Tag: knowledge inventory Page 4 of 5

Video: The Last Mile of Social Media

On January 21, 2010

Sure Bro…Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin are great for broadcasting across the Ocean, but how good are they for meeting your neighbors? As wonderful as all this global chatter appears, nothing tangible happens until the rubber meets the road.

Don’t Worry, Be Neighborly…

The following video describes how the components of the next economic paradigm must act locally, but share globally. For anyone wondering what to do next or where the great opportunities are, think about building out the Last mile of Social Media.

Share this:

Video: Currency Must be Backed by Productivity

By Admin

On January 20, 2010

In General Information

We must all be engaged in the process of Innovation. We must all be engaged in the process of increasing each other’s productivity – in whatever form that may be, that’s the objective. Anything that wastes time needs to go away. It’s that simple.

The following video discusses what the dynamic of an innovation economy will look like. Not glass walled towers and obscure think tanks, but real productivity – yours and mine. That’s the basis of the new global currency. It’s that simple.

Share Me

Share this:

Rising Tide Floats All Boats

By Admin

On January 19, 2010

In General Information

Wow, stunning.

You know that the time is right for a disruptive technology when nobody can agree what’s floating the World Currency. Will there be deflation, Inflation, or a new currency altogether?

We believe that a new currency will emerge.

It will be called a Rallod (dollar spelled backwards), similar to a dollar, except corrected to represent real human productivity. It will be exchanged in a new social media application and supporting institutions will be crowd sourced. If you think we’re nuts, you haven’t been reading this blog long enough. If we don’t succeed, there will be someone behind us trying.

Never, ever, ever underestimate the cloud; the source of all rain upon which rising tides float all ships, yadda, yadda, etc…..

Conversational Currency

Imagine people owning their knowledge assets like real property? Imagine that people trade knowledge assets like financial instruments? Imagine if they can bundle and securitize knowledge assets like the WS glory days did with debt (debt is really just a future contract on knowledge assets)? Far off? Think again….

In the mean time; here are some interesting articles aggregated by McKinsey:

****

As the US economy emerges from the crisis, there’s little consensus on what lies ahead. Economic forecaster David Levy says chronic high unemployment will lead to, at worst, slight deflation. While former Fortune writer and financial adviser Al Ehrbar says, not so fast: with the Federal Reserve having flooded the market with dollars, massive inflation is likely.

Read Here

Plus: What Matters continues the conversation on the fate of the dollar:

GENG XIAO: Why the Chinese will not bail out the dollar by allowing the renminbi to appreciate

Read here

BENN STEIL: There are steep downsides to both a strong dollar and weak dollar policy

Read here

GERARD LYONS: Whether or not the dollar will topple isn’t in doubt, only its speed of decline is

Read Here:

MARTIN GILMAN: Now that the United States is a debtor nation, its currency can no longer dominate

Read Here:

CHARLES WYPLOSZ: The dollar is the worst international currency, except for all the others

Read Here:

TIM ADAMS: The dollar’s share may shrink, but it will continue to dominate

Read Here

MICHAEL MANDEL: Beware of a dollar crash if the United States loses its innovation edge

Read Here

JEFFREY GARTEN: The question isn’t if the dollar will be replaced–it’s when and how

Read Here

Join the conversation at WHAT MATTERS

Here

Share this:

Video: Money vs. Productivity

By Admin

On January 19, 2010

In General Information

The questions are:

1. What is money? 2. Why is it important? 3. Why is it all so confusing?

The answers are:

1. You are money. 2. You are important. 3. You’re not supposed to know this.

This video provide an easy way to find the truth among the high-fiber ambiguity that has become our political morass. Oh Yeah, they want you to be confused because they don’t want you to act any differently.

Share this:

Pssst … Wanna Get Wasted?

By Admin

On January 16, 2010

In General Information

Many Social Media Gurus are espousing a new culture that their clients should forget about blogging (adding meaningful content) in favor of the ubiquitous widespread “updates”.

Using automated apps, you no longer need to waste time creating content that teaches or expresses, you can populate across social media space carefully wedged in between someone else’s creative content. I find this appalling.

