The Ingenesist Project

The Next Economic Paradigm

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Decentralized CRM With Curiosumé

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On March 6, 2015

In General Information

(Photo: New York Times)

Modern CRM (Customer Relationship Management) emerged from the boiler rooms of corporate sales departments. They needed a way to keep track of contacts, leads, calls, and ping schedules.  Soon they added client information like DOB, Spouses name, neighborhood news, etc.  The customer responded remarkably well, in fact, perhaps too well – they started asking for things like better service, warranty claims, and “can I get that in purple”.

Salespersons, being so closely tied to the revenue, began telling the service department that they are choking revenue,  and telling the warranty department when customers are defecting, and telling engineering to introduce new features.  They got away with it because they had management support as a revenue driver.  Pretty soon CRM systems began migrating across the enterprise evolving along the way. Ironically, CRM now finds itself losing touch with the customer despite the ever increasing amount of data that now populates the hit sheets.

Recently, we were asked to consider scenarios for Curiosumé applications in a CRM role in the financial industry. There are several important features of Curiosumé that can reconnect the customer to the enterprise.

Top level ontology in the commons
Instead of controlling people’s information, set it free and watch where the client leads you.  When all market channels pull their information from the same network of nodes and branches, they can always be current and synchronized. When the client adds information to the commons, this becomes available to the vendor outside of a firewall eliminating many security issues.  You don’t necessarily need (or want) to know the ID of the client in order to serve them better.

Anonymity layer / autonomous matching:
AUPOT (Anonymous Until Point of Transaction) allows clients to deploy anonymous personas so that they will be more willing to;

  • reveal true intentions to the commons,
  • perform their own pre-analysis in the commons
  • increase their insights and contribute that to the commons.

Customer Controls Their Data:
Help the client own and control their own engagement data.  Give them the same tools and opportunities to experiment as researchers as the Big Data wonks have.  Allow them to delete, save, edit or have as many different personas as they want. Let them deploy and retract personas as a way of finding you.  A better and more efficient relationship will emerge between both sides of a transaction.

User interface layer:
Instead of leading your client like cattle through an arbitrary ontology tree, show them photographs that corresponds to nodes in the common ontology.  These can then be matched algorithmically to advisors, products, or different departments in the firm, in real time.   In essence, you can create a multi-agent algorithmic game in a user interface that could be fun, engaging, and sticky as heck.

Advisor interface:
When a client chooses to engage the advisor or a product or a transaction,  they can submit their persona into the algorithm to select specialized advisors or a team of advisors. Only at the point of mutual acceptance, both players cross the firewall and engage in honest, trusting commerce. Layers and layers of bureaucracy, vetting, and security breaches can be eliminated until the actual exchange is made.

(Photo: The Philadelphia Orchestra)

Powerful Feature:
One of the most powerful and least recognized features of Curiosumé is the ability to constrain a “score” to a number or a range. One reason for this is to create imbalance around the mean – when the system is not balanced, it can never be static and will always have some movement (regression toward the mean).  It will become largely self-managing, self centering, and even a little joyous.

For example: if we constrain the client to having a Curiosumé score of zero; that means that for the total of all (+) sigmas, they must also accumulate an equal and opposite total of  (-) sigmas such that their net total is zero, in order to pass “go”. When we lay this back on to the top level ontology (Wikipedia), we can find a series of paths that unite the (+) sigmas to the (-) sigmas.  This path tells us a GREAT deal about where the client wants to go.  Likewise an older client may prefer a net (+) portfolio where a younger client may prefer a net (-) portfolio.  Decentralized CRM with Curiosumé can also be applied to risk pooling in the same manner. The deviation s from the mean and resulting movements are precisely how we would price the derivatives of intangibles, i.e. tangibles.

Outcome:
Decentralized CRM with Curiosumé is readily ready to happen. We know that people, advisors, and products can be brought together in personal and emotional engagement when they intersect paths of common interest. This is the weakness of both the barter system AND modern technological Capitalism  If we can envision interests flowing dynamically along vectors, we will have the ability to align human incentives and the markets that depend on them.

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Proof of Work vs Proof of Performance

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On October 25, 2014

In General Information

Proof-of-work (PoW) is a cryptographic technique introduced to a transaction which solves problems of fairness or abuse.  For example, a PoW would require a computer program to solve a simple puzzle before it can pass an email from sender to a receiver.  Someone who sends spam emails would be burdened with an computational costs greater than the possible benefit of sending spam.  A legitimate email from a single sender to a small packet of recipients would pass easily.

Proof-of-performance (PoP) refers to a condition where two parties enter into an agreement and a third party judges whether the conditions of the agreement are met.  Like an escrow account, the buyer puts the money into an account and the seller puts the title into an account.  If the conditions of the contract are met, a judge (adjudicator) flips the switch that completes the transfer.  If conditions are not met, the switch returns the money to the buyer and the title to the seller.

Proof of Work vs Proof of Performance

PoW and PoP are substantially different in many important ways.  For example, for POW the adjudicator is a computer program.  For PoP, the adjudicator is a person.  Ideally, the PoW is perfectly unbiased and cannot be corrupted for personal gain.  The PoP however, resembles the business model of most Brokers who can be biased, if not corruptible for individual gain.  Herein lies the promise of crypto currencies and so-called smart contracts that can be executed by computational algorithm rather than untrusted human agents.

