Sitting In the Counting House
Ross Mayfield noted my
Social Software post and added the important insight that what we're doing,
when web services start counting things previously uncountable, is like the
arrival of coins in the days of barter:
"Harkening back to the days of yore, in the medieval bazaar, some
crazy guy was probably going around trying to get everyone to agree on
the concept of coinage. Initially people resisted. A cow is a cow and a
sheep is a sheep and never the twain shall meet. If I think gold is worth one thing and you think its something else and lord
knows what it will be tomorrow, how can one commodify? But,
lo and behold, you can carry a coin in your pocket and a cow only with
great
difficulty.
People are in constant pursuit of the commoditzation
of everything. Not
just goods, mind you. We abstract concepts in commonly digestible
forms. We
archetype and then debate over value. Things must be
simplified to be social or we end up talking about different
things.
- A rating
is a price. We define a good and deliberate over its
value through signals. Sometimes we express price not
for transaction but to communicate value in its simplest
form (a guy at Stanford won
a Nobel
Prize on this). A price is the simplest method of communicating
value.
- A rating is a mode of communication. What I
value when. When
I send a smiley to someone, its a rating.
- A rating is a signal of
trust. Whom I value when. Trust is credit and credit
is priced.
If there is a theme that indicates we need new counting
tools its when things become too complex and when we need to simplify
through the language of a
rating."
Bingo! When things get too complicated, we need
new counting tools to simplify through the language of a rating.
This design study intends to implement a peer economy because clearly,
the big-E Economy has grown too complicated. It's complicated because
complexity suits the
purposes
of people better able to make the rules and hire analysts and lawyers and
accounting firms to follow, and bend, the rules. That's why the stock market systematically
moves funds from the
less
informed
to the better informed.
Data is the Basis of Economic Complexity
As one of my favorite economists, Tom Robbins
said,
"During periods of so-called economic depression, societies
suffer for want of all manner of essential goods, yet investigation almost
invariably discloses that there are plenty of goods available. Plenty
of coal in the ground, corn in the fields, wool on the sheep. What is
missing is not materials but an abstract unit of measurement called 'money.'
It is akin to a starving woman with a sweet tooth lamenting that she
can't bake a cake because she doesn't have any ounces. She has butter,
flour, eggs, milk, and sugar, she just doesn't have any ounces, any pinches,
any pints." *
That's complexity at work. But just recognizing complexity
isn't enough for our design study. We need to get our hands around the choke
point that's preventing the right things from being counted. I suggest that
the check point is who controls the data and thus the character of the
data kept. We assume that data is always kept by the seller, but is that
so?
Consider this:
- Whenever a seller and a buyer intersect, the data is maintained
by the seller, as we expect.
- Whenever an employer and an employee intersect,
the data is maintained by the employer.
(Who is the buyer of the services.)
In the first case, the data keeper is the seller,
not the customer. In the second, though, the keeper of the data is the customer,
purchasing the employee's work. So it's not about the roles of the players, It's
about size and who is the designer of the transaction. Data is the asset
of the designer of the business agreement, and a liability to
the
other
party
to
the agreement,
who's subservient
to the keeper's records.
I emphasize designer of the transaction because
transactions are designed ad hoc, one-at-a-time, like component parts in
machines before Eli Whitney invented standardized parts. Perhaps our economy
has become too complicated to let transactions be designed for the sole benefit
of whoever thinks it up first and has superior data resources.
Proprietary Data is the Basis of Tyranny
Perhaps we need a systems approach, where we conceive a model
transaction, one that serves both parties equally, and removes the data dominance
factor. Of course, that's the purpose of our little design study. We think
we've come up with the 6 essential states in every transaction (Discover,
Identify, Specify, Negotiate, Invoice, Evaluate); and we think we've
identified the Atomic Elements of transactions (People, Products & Tasks).
If we're right, and our standard transaction model simplifies
selling and buying, then it might lead to more and better buying and selling.
In any event, we'll be counting some things that haven't counted before.
Like Quality ratings.
You can count on it.
11:23:34 PM 
|
|