The new marketing mantras go something like these:

“Go where your customers congregate”.
“Gain their trust by sharing your stuff”
“Soon, you can start to influence their behavior”
“Once hooked, they will do your deed for freeeee!!”

This is starting to sound more like the neighborhood drug dealer than any sustainable economic paradigm.

Slavery on Steroids

Slavery is a term characterized in part by the coercion of another person to perform or act without compensation. The effects of slavery are not only physical, but mental as well. The effects of oppression manifest themselves in addictive behaviors.

Social acceptance is an extremely powerful psychotic that can be cleverly turned against any person. The techniques of social media are getting increasingly sophisticated in hijacking and consuming the social capital of others.

Green Marketing

It does not take long to see that the marketing professions are defining the social media space regardless of what anyone says about user-generated content. The danger is that social media will become just as unsustainable as the economy that it replaces. People will soon lose the ability to produce the currency that the media demands to support itself.

Ban advertising

t would be high temple sacrilege for any social media monetization strategist to suggest that advertising of any kind must be banned. Well, not exactly, but the objective of advertising can be redefined if there were a means to do so.

The only sustainable monetization strategy (of which there are terribly few current examples) are the deployment of social media applications that empower people to discover their own individual talents, to pursue what they are naturally best at and enjoy doing most – while also eliminating the clutter and irrelevant messages that distracts them from their personal life goals.

This means that brands should communicate more and not less. They should identify, educate, and promote the talents and abilities of a million customers instead of 1 superstar athlete or celebrity.

The proverbial sports analogy:

Advertisers should sit in the bleachers and cheer on their favorite customer, but they should not be in the game, blowing the whistle, or running the scoreboard. Let them pay admission, see my logo, and buy my overpriced beer. Let them sell to each other on their own dime – but under no circumstances should they be allowed on the field, in the schools, or in the home without explicit and expressed permission of the customer.

Share this:

What is the Quality of Conversation?

By Admin

On January 15, 2010

In General Information

As we build the Next Economic Paradigm we seek to define the quality of conversations.

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment, (CEFR), is a guideline used to describe achievements of learners of foreign languages across Europe.

Here is the twist.

We propose the use of a language proficiency standard as the conversational quality standard for any subject. Why?, Because every subject has it’s own language and related subjects have related languages. Try to bridge the philosophical chasm for yourself by reading the descriptions and drawing the analogy to the subject of your expertise, lack of expertise, or your interests and intension!

As such, for conversations about any subject matter in the world, past present or future, the following also holds true for subject matter proficiency:

Basic Proficiency

A1: Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help.

A2: Can understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of most immediate relevance. Can communicate in simple and routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters. Can describe in simple terms aspects of his/her background, immediate environment and matters in areas of immediate need.

Intermediate Proficiency

B1: Can understand the main points of clear standard input on familiar matters regularly encountered in work, school, leisure, etc. Can deal with most situations likely to arise whilst travelling in an area where the language is spoken. Can produce simple connected text on topics which are familiar or of personal interest. Can describe experiences and events, dreams, hopes & ambitions and briefly give reasons and explanations for opinions and plans.

B2: Can understand the main ideas of complex text on both concrete and abstract topics, including technical discussions in his/her field of specialisation. Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. Can produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects and explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

Advanced Proficiency

C1: Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices.

C2: Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in more complex situations.

Share this:

Thank You for Flying Citizen Airlines, LLC

By Admin

On December 23, 2009

In General Information

I will be introducing a number of applications of Innovation Economics in Social Media as continue writing part 2 of my book. The objective is to identify new business opportunities by disrupting the old economic paradigm with new ways to organize people around social media. In this case, a troubled industry would team up with communities that are not their direct customers:

I live in Edmonds Washington near Paine Field – home of the sprawling Boeing manufacturing site of the 747, 777, and 787 aircraft. For years, the county executives have been trying to lure major airline service into Paine Field Airport claiming the economic benefits would far outweigh the drawbacks. Paine Field is about 1 hour north of Seattle Tacoma Airport and about 3 hours South of Vancouver, BC.