On the other hand, PoW and PoP are conceptually similar is some ways as well.  In the Bitcoin protocol, for example, completing a PoW results in the issuance of a new coin.  Similarly PoP adjudicator is payed a fee or commission for validating the conditions of a contract.  The mother of all PoPs happens in the Banking System which literally issues new dollars into existence in the form of debt as a consequence of an adjudicated contract between a buyer and seller.

While the puzzles and context may differ, the consequence is the same – money is conjured into existence as a result of a humanly intensional transaction.  There really is nothing, except perhaps the deep training of an oppressed population, that says that a decentralized POP adjudicated by qualified and unbiased persona (disaggregated from the transaction) could not also result in the creation of new money.  This is exactly what Curiosumé proposes can be accomplished.

In the prior post; The Conjuring of Intangible Values,  The tangible value of a bridge connecting two cities and the intangible value of that same bridge are vastly different quantities.  Likewise, the tangible value of Bitcoin and the intangible value of Bitcoin are also vastly different different values for the same reason as the bridge between two cities.  If PoW = PoP could be assimilated in a single currency, we could build an economy whose currency is underwritten by the intangible value of infrastructure.

Ultimately, our planet would be the apex of infrastructure preservation, i.e., Humanity’s New Central Bank.

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It Is Time To Evolve

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On October 4, 2011

In General Information

I saw a Fox News commentary on the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They interviewed a bunch of kids who were taking part in the parade and asked them a simple question: “So, what do you expect to replace Capitalism with?”

Then Fox, in their fair and balanced tradition, portrayed their subjects as the poster children of a failed education system (some children left behind after all) and further testimony to the failure of the Obama Administration. because obviously “These kids don’t know how the real world works”.

The Pundits can’t climb the tree any better.

Unfortunately, nobody else has an answer to that question either – none of the pundits or anchors produced anything except the tired argument that we tried Socialism and it failed so therefore more Capitalism is the only way to fix Capitalism.

It’s a Simple Problem

Market Capitalism only articulates value in the things that people make which can physically sit on a market shelf.  Market Capitalism does not articulate the value of individual people; those things that people make in society.

Of course, it is also a double edge sword since those that really don’t produce anything – like hedge fund managers, pundits, and politicians – will become impoverished. Meanwhile, those who really do produce things – like teachers, engineers, and firemen – will become wealthy.  So watch how the lines are redrawn in this debate.

How the world really works

The Internet and social media have shifted the factors of production away from land, labor, and capital to a higher order of human organization.  This is what we need to be talking about.  People today produce things with knowledge – social, creative, and intellectual knowledge.  These are the factors of production for that 99% of the value that exists on Earth.

A Simple Solution

After many a blue face, I’ll say it again; there is no way to build anything meaningful without an inventory of parts.  Car companies have inventories of parts, Banks have inventories of assets, even biology has an inventory of genomes – but there is no knowledge inventory for our communities.  We don’t know what we do or do not know.  We have absolutely no idea how valuable we are yet we complain that we’re impoverished.  Meanwhile corporation create technology to replace people when people could be just as easily be creating technology to replace corporations.

How on Earth can we determine supply and demand for knowledge assets without an inventory?  How can we expect to create any type of fair and rational economy from a bunch of invisible stuff milling around the parks?  There is no escape from Market Capitalism and no path to Social Capitalism without a Knowledge Inventory, period.

A Stunning Omission

This is a very easy problem to solve and we have all the cards waiting to be stacked in our favor using the tools that are right in front of our collective noses.  If we fail at something so simple, then we deserve to be enslaved.  After all, 100,000 years ago, such people would have been eaten by tigers.  It’s time to Evolve.

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People Are Corporations Too

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On August 13, 2011

In General Information

Wow what a week. I though that I heard it all until Mitt Romney said “Corporations Are people”. Actually, I admire Mr. Romney but I do struggle with this interpretation for his sake and those who he represents – and possibly an opportunity lost to rise above the noise.

In a way, Mitt provides us with a looking glass into the fundamental differences between the rich and the poor. The rich see themselves as the proxy for the prosperity of the poor. Meanwhile, the poor see themselves as the proxy for the prosperity of the rich. Neither side admits that they need each other, but I won’t pretend that I can solve this argument any time soon.  However, allow me to suggest that the winner of the debate will be the one that can evolve above the paradox.

The following video discusses how many components of a corporation – and government – are being duplicated in Social Media. The beauty of is that this great social innovation is available to anyone including the rich, the poor, the corporations, and the government. Oh, but wait – if the UK shuts down social media, they will effectively shut themselves out of the paradox, not evolve from it…Ooops. Be careful, Mitt.

So here is a video I made last year which, in a way, validates much of what we see playing out before us in politics, business, and social media.

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The 3 Steps To Social Profits

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On November 29, 2010

In General Information

I have been approached by many brilliant social entrepreneurs in recent weeks.  They each have several things in common. Each has an incredibly creative idea and a strong passion linked to a deep seated observation that social currency has value.  As nebulous as that may sound, it is very real, specific, and clear in the minds of those who I’ll call, The New Entrepreneur.

