Posts under ‘Innovation Economics’

In fact, the cards are stacked in favor of the corporation over the employee; unless, of course, you are both. We teach our kids to be good employees, not to become good corporations. How do we expect social priorities to compete with Wall Street Priorities?

The financial system that we live in today is allocated to us all through chunks of Land, Labor, and Capital. It should be fairly obvious that there are some issues with land (real estate bubble), Labor (high unemployment/out sourcing), and Capital (financial system meltdown).

Now, all of a sudden, a new idea is emerging…it’s barely an audible chirp, but it will become a tectonic rumble before long: Social Media is beginning to take on the characteristics of Financial Instruments.

Jay Deragon posted a series of articles recently on his Relationship Economy blog which I found especially exciting. As usual, Jay is bringing forward some very important ideas related to social media components and outcomes, but what really sets this new mindset apart is the fact that Jay is asking the same questions that have been plaguing scientists for 100 years.

Making human knowledge and intentions tangible in a market place opens up the possibility of a whole new class of business plans. We call this Social Power by the Hour.

The solution to any problem is entirely dependent on how the problem is defined. Likewise, redefining the problem, exposes huge opportunities for new solutions.

The idea that a mentor may take an equity position in a protege is not new – it happens in families and extended families as elders are fully aware that the children will provide for the family in the future. The connection is not to hard to grasp that it’s in everyone’s best interest to help the kids – all of the kids. This is the social contract.

The problem is that risk can never be negative, therefore interest rates can never be negative – that is called “breaking he buck”. Risk is a measure of volatility, or, “deviations from what is considered normal”. While there is certainly good deviations and bad deviations, there can never be a “negative” deviation from normal – it is a mathematical impossibility, a glitch.

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

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