Many efforts over the years to locate another airport in this gap have hit political and environmental land mines. Paine Field expansion is no different. For years, the county, state, and FAA have been funding “improvements” that look a lot like accommodations for scheduled airline service. The county executive has been courting carriers, lobbying ‘unaffected voters’ and corralling legislators to this grand economic development cause.

The citizens of neighboring communities have not stood still. They have commissioned studies of every environment and quality of life factor from home value impact to distracted learning at the local schools. They cite urban blight, social deviance, and under development at other similar expansion projects. Political careers are made and broken over support or opposition to the airport expansion.

So far, the market has not proven large enough to support a major B737 sized scheduled service. Ironically, there have been very few studies of the impact of private aviation service expansions. Little data is discussed related to the noise foot print of small jets versus large jets. Very little data is presented to the community about distributed vs. concentrated air and car traffic flows and the upscale effects of a private aviation presence.

To the community’s advantage, small private carriers can soak up and diffuse the market that would eventually support a major carrier. These battles are raging all over the country against the political mantra of Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Local communities are running out of money, lawyers, and stall tactics to fight them.

With the price of seat on a (full) private Jet about the same as a business class ticket on a major airline, local communities may want to go into the travel agency business. By using community media, website, a booking website, twitter alerts, and tourism agents to identify and match travelers to destinations combined with some proactive social media marketing, Citizen Airlines LLC can stave off an airport expansion by competing with it.

Meanwhile, unemployed citizens are available to manage an on-line Community Branded jet service (operated by a private carrier). Advertising and marketing can be transferred to the community in exchange for reduced rates and shared access to private aviation reports and data which would help them fight airline expansion.

This requires that the private aviation industry empower communities who are not necessarily their direct customers but are stakeholders none the less. Social Capitalism is the act of elevating oneself by elevating the entire community rather than opressing then for capitalist gains. By giving people a voice, the economy gets a bullhorn.

Share this:

Predictions for 2010 and Beyond – Nothing is Sacred

By Admin

On December 21, 2009

In General Information

It looks like everyone is buffing up their predictions for another year of astonishing growth by social media. The last several years have brought so many surprises that the next several are promising to yield a bumper crop of “I told you so” fodder from the “pithier than thou” crowd.

My prediction for 2010 is that nothing is sacred, including the onslaught 2010 predictions. Therefore, I’ll will go way out on a limb and make my 2011 predictions in 2009.

In General:

The interest coming due on our national debt will consume increasingly more of the money that institutions need to provide basic services. As these institutions weaken, they will increasingly be replaced by social media enterprise. These structurally weakened institutions will drive social media innovation more than any other factor.

Specifically:

Social vetting will catch everyone by surprise. Google buying Yelp is the game changer that will shake markets to the core. A market can only be as efficient as its vetting mechanism. To control vetting is to control a market – ask any despot. Where the vetting institutions of the old paradigm break down, they will be replaces by social media vetting. Nothing is sacred – the SEC, AMA, Federal Reserve – everything is vulnerable. Google knows this and will usher in an era of social media applications that will completely disrupt the gatekeepers.
Everyone says that social media will monetize. It will, but not like anyone expects. 2011 is the year of the Deep Web; the deep web is the vast universe of unprocessed data that exists like dark matter in the Google-verse. Social media will monetize around data because data is the only thing that corporation, governments, and other people are willing to pay for. Google created economic initiatives for legions of entrepreneurs to create information content. The new Deep Web Search engines will create economic incentives for legions of entrepreneurs to create databases.
The convergence of data will create the “new monetized innovation economy” defined by the way people interact with data. Highly localized data that will reflect the knowledge inventory of a community and will be represented by a virtual currency.
It will become increasingly apparent that many of the functions of a corporation can be duplicated outside a corporation by new vetted social media applications. Networks of people will become “corporations” and trade knowledge assets through the trade of virtual currency contracts.
Corporations will become technology centric rather than industry centric with open source architecture liberated to armies of diverse entrepreneurs. For example, breakthoughs in one industry will shoot across all industries like iphone apps – especially effective in environmental and “community organization” innovations. Nothing is sacred.