Nothing Economic can happen until two or more people get together to build something.  Likewise, when two or more people get together to build something, economic things happen. The objective of this post is to demonstrate the 3 underlying actions of a new class of business plans that will become dominant in the next economic paradigm.

Our recipe is simple:

Step one: convert financial currency into social currency

Step two: Create value denominated in social currency

Step three: Convert new social currency back into financial currency – if needed

This simple recipe forms the basis of the business plans for several start-ups including Social Flights and The Social Value Network as well as numerous other projects that we consult to in the US, Greece, Brazil, Australia, China, and Mexico.

So here is how it works

The Old Business Model:  Suppose you buy a truck and you use it to haul stuff for your own personal and business interests. After 5 years, you can sell the truck for about 1/2 what you paid for it.

The New Business Model: Suppose that you buy a truck to hauls stuff for your own personal or business interests.  Suppose that you also let The Boy Scout troop leader borrow it to pick up christmas trees for sale.  Suppose you let the Kiwanis use it to pick up supplies for their annual salmon bake.  Suppose you let the YWCA haul donated furniture to their satellite facility.  Suppose you help your neighbor use it for a home improvement project.  After 5 years, you sell the truck for about 1/2 of what you paid for it.

The difference is that now your community is engaged with your personal interests.  You have converted financial capital into social capital and created new value denominated in social currency.  One notable example includes Neighborgoods, but there will undoubtedly be thousands of variations of this leveraging every conceivable physical asset.

Now, how do you transform this back social capital into financial capital?   Well, that’s what the emerging science of Social Capitalism is all about.  Social Profit is like a fungible option with a face value.  If structured correctly, an option can have a face value equal to the difference between discount and full price. That face value can be traded like money.  When you are engaged in a community, people know who you are, they trust you and they share with you.  People are trading options – the right without the obligation to exercise a financial position in the future.

Options have real value as an asset if you have them or as a liability if you don’t

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Don’t Blame The Bankers

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On November 23, 2010

In General Information

There are two sets of values in an economy. Financial value and social value. The value that is required to make something is financial value. The value that a product provides to a community of people is called social value.

Financial Currency

In order to make something, money is used to purchase raw materials and labor. After these ingredients are integrated, the product is then marketed, transported and sold for more money that the input costs. This is called financial profit in a system called market capitalism. The degree to which financial profits are gained or lost is the degree to which a financial value system is functional or dysfunctional.

Social Currency

When the product enters a community, it helps people to occupy their limited time on Earth in a more peaceful and productive manner. The product unites families and communities around human attributes such as happiness, joy, comfort, security, and wellbeing. This is called social profit in a system of social capitalism. The degree to which social profits are gained or lost is the degree to which the social value system is functional or dysfunctional.

Domination

In market capitalism, no enterprise is allowed to make less money than they consume for very long without being punished. Yet, in social capitalism there is no common means to even account for social profits or losses. There are no formal inventory of raw social materials, social value added labor, social marketing, transport, storage or exchange of social capital – the social value system is largely irrational.  The profit accounting and structural mechanisms are what make market capitalism dominant over social capitalism.

Bankers should be studied

For better or worse, the financial system works exactly as it is supposed to. Bankers do exactly what they were designed to do. They will do the same thing tomorrow as they did yesterday. Bankers are extremely predictable.  The problem lies in our irresponsible design for social capitalism and our dependency on anything but ourselves for economic outcomes.  All of the means and methods that we call an “unfair advantage” are available to each and every one of us if we simply copy bankers.

Look beyond the symptoms and you’ll find the cure

By virtue of the range, complexity, and scope of problems that surround our species it should be somewhat obvious that social capitalism is poorly executed. It does not represent a system of human attributes and values. Social Capitalism is unorganized, unaccounted, and unworthy to act in the interest of the participants. That is where the problem lies and that is where the solutions need to be applied.

Must admit that WE have a problem

Anyone can point their finger at the bankers and blame them for all the bad things in the world.  It is a completely different matter to exert the mental discipline to fully understand what makes a banker rational and what makes a banking system accountable, then to generalize this genius for applicability to ALL forms of Value, including but not limited to social value.  If the bankers accept or reject any value system, they will do it rationally.

Be a Banker

Social media provides an extraordinary set of tools for social capitalists.  Specifications that mimic the banking system in social media are readily available.  Important awakening projects are arising that take responsibility for the future rather than lay blame on the past.  It’s time that we all become bankers.

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Social Stock Exchange

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On November 19, 2010

In General Information

The over-reaching objective of the alternate/social currencies movement is to create an alternate storage and exchange device to contain “Value”.

Bizarro Capitalism

Coupons regularly portray value in Bizarro World where “Save” really means “Spend Faster”.  The vendor outlet artificially prints the Bizarro Currency which can only be redeemed in Bizarro World.  No social value is created, rather, it is destroyed.

But, if my friends sell me the product, why should I pay a salesman?

Quit complaining, the new business plan is very simple:

Step 1: Convert financial currency into a social currency,

Step 2: Create Value in the social environment (denominated in the social currency).

Step 3: Convert surplus Value back into financial currency.

Example: Suppose Alphonso publishes his knowledge inventory to a social network as follows

Career mechanical engineer, aspiring photographer, outdoors lover, economics blogger, social media index top 20%, etc.

