Podcast on all things Nidhi

 Nidhi on manifestation, braille and children - Small, Big Wins. (hvj.coach)

There are conversations and there are conversations. This podcast is one of the most special conversations I've ever been a part of.

Talking with Harsh Vardhan Jajoo gives us conversation goals. Some day, I hope to be able to draw out my speaker one tenth as well as Harsh Vardhan Jajoo was able to do here.

This has been a masterclass. Thank you!

For the listeners: In this one, I was able to mention, for the first time, how spirituality contributes to all my work. If you're trying to sync your personal and spiritual pursuits with your professional ones, this podcast might be very helpful. Spiritualism and work are not antonyms. They're synergistic.

The Monetisation of Social Capital

 

As we write, Twitter is likely to be valued at 11 billion. Facebook’s current market cap, according to this article, is at 100 billion.

If you were an old grandmother somewhere in (any part of the world), who was a nosy Parker and knew something about everyone’s affairs, obviously you could guide a traveling salesman to the house that is most likely to buy the stuff he peddles. But the question is, how much would that traveling salesman be willing to pay you for that information?

 

And the answer is – 100 billion? 11 billion? 340 billion?

 

What is the point? Bear with me while we explain this.

 

The economic value of social capital is a very new phenomenon for the human civilisation. Social capital has always existed, and has helped society immensely – as traditional medicine, gossip (and what would we be without gossip?) , product recommendations from friends (remember Amway and Avon?) .. et al.

 

For the first time, we see a price – a very substantial, tangible price, being put on the notional value of this information.

 

Is this information, inherently, worth the price we put on it? How much more do companies sell on targeted advertising vs generic advertising?

 

I do not have an answer. Given the size of global commerce, the numbers could be too low, or too high, depending on that crucial factor – IS the grandmother’s knowledge of which house to go to, leading to a sale?

 

And i really think we should pause and ponder.

Social capital also has a social cost.

The second factor in the monetisation of social capital

 

The second factor, quite simply, was that we had the computing power and the algorigthms needed to get the juice out of those digital social conversations.

This mass of data could not possible have been analysed in this way 20 years ago. Even if someone had, at that point, created a facebook, it is unlikely that we would have seen the value of this social capital in 1993.

The critical thing is, that with the advent of big data, came also the ability to handle it productively. (or, at the very least, as productively as we are handling it now).

Together, the digitised social interactions and the algorithms, create a notional value which has a definite financial worth attached to it.

Concluding question: Who owns these social interactions? The generators of content, or the aggregators who provide a free space, and then aggregate that content for their profits?