So there it is and be assured that 2012 will not disappoint even the hardiest eschatologist!

Sorry for not repeating the “real-time is king” mantra or singing the “people will finally pay for content” tune, or reciting the “every department is the marketing department” manifesto. Something much bigger is about to happen. The evolution away from the current financial system will drive social media more than any other factor.

Share this:

Should Education be Open Source?

By Admin

On December 18, 2009

In General Information

We continue to challenge the relevance of the college “degree” as being an insufficient measurement for what “educated” is, or is not, in an innovation economy. With the cost of a college degree spiraling upward and the value of the degree spiraling downward, the market will tip in favor of the alternative education measurements.

It is important to note that we do not challenge the existence of institutes of higher education, only the “degree” as a unit of measurement. The four year Bachelor degree and two year Masters degree are irrelevant as a title (there is no legal title since the age of the guilds) and arbitrary in duration to respond to the diversity, speed, and scope at which new technologies become available for deployment.

Ray Barton writes: The UK House of Commons in its’ report on Re-skilling in January 2009 stated the useful life of a degree is five years. In high tech professions, the useful lifetime of knowledge can be as short as 1.5 years.

This alone disrupts the current paradigm of higher education in several ways.

Read More

Share this:

Deep Web; Database of databases of databases….

By Admin

On December 16, 2009

In General Information

We have posted a few articles about the Deep Web and presented an emerging technology project that promises to provide a database of databases for the next great development of Internet Search. This short post considers the significance of one aspect of Deep Web Search.

Economics is the science of incentives

Google Search has provided a set of incentives that drives people to document their world by blogging, developing social media, and creating seemingly infinite video content. The ability to see and be seen is the essence of market economics.

While the promise of searching a huge store of databases may not sound like Saturday social night at the local drive in burger joint, it does by extension, introduce new incentives. The new technology will drive people to build databases. A new generation of entrepreneurs will collect, organize, analyze and create – not information – but data.

Database of databases of databases

The first things entrepreneurs will organize are human knowledge data – starting with their own, then relating it to others. Not unlike the human genome project, the vast human knowledge reservoir will be mapped. Entrepreneurs will enter their communities (on line, neighborhood, work, school, church, social networks) and create a database for what other people know and parse the data in any number of important and useful databases.

The reason for this is simple; data are collections of human observations.This is the only thing people are willing to pay for. Markets cannot and do not get any more fundamental than that.

Old News is Bad News

Anyone who follows the news, social media, or some of the tech blogs may have noticed a lot of rehashing of old data – every blog has a posts about how social media will “really catch on”. New media isn’t so new anymore. The only thing that makes money is is the disclosure or new data – followed by weeks of rehashing of the data all the way down the rankings.

Next Economic Paradigm

All Financial instruments are characterized in terms of a quantity and a quality. Real news, real insight, and real productivity results from new and reliable data, qualified interpretation of data, and relevant analysis of data – relative to time. The value of money is directly associated with the quantity and quality of the data representing money – relative to time.

Summary: Going to the source

Data alone are useless. People must process data into information – the backbone of all economics. Human knowledge and productivity is the source of all information – derived from data. Therefore, the only things people are willing to pay for are, in fact, data. Monetization of social media may be the deep dive into the data. Do the math. That’s big news.

Share this:

Deep Web: The Data Will Set You Free

By Admin

On December 15, 2009

In General Information

Conversational Currency Blog continues to present components of the Next Economic Paradigm as we spot the integrations. We believe that one of these features is the Deep Web, estimated to be 500 times bigger than the surface web or “Google-verse”.

One way to get an idea of how the deep web is hidden from view is to perform any simple Google search except add the term “database”. You immediately notice that an entirely different set of results appear – much of it is extremely interesting and useful. If you do this several times over several terms you will soon ask yourself:

“Where can I find a database of databases?”

Now take your original search term and add “database of databases” to it and again an entirely new search result appears. The results become highly localized and less organized. The results show FAR LESS ADVERTISING and even a few more subscription based data enterprises. But more than anything, the results give you an idea of how large the Deep Dark Web may be.