Based on this profile, Nikon USA gives Alphonso a coupon for $500 off of any purchase of $1000 dollars.  In other words, this coupon has a tangible face value of 500 dollars. Obviously Nikon can’t discount all of their products by 50%, so they announce that only 10,000 of these coupons will be placed in circulation with some fairly distant expiration date.

The Value Game:

Suppose that Alphonso already owns a Canon so he lists the 500 dollar coupon on Craigslist for 250 dollars.  From there, he meets another photography enthusiast in his local community and keeps the difference to buy some new camping gear.

Now, we are in familiar Groupon territory; a 500 dollar deal for 250 dollars.

The value of the coupon decreases as the expiration date nears but the value of the coupon increases as the scarcity increases.  Nikon can regulate values and incentives by changing the rates at which they issue coupons. The Par value of the coupon reflects these external market forces.

People will reach into their social networks to play the value game

People will get their friends together to go on a Nikon spending spree, groups of people can buy and share community camera gear, they can donate the coupon to their kid’s high school photography class – all in exchange for Social Value.

Creating Social Value

This process of people working together around a leveraged asset (such as a 1000 dollar camera) creates social value.  It quickly becomes in the best interest for Alphonso to strengthen the photography community because his increased status will enhance his knowledge inventory and increase the likelihood of receiving additional discounts from Nikon and many other brands.

Converting Back to Currency

Every time Nikon is mentioned in conversation, this is an advertising impression – it is done in a positive light of social value creation.  This is exactly the task that an expensive ad agency would be hired to play Bizarro World.  Nikon would be largely agnostic over where the ad budget is allocated as long as measurable sales result.  Likewise, Alphonso and his friends strengthen their financial position in a market

The Future of Money

Eventually, an environment would emerge where coupons never actually need to be converted to cash. All coupons from all vendors can go into an exchange pool much like a Bond Market rated on a “social value score” and trading at a par value dependent on market forces. The difference is that Value would now be allocated according to social priority rather than Wall Street priority.

The total value of the exchange pool can become the basis of a new currency standard to fund new production of new social products and innovations.

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Social Value is Social Enterprise

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On November 15, 2010

In General Information

The fastest way to unleash the extraordinary value that is contained in communities of experienced, talented, and motivated people is to provide a substrate for them to trade their knowledge assets among each other.  When people get together around a purpose, they build things that create incredible social value. The Social Value Platform provides an electronic accounting system for social value.  In The Social Value Game, vendors deposit inventory into a strategic community of people and the community creates social value.  This new social value is then converted into monetary revenue in the next economic paradigm called Social Capitalism.


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The Invisible Hand of Social Capitalism

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On November 12, 2010

In General Information

Living to work, or working to live?

Everyone knows what money is supposed to be – it is supposed to be a representation of human productivity, otherwise nobody would “work” for it, right?

It is also fairly obvious that money is not the only thing that represents human productivity. People work for family, community, reputation, love, recreation, art, music, etc.   These values are denominated in social currencies.

Working for Social Currency

Market Capitalism has deftly turned social currencies into consumption verticals.  People consume recreation products, family products, community products, reputation products, etc. The irony is that people are  foregoing all those things to drive off to work in order to earn the money so that they can buy back their family, recreation, and community. People are “working” for social currencies denominated in dollars.  The Mantra of Madison Avenue is to “Steal the thing that people love about themselves and sell it back for the price of the product”

Influence Peddling

Well known internet celebrities are getting sponsorships from some well known corporations – but not all.  The reason is clear – these people have the ability to influence the opinions and interactions of their community.  However, if the sponsor has a terrible product, that same influence can turn against the brand and the influencer in an amplified manner.  It is clearly in the brand’s best interest to match the product with the message of the influencer and vice versa.

Everyone is an influencer within their own knowledge inventory

A mechanical engineer can influence the professional community of engineers.  A math teacher can influence students.  A police officer can influence citizens.  A patriarch can influence an extended family. A big brother can influence a little sister.  Taken together and segmented across a hugely diverse knowledge inventory of human civilization, everyone is an influencer of everyone else.

Printing Social Currency

So instead of going to work to to earn money, people could just as easily go into their community to earn influence.  Brands can sponsor people based on their knowledge inventory to use, share, organize, and improve communities and products.   The most successful product will be those that help people to improve their communities. As such, brands and products will likewise benefit from stronger and unified communities.  Products that weaken, marginalize, oppress, or isolate people from their communities will fail.

The Invisible Hands of Social Capitalism

Nothing economic can happen until people get together to build something.  Strong linked communities will get together to build “economic” things. What they choose to build will become the value generation mechanisms of the future economy that will transform social value back into financial value.  Like Adam Smith’s invisible hand of Market Capitalism, the Invisible Hands of Social Capitalism will reward people for organizing themselves to make what they enjoy most and are naturally talented in producing.  We’ll call them “Recorporations“.

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Of Anxiety and Optimism

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On September 30, 2010

In General Information

Keep it Simple

I’ll keep this simple because it is simple.  Most people know exactly what I am talking about.  Most people feel that a huge change is underway.  Most people feel deep in their hearts that whatever we are doing today will be different tomorrow.  Most people feel a strange combination of anxiety and optimism.

