One of my favorite video program on the web is Dr. V’s (Amy Vanderbilt) Trend POV broadcast live on Friday’s at 2:00 pm EST/11:00 am PST. In a recent program, Dr. V exposes the trend in commercial airlines toward option based pricing.

The poster child for ancillary fees is none other than Ryan Airlines for going far and beyond the line of duty in treating their passengers like, well, how one would treat a mushroom, I suppose.

“We award RyanAir the Self Tending Mushroom Award (or STeMie) for relentlessly innovating new ways to charge passengers so that passengers are charged less”

Savvy RyanAir passengers can choose from an extensive menu of priced options including the following:

• Check-in online (mandatory)
• To check in at the Gate (alt mandatory),
• To pay for your ticket (mandatory),
• Have priority boarding,
• Take your infant with you,
• Check one bag,
• To check a second bag,
• To take your infant’s equipment with you,
• Take sports equipment with you,
• Take a musical instrument with you,
• Change your flight,
• Change the name on your ticket,
• Print another boarding card,
• Check bags that are more than 15kg,
• Carry your own checked bags to the plane (mandatory),
• Eat, drink or use the toilet in-flight (proposed),
• and many more. “

The best one is being charged for checking in. Hmmm, that means you are paying them to pay them!” (ed. Yikes)

Soaring With Eagles, Flying With Fish

Steven Frishling from www.flyingwithfish.com is one of the most respected commercial aviation bloggers and travel strategists in the country. Dr Vanderbilt interviewed “fish” on her program for his many insights. He reveals more interesting facts as well as important ways that Social Media can reverse the trend of what he calls “unbundling”.

“People shop airline tickets by base price but by the time all of the [mandatory] options are factored in, there is not much of a discount after all”.

Putting the “anti” in social

Another disturbing trend is the transfer of expense to the passenger. Airlines will often negotiate lower landing fees at a minor airport further from the hub and then the traveler needs to ride a bus for several hours to get to the hub airport.

There are many example is the market where unbundling of fees is quite typical. We see in happening in the extended warrantee we are offered on all types of appliances. We see in premium on perceived features such as popular colors or “stainless steel” appliances. Many companies may be looking to expand the practice. However, the experience of commercial airlines lends a cautionary tone to those considering ancillary pricing as a profit center.

Predictions for the Future

Steven Frishling predicts that there will be a schism in the industry, some airlines will take on the race to the bottom with ancillary fees and others will realize that every angry customer is an opportunity to migrate to a superior travel experience.

Charging is obnoxious – every hit hurts. In fact, Expedia makes the majority of their fees off everything except airlines, why can’t airlines?.

Steven suggests that the opposite of bundling – integrating hotels, taxis, sponsors, etc even using frequent flyer miles – is a the best way to improve the experience of flying. Airlines should provide targeted portals, build sponsored content, attract sponsor revenue, supply hotlinks, etc. All of these are clever ways to derive revenue without alienating passengers.

All this “cost-saving” of ancillary pricing can quickly become a huge liability as competitors come along with comparable prices and superior service. Social media is proving to be an excellent tool for reaching out to passengers and understanding the needs. This allows them to package features smartly, unbundle fees in a way that adds value to the experience, not by squandering trust and respect at every opportunity.

There is no knowledge inventory of our communities. The is a STUNNING omission for a country whose only hope at climbing out of economic hardship is sequestered within the innovative minds of its people.

If done correctly, knowledge can behave as an asset of trade. This must first start with a comprehensive knowledge inventory. Like the human genome project, the knowledge inventory project must be a sustained effort.

Link to specification document

This Open Letter is directed to all Deep Web researchers, authors, developers, practitioners and people who have a great interest in what lies beyond the popularity contests playing out on the ‘surface web’.

I submit this letter in appreciation for the work that you do I also want to present an important application to your research for which you may not yet be fully aware.

As they say, beauty is only skin deep and the hard work of organizing the Deep Web offers an astonishing opportunity for the next economic paradigm. Very few people are aware of this.

Who are we?

I am the director of The Ingenesist Project, an obscure Think Tank in the Seattle area modestly funded by visionaries. Our job is to specify an alternate financial system that we loosely describe as an innovation economy built on a platform of social media.

Consequently, we also specify a new currency backed by innovation instead of debt. Innovation currency is very similar to debt currency since they both ‘represent’ future productivity. As such, these two currencies would be readily “convertible” in exchange – something that we all may need in the not-too-distant future.

Where do you fit in?

Essential to this concept is the relationship between data, information, knowledge, and innovation which we express as a differential equation. Here is a quick explanation – please bear with me:

We can predict the value of innovation by observing rates of change of knowledge. We can predict the value of knowledge by observing rates of change of information. But the most critical element is the ability to predict the value of information by observing rates of change of data. The most critical element in the next economic paradigm is the human interaction with data.

With that missing piece, a new financial system can then capitalize and securitize these “predicted future values” much like Wall Street does with social debt. Deep Web Researchers literally hold the key to ending the oppression of debt economics worldwide. No kidding.

What’s in it for you?

This is where your work gets us really excited: Google induced economic incentives that drove millions of entrepreneurs into the work of creating new information – and yet direct widespread monetization remains elusive. In contrast, human interaction with the Deep Web will unleash economic incentives that will drive millions of entrepreneurs to create databases. The difference is that new Data are the only thing that a market is willing to pay for – not the popularity contests. And wow, is there a market waiting for you.

I understand that you are all very busy given the magnitude and complexity of your work. If this letter speaks to you, then please speak with me. Let’s discuss how your work would be applied to this very important effort. I’m easy to find in the datasphere.

Thank you

Yikes…

Unemployment tops 10%.  Add in the under-employed, part timers, young adults trying to enter the job market, the ones who have given up or otherwise marginalized, and we’re well into the 15-20% range.

Mediated Reality:

When will people come to the realization that a new financial system is needed to represent the new social order?  When will people realize that they have in their possession the most important tool ever devised by humanity for the benefit of humanity?  When will they shut off the TV and reject the barrage of mediated reality that blinds them with propaganda at every turn?

What’s in it for me?

When will people realize that they have all of the same information at their immediate disposal as their oppressors?  When will people realize that they are more powerful than any corporation or government? When will people realize that they have the power to build a financial system that can far exceed the magnificence of the national debt, simply by serving their own selfish best-interest rather than the State of Wall Street?

The Wizard of Oz…

When will people realize that it is in the best interest of the oppressor to keep them poor weak and disorganized?  When will people realize that their next door neighbor knows more about economic development than their financial system?  When will they realize that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, holding communities back from extraordinary wealth creation except the right plan?  When will they realize that no corporation or government can deliver such a plan?

…and other fictitions

When will people realize that a corporation is nothing but a double spaced legal document sitting in a file cabinet somewhere?  When will they admit that the corporation is a fictional character with big ears dancing within a “legal structure” that can hire you, fire you, and make you pay taxes?  When will people realize that “the corporation” is simply a collection of good people bound to a social agreement?:   That which is in the best interest of the corporation is ultimately in the best interest of the individual – even if that means 10% of their comrades must be sent to the Gulag.

The anatomy of production

When will people figure out that almost every function of a corporation can almost be accomplished on a platform of social media?    When will people realize how close they are to controlling an alternate financial system solid enough to rival Wall Street?  When will they notice how organized their oppressors are?  When will they notice how disorganized they are?  When will they notice that the power of Social Media to organize communities is astonishing?  When will they realize that conversation is a currency?

When will people realize that they are the Capitalists and their oppressors are the Socialists?

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

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

Battle lines are being drawn:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Swap or swamp?

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

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

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