The Next Economic Paradigm

Tag: protégé

Goodbye University Hello Multiversity

I recently responded to the following Question on a Facebook group:

How could a newly established university be designed today in order to be elite? Which features must be included, and which features can be left out?

Subquestion: “What would you include in all dimensions: desired faculty, desired student body, location, graduation, research and tenure requirements, institutional structure and purpose, among other things, and what features would you exclude that are currently prevalent at “elite” institutions such as the Ivy Leagues?”

***
My answer as follows:

Why not go farther, much farther. Teachers would not get paid. Instead, they would hold an equity position the future of their students. Sort of like an inverse pyramid scheme built on knowledge assets – teachers would collect a small % amount from many students and a smaller % amount from their many future students students, and so on (multiplying value instead of dividing value). This would attract a certain type of teacher as well as a certain type of student. It would also favor research and innovation since the promise of stagnant salaries are not attractive in this arrangement.

Why two or three subject minors? How about a 3 platform minors; one in social philosophies, a minor in creative arts, and a minor in sciences. Instead of a “degree” your education would be expressed as a string of code representing each unit of study to form your unique API. Your API would interface with the APIs of your colleagues and teachers such that an algorithm could predict the likelihood that a strategic combination of knowledge assets could execute a particular business plan. Such probabilities would be able to predict and associate future cash flows with such business plans. These cash flows could then be securitized into a financial instrument called an “innovation bond”.

Rich people, corporations, and governments would buy these bonds and the revenues would fund the school. Access to the bonds also provides access to the underlying assets – the world’s knowledge. They would be hugely valuable as a hedge agains a declining fiat currency because, like money, knowledge assets can be deployed to create the things people need. Soon, everyone would become a teacher and everyone will become a student in a new form of capitalism will emerge where factors of production are allocated as social, creative and intellectual capital.

***

There were several interesting responses to this question as well as comments to my response.  Admittedly, I was riffing a bit with my response , but I’ll defend it as follows:  

First, let us not mistake “money” for “value” as a so-called “equity position” can be denominated in either. Second, there are many examples in society that demonstrate my conclusion.  Parents take an equity position in the future of their children, executives across America have a cadre of protege from whom they take an equity position in their careers, and Society accepts levies, and taxes, and buy bonds that fund public education so that future productive generations can support the elderly.

The miracle of capitalization and securitization have created extraordinary levels of prosperity on Earth compared to historic social structuring.  The ability to capitalize and securitize knowledge assets (as opposed to classical land, labor, and capital) is likely the next economic paradigm…if not the only sustainable economic paradigm.  I would suggest that current university system is the aberration, not my comment above.

Goodbye Universe, Hello Multiverse

Share this:

Should Educators Command an Equity Position in Students?

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.

Somehow that connection gets lost when everyone is competing for the same set of limited jobs and everyone is responding to the pressures of insurmountable debt to banking institutions.

As Social currencies begin to replace the decaying monetary currency, a new set of social instruments will arise. The scope and range of new social contracts is unlimited and should be expected to increase substantially. These social contracts will become tangible in a communities and may he used in a system of trade that stores and transfers knowledge efficiently in a community.

If a father can teach a son how to become successful in the family business, why can’t a community of fathers teach a community of sons to be successful in a community of businesses? This may need to happen whether we like it or not.

Share this:

The 2.3 Trillion Dollar Mentor Market

Mentors provide expertise to less experienced individuals to help them advance their careers, enhance their education, and build their networks. In many different arenas people have benefited from being part of a mentoring relationship: Freddie Laker mentored Richard Branson, Bach mentored Mozart, Dr. Dre mentored Eminem, Aristotle mentored Alexander the Great, and Obi-wan Kenobi mentored Anakin Skywalker.

Mentorship: a Valuable 2-way Conversation

Suppose that mentorship could be monetized like financial instruments.  Within the structure of an innovation economy specified by The Ingenesist Project; a knowledge inventory, a percentile search engine, and an innovation bank will match the most worthy student to the most worthy mentor in the respective market structure.  The mentor would take an equity position in the protégé, not unlike taking a stock in a corporation.

For example:  A single mid-career mentor could take on 10 protégés with an option to exercise, say, 1% of the students future salary for every year mentoring upon predetermined retirement date. Say that the average mentorship lasts 10 years.  Likewise, each of the protégés also becomes a mentor taking on 10 protégés of their own.  The Master mentor will collect 1% of the revenue that each of the 100 sub-protégés provide to their middle mentors per year.

The Educational Pyramid Scheme

If each protégé becomes at least as successful on average as the mentor, the master mentor can collect the equivalent of their average salary for the duration of their retirement.  If each of the protégés become equally effective mentors, then the master mentor can double their average salary for the duration of their retirement.   A third tier adds another salary to the master mentor.

This is what actually happens in an informal way within companies, government, and Jedi Knighthood; the exception is that social media will enable this to occur outside the construct of a corporation – and such.

Game Theory for the Rest of Us

An interesting social game emerges:  It becomes the best interest of the mentor that each of their protégés is successful in their field and practice high integrity.  It is in the best interest of the mentee to learn as much as they can and become as proficient as they can. It is the best interest for mentees to pick appropriate mentors and it is in the best interest for mentors to take on appropriate mentees.  It is efficient for mentees to form a social network among themselves and for Master Mentors to form a network among themselves. A multiplier effect surges with cross-mentoring.

In aggregate, it is in the best interest for the membership in the social network to cooperate rather than compete because their income would ultimately benefit less from competition than from cooperation.

2.3 Trillion Dollars Market

The American Public education system is in disarray.  Standardized education defies the diversity of the country.  Teacher’s pay has been stagnant. Curriculum takes years to respond to new knowledge. Recent McKinsey research finds that a persistent gap in academic achievement between children in the United States and their counterparts in other countries deprived the US economy of as much as $2.3 trillion in economic output in 2008

None of this has anything to do with the dreams of our children.  None of this has anything to do with the intellect, motivation, and perseverance of our kids.  It has everything to do with Political stalemate and failure of the economic system.  All children can achieve their dreams, and ours, if there were a market for mentors.

Share this:

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén

css.php