It’s Time to Change

No, it’s not just a political change or an economic change or even a social change.  All of these, in their simplicity, would not do justice to the magnitude of what is really about to happen.  The forces now in play will resolve to the equivalent difference between the hunter gatherer civilization, and the Renaissance.   The next economic paradigm will be as different as the abacus is from the computer itself.  Yet, the process by which this is happening is so simple, that the mind is repelled.

Factors of Production

In the Industrial revolution, a machine would make widgets.  It did not matter whether you or I ran the machine, the same widget would emerge.

Today, the machine is a computer.  Your interaction with the computer is entirely different than my interaction with the computer.  In fact, you could swap out the computers and our individual output would remain unchanged.

A HUGE difference

Factors of production are no longer the land, labor, and financial capital of Classical Economic theory.  The factors of production are social, creative, and intellectual capital of  people and their communities.

Classical economic theory is breaking down.  There is a huge change on the horizon. The new economic paradigm is in the process of siphoning off the old economic paradigm.  We’re approaching mid-span; both tanks are half empty or half full, depending on how you look at it.

Confidence is a mixture of anxiety and optimism

I can say with great confidence that anxiety and optimism are the correct emotions to be experiencing today.  So go ahead and tell the children in your life that everything will be OK.

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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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How Knowledge Assets Live In Community

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On September 17, 2010

In General Information

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

Social media has every industry trying to understand the concept of community.  Nature and our environment continues to demonstrate to humanity that there is far more cooperation going on than competition. There is tragedy looming at both ends of our political spectrum and some people are realizing that we are all in this together.

Twitter shows us that everyone is an expert at something and nobody is an expert at everything.  Corporations must understand that someone not performing adequately cannot be treated as flotsam subject to jettison at the next layoff or outsourcing opportunity.  They soon see that their customers disappear as well – because they are the same.  Communities, people, social networks, and their integrated knowledge assets are the mis-allocated asset being squandered by losing management teams, not land, labor or capital.

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

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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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The True Value Calculation

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On September 1, 2010

In General Information

In case anyone is wondering if Social media can drive Social Priorities  against Wall Street Priorities, they need not look any further than the cover of the New York Times. Here is a story from the August 31st edition about banks that step away from no-brainer money making business venture because of the social risks to their reputations and therefore, their bottom line.

It is obvious that new sources of energy will be hugely lucrative in the future – except when blowing up pristine Appalachian mountain tops or releasing vast CO2 emissions cracking oil from Canadian sands – both perfectly legal enterprises.

In the past, the struggle between those in favor and those opposed to, say, a coal extraction project played out largely in private and was heavily biased toward those with the deepest pockets. In the past, the developers had an advantage of vast money reserves to wage legal battles, political wrangling, and public relations campaigns against the lowly community action members. Now, this fountain of money may dry up in the future if banks step away, politicians become wary, and the public becomes increasingly informed of the true value of all alternatives.

“We’re taking a much closer look at a much broader variety of issues, not all of which are captured under state and local laws,” said Stephanie Rico, a spokeswoman for the environmental affairs group at Wells Fargo.

These dynamics are converging on something called a “True Value” Calculation. The True Value Calculation is the expanded ROI of a business venture which includes the positive and negative impacts on a much wider body of stakeholders in the sum total of viability. In the very near future, we may find that the True Value Calculation will become the rational basis of our democracy as social media aspires to the role of social vetting mechanism and politicians become increasingly irrelevant to anyone but each other.

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Intellectual Property In the Cloud

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On August 31, 2010

In General Information

The Patent system is slow, static, and expensive. Sure it’s great for corporations and wealthy institutions, but what about the rest of us? How do we get paid for our intellectual property? We make rapid fire decisions every day that can make or break markets – who’s got time to patent?

Intellectual Property In the Cloud

Or maybe the last thing that Wall Street wants is for Engineers, Architects, designers, and creative people to get “royalties” on their work. Wall Street is quite happy collecting the royalties of the creative people in America – those people who actually produce something real and tangible.  Social media is a social contract and Intellectual Property is our tangible currency. Hello.

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An IPO For Humanity

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On August 26, 2010

In General Information

The term IPO conjures images of empire-making where a hot young company with a great product offers pieces of its future-self for sale to the public as a means of raising money without incurring debt.  The money is then used to create the next titan whose new jolt of growth is shared with all who participated.

Today, every annual report to shareholders touts the great team of people whose social, creative, and intellectual capital make it all happen, the worthy and stoic investors whose vision drives sound decisions, and the legions of happy customers who make it all worthwhile.

Essentially, an IPO is people buying into the productivity of other people.

Yet, the IPO is a strict and complex legal and regulatory maneuver that establishes property rights on these small pieces of future productivity – represented by “stock” in the company.

There are underwriters (usually a bank), battalions of lawyers, the securities and exchanges commission (SEC), brokers, insurers, re-insurers, institutional investors, private investors, and retail investors.  There is a full infrastructure supporting the facts of incorporation, disclosure, accounting, and proper management of internal “inside” information.  And, of course, there is a media /PR campaign.  All are integrated to keep the game fair, yet viable.

In the Age of Social Media

I could be wrong but it seems that such vast infrastructure appears a bit awkward if the end result is simply for people to buy into the productivity of other people.  This happens everyday in Social Media.  At some point, we really need to ask; why can’t an individual or a group of individuals raise money without incurring debt like corporations can?