Now return to the surface web and visit your favorite blog. Where exactly are bloggers getting their insights? Follow the trail of references back to the sources (pass through Wikipedia and Forrester) and you will eventually wind up back at the Deep web.

Revenge of the Librarians

Now here comes Internous. A technology start up by library Scientists who shines the light on the Deep Dark Web with a search engine concept that combines both algorithmic search with human classification. By introducing a new standard called The Internet Search Environment Number, Internous will soon organize the database of databases.

The Next Economic Paradigm

Meanwhile, The Ingenesist Project has specified a parallel financial system with a currency similar to the dollar except backed by innovation instead of debt (both are a proxy for future productivity). In the specifications they call for a knowledge inventory system for what people in a community know (“what’s between their ears?”) as an requirement for a proxy for future productivity in a new financial system. While nobody can predict exactly how this may eventually arise, we most certainly will watch new technologies such as the ISEN very carefully.

Special thanks to Matt Theobald. Here is the Internous video – well worth the time!!

Share this:

Dark Net and the Economics of Mutual Anonymity

By Admin

On December 14, 2009

In General Information

In 2001, Michael K Bergman, an American academic and entrepreneur and one of the foremost authorities about the Internet, published a paper estimating the “Deep Web” to be 400-550 times larger than the known Googleverse. What does this mean for everything we claim to know about the web, social media, and social influence marketing?

Andy Becket wrote an excellent investigative piece called The dark side of the internet that I highly recommend reading. Among many great points, Andy describes the deep web:

“The darkweb”; “the deep web”; beneath “the surface web” – the metaphors alone make the internet feel suddenly more unfathomable and mysterious. Other terms circulate among those in the know: “darknet”, “invisible web”, “dark address space”, “murky address space”, “dirty address space”. Not all these phrases mean the same thing. While a “darknet” is an online network such as Freenet that is concealed from non-users, with all the potential for transgressive behaviour that implies, much of “the deep web”, spooky as it sounds, consists of unremarkable consumer and research data that is beyond the reach of search engines. “Dark address space” often refers to internet addresses that, for purely technical reasons, have simply stopped working.

The implications of the Dark Web are subtle. Like “Dark Matter” in space, the dark web may behave as a multiplier to account for that which cannot be explained except by some invisible, albeit, constant force. We can assume consistence because the common thread that transcends the entire Internet is still conversation. The ability to have a conversation as well as the ability to reject a conversation is part of the Dark Web and still a conversation nonetheless. The opposite of publicity is anonymity – if the universe seeks balance so too can we expect the web to equalize around the average anonymity of conversation.

Entrepreneurial factors also appear rational when applied to the Dark Web, specifically true ownership. Ownership includes the right to restrict access from others. In the Googleverse of search rankings and old economics, watered down and largely unenforceable copyright laws create a wasteful game of Cease and Desist among content providers – not exactly a safe place to converse. The inability to establish ownership and boundaries of user generated content is a primary constraint on monetization.

Meanwhile, the Dark Web utilizes a knowledge inventory where trusted people of known affinity are given free access to share freely – and anonymously. Ironically, anonymity improves the quality of a conversation by eliminating the irrelevant data that often constrains conversation. It is worthwhile to consider anonymity as a possibles monetization factor – pay to hide?

Not all anonymity is corrupt and perverse. People spend a great deal of time and effort developing a database that represents a knowledge inventory and they don’t want someone to just copy it. Trade secrets are the great competitive financial instrument of capitalism and depend on secrecy. For better or for worse, political activity in non-free countries such as China, Iran, and Afghanistan also rely on anonymity. The more time people spend on the web, the more of their personal life that would want to keep to themselves – the ability to avoid Google bots is a tangible conversation.

The phenomenon to consider is that people with mutual anonymity are able to share more freely. Ironically, anonymity improves the quality of a conversation by eliminating the irrelevant data that often constrains conversation. Conversely, efforts to constrain anonymity destroys freedom of the web. Tell that to your web analytics team.

Share this:

Deep Web Search

By Admin

On December 13, 2009

In General Information

Deep Web Search Engine is here. This represents a new economic paradigm since increasing the available information increases the rate of change of knowledge across diverse communities. Keep your eyes on this one – it’s a big one.

