The Ingenesist Project

The Next Economic Paradigm

Tag: Broker

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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Evading The Antigen

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On August 31, 2012

In General Information

Over the last 20 years or so, I have spoken all over the United States and many parts of the world about the idea that there may be a single and relatively easy way to correct very evasive flaw in market capitalism.

Fixing this flaw could correct many of the biases and divisions that plague relationships and communities in an otherwise functional social organization system.  The work of the Ingenesist project, of course, is precisely to correct the flaw.

From past experience, I always get one of three reactions to our work:

  1. Some people get it immediately, and engage deeply.
  2. Some people don’t get it and ignore completely,
  3. Some people attack it, sometimes dangerously.

I learn a great deal from each type of response.  In fact, the vast majority of ideas in the Ingenesist Project come from hundreds of brilliant people who have participated in one of these three ways.  The first two types are self-explanatory. This post is about the third type – I call them “the antigens”. As the term implies, when an Antigen perceive a threat to the existing body they react strongly to neutralize it.

The Flaw in Capitalism is well protected

The antigen is not just a person who disagrees with a fact or feature of our work.  They hold a deep visceral objection that is personal, emotional, physical and always disproportionate to the level, scope, or even the topic of conversation.

Much to our astonishment, the antigen is always someone who would be expected to embrace our work and ideas.

The problem, I have come to realize, stems from the suggestion that the Zertify knowledge inventory strategy seeks to increase the efficiency of matching the supply and demand of knowledge assets in a community. The antigen has a vested interest in this same goal and does not believe that there could or should be a better broker than themselves.

If it’s not Broker, don’t fix it

Several examples of antigens that we have encountered:

One was the economic development agency for a less developed country.  Our proposition was to present their engineers as world class quality.  They saw this as an emigration threat more than an off-shoring draw, and shut the program down.

One was a celebrity author and lecturer that champions the cause of the common man against the oppression of corporate tyranny.  This individual makes his living selling books, lectures, and endorsements. His scathing misinterpretation of our work hurt us badly.

Another recent  antigen was a person who runs an “accelerator” for start-up companies whose passion is to identify promising start-ups and match entrepreneurs to funding in the spirit of high tech titans of the past.  He saw us as a threat to his “God’s Eye” approach to the garden of money.

On the surface, it would seem that these people or entities would embrace a comprehensive knowledge inventory and machine enabled means of matching supply and demand for knowledge assets.  Instead, they saw us as a threat to their vested interests.

It’s not about right and wrong

The point of this article is not to make the antigen wrong about their response –  it is quite natural and we have all done it.  The Flaw in Market Capitalism is the antigen behavior/reaction itself – not the person demonstrating it.  Our challenge for the future will be to amplify mavens and community organizers to become better at connecting people in collaboration with each other while also identifying and redirecting the antigen response before it is activated.  Because once it emerges, it cannot be put back in the bottle.  

The corollary:

Those who would embrace this work likewise have little or no vested interest in “controlling” others and would therefore appear to be the least likely to accept our work.  So by definition, those who accept the ideas that we present are those who would perform well in such an environment.  This further demonstrates the counterintuitive nature of The Ingenesist Project.

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The Flight Of The New Entrepreneur

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On April 20, 2011

In General Information

Structural Folds: Generative Disruption in Overlapping Groups

Entrepreneurship is the invisible hand of Capitalism.  Basically, this means that you can have all the Land, Labor, and Capital in the world, but unless you have entrepreneurs to interact with it, you don’t have much of an economy.

Social Contract Broker

Most social contracts are made today by Brokers who have the ability to connect supply and demand.  Brokers, for the most part, gain their influence from the natural or unnatural divisions that may normally restrain information from the supply side to the demand side, and vice versa.  “Social Brokers” are extremely important for exchanging information across different parts of a community that do not normally intermix.  However, such “Trust Economics” depends on a closed system where community accountability is strong.

Trust economics and an open economy are mutually exclusive.

In an open economy, the job of the broker shifts to the job of administrating social accountability – a completely different animal.  The moral hazard, of course, is that communities with great entrepreneurial potential are instead brokered for profit. Many “special interests” have crept up through the years in everything from banking, real estate, second-hand markets, international trade, airlines, politics, and even corporate M&A activity – that protect broker interests.  As a result, brokers create structured holes at the expense of social inter-cohesion.

A Different Approach

At Social Flights, we take a different approach.  We unite several completely different communities; travelers, vendors, and airplane operator around a shared airplane asset.  In the middle, we place a community leader – an entrepreneur who is enabled to see all the diverse connections and combine information in new and useful forms.

Instead of forming better brokers as a principle driver of economic growth, Social Flights introduces a Value Game that forms a greater degree of intercohesion among disparate communities simulating a closed economy within an open economy.

The Social Flights Manifesto

We know that there are millions and millions of entrepreneurs in our communities who can create tremendous value if they are given a game that they can win – or not get ripped off.  The underlying entrepreneurial force is that people will always combine several old ideas in new ways to create the new ideas that incite new actions.  We depend on entrepreneurs to drive these ideas and drive these actions.  For this reason, it is in our best interest to set them free and keep them free.

The Social Broker’s Commission: Social Profit

We create an environment where it is in the best interest for communities to share deep information in a closed economy where trust dynamics can take effect.  Then we provide a way to transport their trust economy into the open economy.  But it goes much farther than that – it goes as far as an airplane can take you.