In Social Media, people own and deploy their relationships,  communities, motivation, their knowledge, creativity, intellect, mentorship, leadership, teamwork, their network, and even their ability to form corporations – people own their time.  Social currency is backed by the scarcity of time and the availability of surplus knowledge.

All of the structural components of the financial system are appearing in an analogous form in social media; social vetting, social gaming, aggregation, influence, knowledge inventories, communities of knowledge assets, local social, global social, tag search, deep search, semantic search, stream of consciousness search, geolocation, mobile computing, multi-media, and many more innovations are being created and deployed everyday which literally serve the functions of banks, lawyers and legislation in an invisible economy.

The Ingenesist Project tries to string this all together with just enough specificity so that an alternate financial system will jump start itself and become both visible and available to everyone.

We’ll hold an IPO for Humanity

All of the infrastructure and the potential for people to produce things would remain intact regardless of what happens to the currency.  Think about what would happen if all the dollar based money system evaporated. The only safe haven for the storage and exchange of value will be in people and their communities.

The only thing missing is a system that can articulate social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital instead of land labor and financial capital.  This system can be built today.

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The Last Mile: Social Media Battleground

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On August 24, 2010

In General Information

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…

Nothing “Economic” can happen is Social Media until real people get together to build things. Sure, Marketers are trying their hardest to penetrate the last mile, but communities are trying to defend it too. This is the final battleground of Social Media. The end game must be as follows: Social priorities must ultimately drive Wall Street priorities – not the other way around. That is the only sustainable thesis for the next millennium.

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.

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Google CEO Warns of Information Armageddon

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On August 21, 2010

In General Information

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt warns of the future consequences of social media and networks, and the vast amount of personal data that users put out there on the Web.

The article goes on to describe how Google is looking for what is next – that is, a world where the Google Icon no longer dominates the center of our lives.  He warns future societies about creating a “future” by documenting the past.  A future president, CEO, or just a job hunter can be haunted forever by the words and images that are becoming indelible in social media today.  Mr. Schmidt insists that information is social currency.

Actually, I do not believe this to be true.  I believe that is more likely than not a severe disruption is on the horizon which will deeply impact social media, Google, and Facebook, etc.  This disruption will alter the course of the future that Google predicts.

All it would take is for humans to step up one more rung on the evolution ladder.

Think of it like this:  a dollar is used to store and exchange value yet it is completely anonymous – you don’t know very much about it’s past or future – you do not need to know much about the exchange device in order to carry out the transaction.

Google is an information company, not a knowledge company. The next economic paradigm will be based on the creation, storage , and exchange of knowledge – not necessarily information.  Knowledge exists only between the ears and once it is made tangible, I will not need to know where in the past that knowledge was excecuted – college keg parties included.

Neither Google or Facebook have indicated that they realize how value can be created, stored, and exchanged while maintaining anonymity if the public knowledge inventory were properly coded. Likewise, billions of people who use Social Media are dismally unaware that nobody else needs to posess any of their personal information to execute a knowledge transaction – seriously, noone.  In fact, not only is relative anonymity a possibility, it is an imperative to market efficiency in Social Capitalism.

The “next Google” will, in fact, filter out irrelevant “information” as a means of creating time. Time is the real currency. For more on this please see http://ingenesist.com/introduction.

Google needs to figure out how to get the most worthy knowledge surplus connected to the most worthy knowledge deficit in the shortest amount of time.  Information brokering alone can’t do this, so it’s Armageddon for whom?

***

Please Vote for The Ingenesist Project to present at SXSW 2011

The Ingenesist Project specifies an Innovation Economy built on a platform of social media as the next economic paradigm.  60 minute solo presentation in the advanced technical track.  Your help is deeply appreciated. All comments welcome.  Material based on video series here

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Please Vote for The Ingenesist Project; SXSW

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On August 18, 2010

In General Information

The Ingenesist Project has submitted the following presentation to the South By Southwest Conference in Austin Texas on March 2011. We sincerely encourage our readers to vote for this presentation. It promises to be hugely compelling, deeply controversial, and boldly disruptive. This is for a 60 minute solo presentation to the Advanced Technical Track – the competition is impressive. Voting ends Friday August 27, 2010

Please select the following link to vote

Thank you very much for your support

The Ingenesist Project

Description:

Today, we have one of the most extraordinary opportunities in human history playing out before our eyes. Social Capitalism is no longer merely a band-aid for an amoral Market Capitalism, it is a new form of Capitalism in it’s own right.

In the age of social media, many entrepreneurs no longer allocate land, labor, and financial capital as a primary means of production. Rather, they deploy social capital, creative capital, and intellectual capital to the production of a vast amount of “value” that is stored and exchanged in communities. The objective of The Ingenesist Project is to make this value tangible outside the constructs of government and corporate interaction.

This presentation identifies the five essential components of Market Capitalism and demonstrates similar elements emerging in social media. It then specifies how these elements can be integrated to perform the essential analogous functions of financial institutions. Next, we specify three relatively simple social media applications that may create a new class of business plans enabling millions of social entrepreneurs worldwide. Finally, a new financial instrument is described which can be capitalized and securitized to form the basis of a fungible social currency to hedge the dollar.

The net result could create a condition where Wall Street priorities are subservient to social priorities rather than social priorities being subservient to Wall Street priorities.