Share this:

Open Letter to all Deep Web Researchers

By Admin

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

Share this:

Pirates, Anarchy, and the Monetization of Social Media

By Admin

On December 11, 2009

In General Information

(Editor’s note: some ideas adapted from writings of Peter T. Leeson and introduces the idea of IOUs trading as a proxy for production. The monetization of social media will likely evolve from such an idea)

No sane blogger would post an article suggesting that anarchy is superior to government as a means of producing widespread cooperation…or would they?

As Milton Friedman put it, “government is essential both as a forum for determining the ‘rules of the game’ and as an umpire to interpret and enforce the rules decided upon.” Most great anarchist theories are duly faulted for significant problems coping with cheating and violence.

Nonetheless, large swaths or anarchy exist today. For example, there is no World Court to enforce World Law, if such laws existed. Nor is there a Global commercial law to enforce contracts between Global traders. Even at a local level there is no guarantee that the government will protect your property or enforce your contracts.

A common objection to anarchy is that without government the strong will plunder the weak because the weak have an inherent inability to protect themselves. How can self-governance alone protect the weak?

Social Piracy?

Share this:

Fallout: FTC and Blogger Payola

By Admin

On December 11, 2009

In General Information

The FTC recently issued guidelines for payola to bloggers. The impact and opinions are now emerging over what this means for social media. As with any game played on a new field, rules need to apply. The questions emerge regarding who the rules hurt, who they help, and how the game will develop in the future due to those rules.

Straight from the horse’s mouth:

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed. These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers.

Extrapolate into the future:

Read More

Share this:

Why is college measured in “degrees”?

By Admin

On December 9, 2009

In General Information

(Editor’s note; This is the first in a series of articles that challenges the “degree system” of knowledge measurement as archaic and irrelevant to what is actually happening in the world today. Like the resume system – it is ridiculous if not outright damaging to the prospect of knowledge behaving, and therefore, trading like a financial instrument.

Why do we still care about college ‘degrees”?

The information that fuels the next economic paradigm will not be captured in the form of college degrees; rather, it will be captured in extremely detailed granularity of unique collections of knowledge assets in diverse combinations of persons that solve complex puzzles – and then share the solution with others.

This begs the question, why do we still care about University Degrees?

Read More

Share this:

Bretton Woods II – For the Biosphere

By Admin

On December 8, 2009

In General Information

In continuation of our series on New Economic Paradigm, the famed environmentalist Dr. David Suzuki points the an outdated financial system where the biosphere is treated as an externality to economic growth.

“When economists and politicians met in Bretton Woods, Maine, in 1944, they faced a world where war had devastated countrysides, cities, and economies. So they tried to devise solutions. They pegged currency to the American greenback and looked to the (terrible) twins, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to get economies going again.”

Whereas Bretton Woods (1) was tasked with rebuilding a war torn world, a new Financial Doctrine is needed to rebuild a war torn Biosphere. Economics as a discipline is based on the fundamental effects of selfishness and Bretton Woods demonstrated that we could in fact define “self” in terms of including the preservation of others. Now the task is to define “self” as including the Biosphere for which a new economic accord could certainly accommodate.

After all, the biosphere in an economic component. Like humans, it is selfish and will easily progress to a new “economic” state in response to economic inputs. In other words, don’t worry about destroying the World, it will take care of itself with or without humans.

Dr. Suzuki identifies two flaws in the current economic paradigm:

Read More

Share this:

When Capitalists Are Really the Socialists

By Admin

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?

Share this:

Taxonomy for Knowledge Inventory

By Admin

On October 15, 2009

In General Information

The library district in Adams County Colorado became the first in the nation to ditch The Dewey Decimal System in favor of something called “WordThink” or commonly known as “The Bookstore Classification System”.

Given that a great deal of literacy is reflected in our conversations, it is not difficult to accept that much of what we say can be traced back to some book or classified publication. True, knowledge comes from experience, but knowledge is derived from information and information is classified by the Dewey system, WordThink, The Universal Decimal Classification System or any number of proprietary taxonomies.