(Note: this article was inspired by segments of two wonderful papers titled: Structural Folds: Generative Disruption in Overlapping Groups, by Bala ́zs Vedres Central European University and David Stark Columbia University and Structured Holes Versus Network Closure as Social Capital – By Ronald S. Burt, University of Chicago)

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Crowdsourcing The Brokerage House

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On February 15, 2011

In General Information

The broker/trading model is a familiar class of business methods.  The broker advertises the availability of someone else’s inventory of assets but withholds information from the market as a means to control the transaction.  The broker does whatever is needed to pay the supplier as little as possible while also charging the customer as much as possible. The Broker  can then collect a fee for producing absolutely nothing of value except control over a transaction.

The Value Game introduces a new class of business methods that disaggregates the broker/advertising model by increasing information delivery to a community rather than withholding it.

The Value Game Revenue Model

For example; Private aircraft charters are held under the weight of a powerful Broker Industry that scrapes 30-40% of the value of created by thousands of hard working professionals who actually operate the airplanes. By deploying The Value Game,  Social Flights was created as a new air transportation company that organizes four types of communities and enables them to interact with each other around a shared asset (an airplane).  During this process of interaction, complete information is provided to each party, rather than being withheld, and everyone plays towards their convergent goals rather than divergent goals.   As a result, the Social Flights application creates Social Currency, which is then readily converted to money.

Social Flights Revenue is derived from the interaction of four communities:

The Travelers

The Operators

The Partners

The True Value Data

Traveler:

Social Flights brings travelers of similar intentions together in Travel Tribes to share flights at wholesale market value.  Air transportation is deployed to the social graph rather than the airline hub & spoke system. Communities that are underserved by commercial airlines are now empowered to interact in new ways.

Operator:

In the past, an aircraft operator would pay a listing service, a Broker, and a marketing department to sell charter services.  Instead, an operator would simply reallocate some of their marketing budget to Social Flights in return for a high volume, reliable, and risk free marketing venue.

Partners:

The cornerstones of the value game are 3rd Party entrepreneurs who scour the community for inventory of hotels, entertainment, recreation, business opportunities, and anything else to support travelers playing the game.  Not unlike Groupon, Social Flights facilitates the application of discount coupons that can be applied to the passenger’s itinerary corresponding to their normalized travel intentions.

True Value Data:

Social Flights creates a valuable and unique form of business intelligence defining how much value, in dollars, that people place on their time.  This results in a conversion factor between social currency and financial currency – something that has never been achieved before. Such data will induce a huge amount of innovation as time/money currencies fuel new Value Games around many other shared assets.

Winners and losers

  • The traveler wins with complete information, point-to-point time travel, and an empowered community.
  • The operator wins with less overhead, less risk, and steady cash flow.
  • Thousands of social entrepreneurs are empowered to deliver support inventory to a new community market.
  • All communities win as such information about the time-value of money helps people reallocates their intentions in the emerging new economy.
  • Social Flights earns their revenue by empowering communities in Social Currency.

OK, so what exactly does the Broker Produce?


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If It Ain’t Broker, Don’t Fix It.

By

On February 25, 2009

In General Information

The function of the innovation economy is to improve information.  This has the derivative effect of improving knowledge which, by definition, fuels more innovation.   Monetization is easy if we simply improve information between any buyer and any seller in any market, anywhere.

…If it is, please do

For example, the job of a broker is to mediate the transaction between a buyer and a seller.  There are real estate brokers, mortgage brokers, stock brokers, etc.  Unfortunately, it is not always in the best interest of the broker to provide perfect information to both sides of the transaction.  Rather, the broker provides the minimum amount of information needed to complete the transaction, within which they build their commission for rendering such filtration services.

Any B-school undergrad can tell you that a market is most efficient when the buyer and the seller have exactly the same information as the other when making a transaction; this is called “perfect information”.  As such, “supply and demand” can do its magic.  Resources of production can be perfectly allocated in the glorious capitalist system.  The financial meltdown has shown us that the more complex the product is, the greater the deficiency in perfect information becomes.

The Holy Grail:

The great opportunity for social media is the ability to improve information in almost every transaction conceivable and create wealth.  The next generation of social media strategists will rise to tremendous heights in this domain of the Innovation Economy. However, the Holy Grail of information improvement is the knowledge asset market itself:

For example: Corporations have a great deal more information about employees than employees have about corporations.  People are encouraged to compete with each other, not to cooperate, for that carrot on a stick. They are trained to keep their salary a secret.  The “job statement” is in a secret code language that is only understood inside the company, not in the general work force.  Managers “broker” information by filtering it on the way up and on the way down the corporate structure.  It is little wonder that corporations are having a tough time with the social media stuff.

When the layoff comes, the outsourcing begins, or the life change happens, the resume is often no better than a bingo card in a key word lottery.  By the way, customers have even less information than the employees. Peanuts anyone?

The mothers of Invention

The knowledge market is the mother of all imperfect information markets.  Social media is a single iteration away from greatly improving information in all knowledge markets. Nothing happens without applied human knowledge, as such, the potential capitalization of the next generation of social media applications is as big as the market itself – and it will challenge the very structure of the traditional corporation and associated filtration services.

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