flipped when we engage our innovation system with the financial system.

Go where the money is:

Social Media is perfectly positioned to develop these features in their products and in our communities. We first must understand that innovation is predictable.  We may not be able to say exactly where the innovation will lead, but we can be sure that if we place a group of strategically diversified persons in a room, innovation will happen.  If the fact of innovation is predictable, risks related to the invented can be pooled, morphed, or diversified.  If risk can be diversified, it can be hedged to zero.  If innovation has zero risk, Wall Street will salivate to issue “innovation bonds” to finance diverse communities of practice.  If innovation capital is inexpensive and accessible, a great amount of innovation will occur.  The anomaly of capital markets can be reversed, and the result will be sustainable economic growth.

Naturally, the compensation structure will be in the form of dividends, both financial and in social welfare.  New corporations will emerge and the old corporations will become more efficient. What is invented will tend to reflect social priorities rather than today’s short term Wall Street priorities.   America must innovate at an intense and sustained rate in order to compensate for the imbalance of debt economics that has been created in its absence.  Social Media can be, and must be, the infrastructure upon which an Innovation Economy is built.  Again, this opportunity is staring us straight in the eye.  This is the conversation that must be having today if we will meet the challenges of tomorrow.

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