The difference is that The Bookstore Classification system is attached to a huge multi-billion dollar marketing and production infrastructure. Think Barnes and Noble, Amazon.com, Borders, etc. Some would call it an egregious example of corporatism in the public library system. Others would call it an astonishing opportunity for corporate subsidization of knowledge asset development. I tend toward the latter.

Knowledge needs to be formatted to behave like a financial instrument. If this can be accomplished then entrepreneurs will innovate in the trade of knowledge assets. If you want to build an airplane, you need an inventory of parts. If you went to build a social media as a social infrastructure, then you will need an knowledge asset inventory. If you want to promote innovation, then you want to promote social media. First and foremost, knowledge assets must look like a buck, walk like a buck and quack like a buck – then they will trade like a buck.

Conversational Currency, The Relationship Economy, and The Ingenesist Project have published on this matter. But for now, let me leave you with the original article from the Denver Post (below).

Some say that WordThink dumbs it all down, others say it’s easier to browse – see article below for additional analysis. However, as you read the article suppose you are an entrepreneur not shopping for a book on SEO, but rather, shopping your neighborhood for a person that knows SEO. Then ask; what’ll it be; Dewey or WordThink?

Adams County libraries shelving Dewey Decimal

By Monte Whaley
The Denver Post

Share this:

Building a Better Entrepreneur; Google 10^100

By Admin

On September 27, 2009

In General Information

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

Build A Better Bank

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

Our current banking system has gotten it backwards.

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

Better Banking Tools for everyone

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

Suggestions that inspired this idea

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

Fund Social Entrepreneurs

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

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

Help social entrepreneurs drive change

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

Suggestions that inspired this idea

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

Share this:

The New Reverse World Order

By Admin

On September 9, 2009

In General Information

The New Reverse Order

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

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

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

Profound Issues Arise.

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

A Vetting Zoo

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

A Steep Departure

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

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

Share this:

Trust as a Social Currency

By Admin

On September 8, 2009

In General Information

The idea of trust as social currency is appearing in more articles, conferences, and books. This is all highly consistent with the TIP thesis on Innovation Economics which describes the necessity of a vetting mechanism among the knowledge inventory as a means for the emergence of a currency in a market – that is, a conversational currency. People need to trust the currency if they are to trade the currency.

Shefaly Yogendra provides some excellent insights below. Keep in mind that American Culture does not have a monopoly on the definition of trust. It should not be an American expectation to define the conversational currency in our own image. Indeed, convertability of such currency will be, and must be, global.

I kept the analysis sparse on this article because it is a valuable exercise to form one’s own perspective on trust prior to diving into someone Else’s opinion. After all, it’s your currency – you own it. Good luck.

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

by Shefaly (please see her Bio here)

Trust is a non-negotiable essential in business. The post linked here refers to web-based business-to-consumer interactions. But as social currency, Trust is the most significant in interactions amongst organisations, customers, employees and regulatory bodies.

Definitions

Wikipedia defines social currency as “information shared which encourages further social encounters“. Social currency is different from social capital which refers to “connections within and between social networks and individuals“.

Social currency – some characteristics

a) No distinction between ‘physical’ and ‘virtual’ worlds

b) No distinction between ‘individuals’ and ‘corporate entities’

c) No distinction between validity of negative or positive normative labels

Determining the value of Trust as social currency

a) Verifiable Identity and antecedents

b) Consistency

c) Reliability

d) Peer recognition

e) Value of the network

f) Individuality and collaborative consciousness

The original article can be found here and it elaborates on each of the points above.

Share this:

The Social Media Resolution; From Monet to Blue Ray

By Admin

On August 14, 2009

In General Information

The Convergence of Knowledge

The Ingenesist Project and related blogs such as Relationship Economy and now Conversational Currency have long predicted that the resolution of social media space will vastly increase from “Monet” to “Blue Ray”. The segmentation and convergence of social media space will happen on two fronts: Knowledge Inventory and Proximity.

