Bill Gates wrote a great book in 2000, ‘Business at the Speed of Thought’
. When DARPA created the internet, and desktops connected, a lot of friction was removed from the process of creating value, and business moved faster. But we have pushed up against another barrier – TRUST.
The dictionary says, ‘Trust is an action that involves a voluntary transfer of resources (physical, financial, or intellectual)’. Without trust there is no voluntary transfer of resources and there is no commerce. So it holds to reason that the speed of trust will determine the speed of business.
I believe that in the next 5 years, some interesting things will happen to trust.
I predict, three things will drive an increase in the speed of trust.
First, more of our lives will be recorded and under surveillance – others will be aware of everything we do – so we will shape up and be more trustworthy. No more jay walking. We will help others more, because Mom might be watching.
Second, there will be a crop of new companies that will help us rate each other. Like ebay users who give each other ratings for paying on time; imagine if states had offered the same for drivers – giving each other positive or negative ratings, with really good drivers getting; peer recognition, better insurance, and parking spaces; or the Chamber of Commerce did the same for business transactions with corollary benefits. Remember the corporate 360 degree feedback tests? Imagine if that happened hourly.
In 5 years, I predict, we will be rated 50 times a day from each other for; value, politeness, honesty, service, etc. This will happen in our cars, at restaurants, at school, at the office, etc. Platforms like Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter will be used, and new platforms will be created. Twitter Alert: ‘There is a really kind waiter at the corner restaurant’. And just like in school, we will be harder on each other than the teachers were on us. Will this extend to dating? You bet.
Finally, because we will be more rated and recorded, we will all be more worthy of trust and we will be more protective of our reputation – so we will be better people.
And….when something has liquidity it goes up in value….
Relationships will matter more
What will this mean?
1) You will be able to evaluate new acquaintances and hires more quickly. You will trust more quickly, those who are more worthy of it.
3) We will also be more tolerant of the Tiger Woods in all of us, as we all have transgressions that are made public. We will be more tolerant of each other if they apologize and move on.
4) The Bernie Madoff’s will be discovered more quickly, as we self regulate more, we will rely less on government agencies.
5) Trust will be less dependant on social status, and more on behavior, the world will be your network if you are worthy.
RESULT: Trust and Reputation will be more important.
What else could this mean?
1) Economies of scale will change. Large companies get smaller, and more profitable, as their ability to vet and hire (on a project by project basis) goes up. They just bring on the team that they need, when they need it, they wont have to pay to maintain.
2) A flood of new products, technologies and companies as teams of capable people are assembled more readily, each better able to vet each other.
3) Trustworthiness is never final, nor is it ever complete, it will be something we work on every day.
4) So it will be much harder for companies to manager their brands. Nike makes a poorly designed shoe?….shoppers will know.
5) As the earnings gap grows, between those who are creative and those who are not, so will the gap between those who are trustworthy and those who are less so.
What else could this mean?
Ben, this is a marvelous insight. I think you are correct in predicting that public reputation will become increasingly important with “rating sites” providing information about that public persona.
However, a society under constant surveillance (whether governmental or private) is bound to develop a hidden underworld known only to those who require it and who know the secret handshake. This could give rise to a neo-Victorian age of propriety, politeness… and hidden shame. Dueling — in some form — could even come back into vogue as a public expression of willingness to defend the reputation.
Every plenitude introduces a new scarcity, and a world with a plenitude of information on individual reputation only makes the dark recesses deeper — and darker.
Jeff……good point…..and like in the book 1984, those that know our secrets will have power over the rest of us……sounds like a digital rights issue to me…..Ben
Excellent, Ben. I especially like your #5 under “what does this mean.” We are entering a world where it is not “who you know” but “who trusts you”. It will be ever more possible to verify using objective information–such as that disclosed by networks–the result being that established social networks, such as school attended, country club memberships and others will become less important. In short, outsiders will find it easier to get a seat at the table. Insiders who have benefited from their insider status (my mind thinks of lawyers, which is my world) should recognize that they will be less able to rely on their “status” for recognition and business opportunities. We will see faster speed to market of new business models. I, for one, am excited about this proposition but I am sure that the insiders will not be so happy about the emerging trust networks.
Amen Jackie!…..I completely agree.
Ben, this is thought provoking, but doesn’t this trend presume a universal set of norms and expectations? Today, different people can witness the same event, but have different interpretation and impressions of the actions based on their individual set of experiences and expectations. In such an environment can there really be a broadly accepted scale of trust?
On the other hand, I think an argument could be made that the opinion and information exchange facilitated by social media could lead to the homogenization of expectations, or at least some major clustering. However, I think this is a distinct phenomenon that must precede or coincide the one you describe.
We strugle with this every day in New Europe.
We are now working to create an e-platform that would give SMEs in new EU countries access to Municiple Tenders in old Europe. Like Alibaba except more business to Government. An EU directive supports the business case as 50 pct of all Government and Muni tenders will have to go through e tenders. No existing platform exists that would include Poland Bulgaria, Romania etc.
Rating agencies here virtually are non existant, so we will have to look to internal monitoring within our own netwrok. Of course step 2 is that these SMEs start doing cross border business between themselves.
If anyone has licensed technology or ideas that can be applied to monitoring-rating companies we would be interested. Funding here will mainly be with EU grants to begin, but in my opinion the project has strong commercial potencial as well so second round venture fundind is anticipated.
Also we are looking to license a functioning platform. we are talking to a Polish company who has SAP technology, but its quite expensive. If there is a solid but “trustworthy” IT provider of trade platform software in your network, pls let us know. We would be open to equity-infrustructure technology swaps as well.
This was great Ben! If you have nothing to hide, then there is nothing to fear.
This blog is a great example of cutting through the noise and offering quality information. It is direct, relevant and written clearly.
Business at the speed of trust as you point out is a critical factor. As the cliche goes, good news travels fast, bad news travels faster.
When we don’t have the opportunity to travel across the world to meet someone, then how can you really know?
Your blog post reminded me that ‘old school’ values will be more in demand: reputation, performance and being reliable.
I also suggest that as we all work together in the global village to execute projects, community values are very important.
One of my friends is based in Boston and he is running an offshore team at a medical diagnostics company. As we discussed India, I shared one simple thing: get to know all of the holidays and what they mean. This will make a difference.
In conclusion, as my mentor repeated many times: people don’t want to know how much you know, but how much you care.
There is no secret to building and maintaining the trust.
I am not sure that the needed time and process of building trust can be automated as there are some who will always game the system.
Only my Mother could have written a nicer note…..on second thought…..Mom is that you?
I’ve seen a lot of sites in this niche, but I must say that his is one of the best. I’ll definitely be checking back for more good posts. Thanks
Geez, this blog makes me jealous!
I want mine this good…keep it up!
Nice post, this is exactly the information I was looking for. Are you going to be covering this topic in greater detail soon? Hope so! Thanks
Just had a minute to say something but I liked the post. Just keep doing what you do. Will come back and check you out again.
Dating is a fascinating subject for me. Good insight here…
[...] topic for me, because I believe trust is the currency of business. I wrote a blog on the topic. A key learning for me after 11 years at yet2.com is people are more important than technology in [...]
THXThank you for writing something worth reading
[...] topic for me, because I believe trust is the currency of business. I wrote a blog on the topic. A key learning for me after 11 years at yet2.com is people are more important than technology in [...]