Questions Answered


What can replace market capitalism when it finally runs out of steam?
What exactly are people producing when they engage in Social Media and why does it create value?
What characteristics must a social currency have in order to be fully convertible or even a replacement for the dollar?
What is a knowledge inventory, how should it be formed, and why should every community have one?
What would be a powerful strategic plan for the Internet in the absence of one today?


[Level Advanced Category Entrepreneurism / Monetization Tags monetization, Social Capitalism, Social Currency Type Solo Event Interactive 2011]

The presentation will mirror some content found in the following video series

Photo credit:


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Social Capitalism and The Innovation Bond

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On August 18, 2010

In General Information

We know the Venture Capitalists look for returns of 1000% on their investments. We also know that Corporate innovation (as reflected by the S&P 500) enjoys a long term median return rate of about 9-10%

It follows to reason that all of the innovation that could return somewhere between 10% and 1000% goes largely un-capitalized. This does not mean that the innovation does not exist – it only means that it is invisible to any existing financial system, it is accounted as “intangible” – or worse, it shows up as a liability.

Parents caring for children, Children caring for elderly parents, Mentors educating proteges, groups of people organizing, sharing knowledge, and growing families – all increase the net productivity of society. Legions of people creating options and opportunities for themselves and each other in communities, social media, and extended networks – all increase the value stored in communities.   Billions of people-hours inventing better ways to do the things that they do, compensating for the shortcomings of governments and corporations – all of this innovation falls into the range between 10% and 1000% ROI, yet, remains invisible and un-capitalized.

Social media as a whole is growing at well over 200% per year where every single interaction creates incremental multiples of social value – otherwise people would not do it (to say that people are irrational is to say that markets are irrational).  Where is all that value going?  Meanwhile, in the current Global financial debt crisis, institutions that hold huge amounts of cash are scouring the globe for pockets of low-risk productivity as sanctuary from volatile financial markets.

Now, suppose that an innovation bond were to come along which produces a risk adjusted return of, say, 15%. This means that human productivity is being reliably increased somewhere in a community by only 15% per year. If this were the case across a broad sector of inter-related communities where productivity were denominated in a fungible currency, investors would seek refuge in the Innovation Bond.  If the Innovation Bond returned say, 20% or more – all the money in the world may drop the debt based currency in favor of the innovation based currency by seeking refuge in innovation bonds.  Yes, I said it – “all the money in the world”.  Now, get over it.

Proceeds would be distributed to organized communities whose knowledge inventory is formatted like a financial instrument in the form of entrepreneurship. Proceeds would go to communities where the probability of success is known long before the bets are made in the form of Cheap Venture Capital. Proceeds would go to communities where productivity is defined by an un-corruptible algorithm through decreased volatility coefficients. Proceeds would go to communities where assets are valued accurately by true supply and true demand.  Proceeds would go to less developed communities with the highest social arbitrage potential rather than those with the most powerful marketers and lobbyists.  Most importantly, money would go to corporations that adopt the innovation economy. The stronger the institutions of Social Capital become, the greater the value of an innovation bond.  New production of goods and services would reflect these social priorities in the True Value Game.

In effect, Social Priorities will drive Wall Street priorities instead of Wall Street priorities driving Social Priorities – that is Social Capitalism

In the future, there will be only one sustainable investment left – people, communities, and their natural willingness and ability to be productive with their time. The rest is history.

***

Material based on video series here

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Social Currency and Time

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On August 16, 2010

In General Information

I recently published a video suggesting that Social currency is backed by Time as part of my series on Social Capitalism.  I made the argument that time is the true scarce commodity because it is not easy to debase, counterfeit, or forge; it is therefore the perfect basis for a currency.

Still, a few people always come back with the idea that influence, reputation, game tokens, tweets and more recently “checking in” (a la Foursquare), are all social currencies – citing the experts, of course.

There are several problems with this.  First, none are really scarce – I can find an honest person anywhere.  None are actually commodities because nobody is deploying the identical influence as any another person.

The idea that “currency” as the storage and exchange of value is also insufficient – a glass of water stores value as does a digital camera or a even a goat.  Nobody in Silicon Valley is twittering feverishly about the latest surprise goat farm acquisition.

Indeed influence and reputation are valuable and may act like a financial Instrument but until the purveyors come out and actually describe it as such, I need to call them on their choice of words – and I have.  A typical response is, “Well, uh, you know what I mean”.  My response: “…And, uh, you DON’T know what you mean?”

Beanie babies, tulip bulbs, and CDOs were financial instruments too.  Seriously kids, clarification is extremely important because the consequences of misconception, especially in this important emerging subject area, are tangible. Real people trying to make the wrong ideas real actionable are wasting their real precious time.

Here is what they mean to say:

a Derivative is something whose value is derived from the value of something else.  So when we talk about influence, the value of a person’s influence can be derived from the value of many things.  If you are in a burning building, the influence of the firefighter is different than an endorsement from Shaq, yet both may be valuable at different times.

The premise of my argument is that the basis of all currency is in Time.  Time is limited for everyone.   A good reputation saves people time.  The right influence applied in the right places at the right time saves people time.  Passion, purpose, productivity and persistence are measures of how someone spends their time.  Checking in at the trendy hotspot on foursquare is an expression and commitment of time. Co-location is a function of place and time. Like love, the value of time is in the eyes of the beholder. Valuable yes, currency, no.

Talk about how your product lives in time and you’ll earn all the social currency that it’s worth – not the other way around.

 

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The Next Google

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On July 30, 2010

In General Information

Everyone wants to know what “The Next Google” is.  From WIKiD Tools, the answer should be obvious:  Google is an information company.  Their stated objective is to organize the World’s information.  The next element up the human development ladder from the Information Economics rung is Knowledge Economics rung. Therefore, the next “Google” will deploy technology that can organize the World’s knowledge.

A State of Mind

Unfortunately, knowledge can only exist inside the minds of people, so consequently, “The Next Google” must also engage in the messy task of organizing the World’s people as well as the knowledge contained in each one of them.  Not an easy task in dog-eat-dog Global Market Capitalism.

The Facebookie

At first, it seems that Facebook may be converging on this – they are certainly trying.  The problem with Facebook’s approach is that they continue to  insist that Market Capitalism is valid (obviously preparing for the killer IPO) when they should be pioneering the hedge fund called “Social Capitalism”.  Facebook continues to bank on the suggestion that people really really want to share  their personal details and will tolerate invasion by armies of anonymous data miners in order to do so.  Facebook’s best shot may be for one of their gaming currencies to become a black market currency so that when the dollar collapses,  people would gladly sell their privacy in exchange for food.

Since a gaming currency can only be created by people performing frivolous tasks, at best, gaming currencies – phenomenal growth or not – are no more robust than the dollars it seeks to displace.   Sustainability? Uh, no.

Anonymity rules

Think about it this way.  Real human productivity is stored in a dollar bill; otherwise nobody would “work” for it.  The recipient does not know or care if the dollar bill was last used by someone to buy cigarettes or Girl Scout cookies.   The dollar bill is completely anonymous.  Likewise, value is stored in the brains of every living person – there is no need to know who they are until the transaction is exercised and profits are distributed.  Everything else is unnecessary invasion of privacy and certainly not something to build a currency around let alone the next economic paradigm.  The Next Google will treat people like the currency, not ‘like’ the Girls Scout Cookies.

The “Next Google” will be a percentile search engine that will return odds – or probabilities – based on an anonymized public knowledge inventory. Search results will predict the likelihood that any combination of knowledge assets can produce or execute any combination of products or services at a known cost based on the supply and demand for those known knowledge assets.  End of mystery.

Everyone can now make their bets and play their games with real productivity because, in effect, the percentile search engine will match most worthy knowledge deficit with most worthy knowledge surplus and throw the rest of it in the trash bin.

The only thing people want to know is what they want to know, and nothing else.  Now that’s what real productivity is made of, that is what real money is made of.

Please Vote for The Ingenesist Project to present at SXSW 2011

The Ingenesist Project specifies an Innovation Economy built on a platform of social media as the next economic paradigm.  60 minute solo presentation in the advanced technical track.  Your help is deeply appreciated. All comments welcome.  Material based on video series here

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Social Capitalism; The Scarce Resource is Time.

By

On July 29, 2010

In General Information

The difference between market Capitalism and Social Capitalism is that factors of production are reversed.  In Social Capitalism, creative capital, intellectual capital, and social capital are the “tangibles” while land, labor, capital become the “intangibles”.

But the currency for social capitalism must still represent productivity – otherwise nobody would “work” for it.   Productivity is defined as “all the stuff we can make within a certain period of time“.  Market capitalism is built on “stuff” while Social Capital is built on “Time”.   Waste stuff and you’ll lose money.  Waste time and you’ll lose social currency.  Every living person is allocated a certain amount of time on Earth.  Time is impossible to forge, debase, or otherwise counterfeit – unless stolen from someone else – as such, Time makes an excellent currency.

What is the ROI on Land, Labor, and Capital in Social Capitalism?  ROI is wholly dependent on the knowledge assets deployed upon that Land, Labor, or Capital.

So what exactly is the underlying asset that supports Social Currency?

WIKiD Tools introduced the idea that everything we produce will ultimately come as a result of transforming data into information, or transforming information into knowledge, or transforming knowledge into innovation, or transforming innovation into wisdom.  We can articulate a very powerful Equation to model productivity in Social Capitalism.  This equation can be translated as follows:

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

Note that in each case, the “rate of change” (hence, time) is the underlying asset.

The creation of Social Currency:

Sounds complicated?  Well, it happens every day in every city where a person sees an important issue and convenes a conference where they invite relevant speakers and guests into the discussion.  It happens when a manager notices people talking about something important to them and incorporates it into their job description.  It happens when a teacher helps a student to the next level.  It happens when someone spends some of their time so that you can enjoy more of yours.  It happens with stay at home moms.  It happens with volunteerism.  It’s created by mentors, parents, neighbors, civil servants, and everyday citizens. It is created in Communities, not factories.  It is created by time.

***

Please Vote for The Ingenesist Project to present at SXSW 2011

The Ingenesist Project specifies an Innovation Economy built on a platform of social media as the next economic paradigm.  60 minute solo presentation in the advanced technical track.  Your help is deeply appreciated. All comments welcome.  Material based on video series here

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Social Capitalism: Meet The New Intangibles

By

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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