From Strategis:

“As Facebook balloons to over 250 million users, many voice their appreciation for Facebook’s small social network feel. Unlike its so-last-year counterpart, MySpace, Facebook has successfully maintained a very personal feel, finding hundreds of ways to link the most relevant people, in the most relevant ways.

Even so, because Facebook has so many interesting people, useful content, and relevant apps available, many users would appreciate a broader search option that would enable the to quickly search ALL of Facebook’s content. Thus, Face says: “your wish is my command”. And so it is. Facebook has now announced that it will soon make the change allowing users to search the entire site, not to mention, do new things like share status updates with everyone, rather than just confirmed friends. Expect to see these changes in full effect some time within the next two months”

What’s in store for the next 2 years?

While the coolness of Social Media is still riffing through society as the late adopters drive huge growth, nothing “economical” happens until people actually get together and build something. In order to build anything, there must be an inventory of parts. All these parts need to be in physical or virtual proximity to each other. A financial system must support the initiatives of the entrepreneurs in any market.

The United States of Mind

We’re about 3% into this new paradigm today. At 20% the corporate structure will become increasingly mushy as many corporate functions are now handled in Social media space. At 30%, cooperation will “compete” with competition as a business model. At 40% a new currency emerges to hedge debt backed dollar with productivity backed “conversational currency”. At 50% people convert general dollar backed holdings to ‘conversational currency’ holdings. At 60% social priorities dominate corporate priorities. At 70% the Innovation Bond dominates financial markets. At 80% international borders become fuzzy as knowledge flows as easily as, say, avocados and T-shirts do today. At 90% global currency backed by productivity, dollar, Euro, Yen all expire. At 100%, the president is elected to a “State of mind”.

Hold on, not so fast….

OK, so that’s the problem with predictions, it’s hard to survive with one’s credibility intact. Kudos to Strategis for showing us the future!!

Share this:

If it Quacks like a Buck…..

By Admin

On August 13, 2009

In General Information

If it looks like a buck, and talks like a buck, and quacks like a buck – it’s probably a buck.

So when your money gets “free will” and starts walking out the door door, that’s bad enough. When flies out the window en mass enabled by the same social media that brings money in the door – serious management issues arise. Should organization choose fight, flight, or cooperation?

Battle lines are being drawn:

“Among large U.S. companies, 33% have employees on staff to monitor e-mail messages — up from 15% last year, one survey found. The Proofpoint study also found that 31% of companies had fired workers who breached confidentiality via e-mail, and 8% had fired someone over a social-networking leak. The survey found 41% of respondents are worried about potential leaks via Twitter. ZDNet (08/10)”

“Marines banned social networking sites from their computers Tuesday due to security concerns, and the Pentagon announced a policy review. But Pentagon’s top officer will still tweet (Christian Science Monitor 08/05)“

“A great way to keep up with the latest Navy news is through the MyNavyMyFuture Twitter handle: https://twitter.com/mynavymyfuture. Just FYI for anyone who’s on Twitter. The handle is based off the Navy Officer site www.mynavymyfuture.com. (NavyNima – recruiter)“

The New York Times reports, “The N.F.L. has identified the enemy and it is Twitter.”

There are literally thousands of articles on this subject but none of the few that I read came to any conclusion, so I will:

Money is becoming intangible (cannot be contained) and Social Media is becoming tangible (has become the container)

The very structure of organizations is changing. Trying to control the temperature of the room when the windows have been blown out will only destroy existing controls faster. A completely new economic structure is emerging complete with new factors of production, incentives, institutions, accounting, and currency.

Swap or swamp?

Easier said than done? Not really; all we need to do is swap the same methods that we use to manage tangible assets with those same methods that we use to manage intangible assets. There are in fact people and organizations trying to do this (specifically this author) but you won’t find then in corporations anymore.

Companies have no choice but to understand migration patterns, flock actualization needs, motivation, and environmental issues. Going from an economy where the corporate charter is only “to deliver shareholder value” to one of safeguarding the health and welfare of people and their property” is a huge leap.

The discussion of Conversational Currency is required to understand the underlying economic forces that drive social media and the emerging institutional structure for corporations to create value in a computer enabled society.

Share this: