More thoughts on disrupting Facebook

Watch the behavioral differences in water conservation between rainforest and desert natives.  Desert dwellers perceive water to be scarce and therefore valuable; a precious resource to preserve and guard and protect and conserve.  A rainforest local perceives water to be so abundant and prevalent as to do be a nuisance--"not another rain storm"; and treats it accordingly--carelessly, unguarded, wastefully.  And why not, by definition, the water is abundant.

Personal data is water; and Facebook users live in a rainforest--behaviorally, Facebook users perceive their personal data as worthless, prevalent, of no use, of no value, and abundant.  Consistent with this perception they discard it, trash it, throw it away, give it away, do not protect it or guard it or conserve it.

Facebook's brilliance is that it continues to have the ability to convince its rainforest users that their data is worthless.  And so it is.  The Facebook local has no way of commoditizing the one resource that is within her control, abundant and accessible--her own personal data.  While the individual user as of yet has no ability to do anything of value with their own personal data, Facebook does; and it does so magnificently, to the tune of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars annually.

Incidentally, we all go along with this perception when watching the news or a national sporting event we choose to believe that content producers create and distribute their arbitrary content solely out of the goodness of their hearts.  "And look there, Honey, they are giving me the temperature as well as the traffic update; how utterly magnanimous of them".  The reality is that content producers are in the business of commoditizing your attention and your personal data into cash.  They do it through advertisements.  Advertisers recoup their advertsing costs through the price of their products.  The local news station is primarily in the business of selling advertisments, secondarily of bringing you the news.  Whatever content gets your attention for the commercial advertisment is what gets produced; that is their purpose.  The purpose of the 30 minute show is not the 18 minutes of content; its the 12 minutes of advertisements.  The national news is primarily in the business of selling advertisments, secondarily of bringing you the news.  Whatever brings in the most-eyeballs gets the most cash.  To the tune $3.5 million for a 30 second advertisement during the NFL championship game.

But back to the Facebook user's dilemma.  She willingly surrenders a most valuable precious resource--her personal information, her personal data, her digital life, her digital reputation, her digital history, her story.  Facebook knows and records and maintains a record of her digital life.  They know the  political demonstrations she's been to, her economic and religious beliefs, her intimate discussions with friends, her illnesses--everything she, her friends, friends of friends and even people she does not know have discussed and digitally connected to--Facebook knows and then turns around and sells to advertisers.

Facebook exploits this resource magnificently.  In return the Facebook user obtains access to a digital tool to stay connected with friends.  Keeping friends connected--while seemingly both benign and noble--is not Facebook's primary reason for existence.  Facebook is a content producer and as such its primary purpose is to sell advertising.  Nothing more, nothing less.  The more eyeballs, the more the advertisers are interested.  Oh, and it gets better; Facebook doesn't actually spend a dime in creating content; it gets is users to create all the content on the site; yup, the same people from whom they are already taking their scarce and precious resource of personal data--to create the content.  That's like Nike getting its retail buyers to go into the sweatshop themselves, manufacture their own shoes, and them on top of that getting them to pay Nike for the shoes, even though they themselves produced the shoes.

Keep in mind that no one is forcing anyone to become a Facebook user.  Facebook users voluntarily discard and give up their precious resource of personal information; their digital life, their digital story.  Facebook has chosen to compensate its content producers, it users, with access.  That's it.  Access; access to a digital connectivity medium.  And evidently 800 million users are grateful for that medium.  The colossal mistake Facebook has created is the ominous rift a potential rival can exploit-- which is nothing more glamorous than this: assisting content creators to commoditize their personal data, that is, assisting users to accurately perceive their own value, the value of their story.  Giving control to the content producers, the end users; voluntarily compensating monetarily the users of a network is the mega-opportunity all network creators generally and specifically the eventual Facebook disruptor.

There are alternatives, there are options, there are choices.  At mysideofthestory.net you create, control and maintain your side of the digital story.  And you receive monetary compensation for your personal information.
What a concept!





Thoughts on economic emancipation. Sharing abundance and freedom: Empowering us out of dependence; acting upon independence; seeking interdependence.

Disrupting Facebook

Facebook users treat their own personal data as an economic externality--so abundant and prevalent, like air or water in a rainforest, that it is wasted and discarded; it is so abundant with no means available for users to commoditize it they consider it to be economically useless.  Like oil was perceived to be a nuisance prior to the harnessing technology of the industrial revolution transforming the perception of it to a valuable asset, personal information without a means to commoditize it is indeed uselss--useless to the user--but a vast oil reserve to personal information aggregators like Facebook. To Facebook that personal information is extremely valuable precisely because they do possess the ability to commoditize and exchange it for cash.  As a content producer Facebook's sole reason for existence is to sell its user's personal information.  Users have to know that in exchange for use of Facebook's social connection software they give up ownership to their personal info.  At least that is how it works now.  Access to a digital network--but no financial remuneration even though Facebook itself receives cash for that same information.

However, the colossal disruptive opening Facebook is granting to an eventual rival is in ownership, control and remuneration of personal information.  The first network to realize this will eventually disrupt Facebook.  Empower the user to control their personal information, give them the tools to commoditize their valuable personal information--this is the mega opportunity just waiting to harnessed.

Thoughts on economic emancipation. Sharing abundance and freedom: Empowering us out of dependence; acting upon independence; seeking interdependence.

Shipping containers for housing

Economic principle: utilize abundances.
Guaranteed source of abundance: waste.
Look for anything that others perceive to be valueless such as waste or items that are underutilized or considered nuisances; make it valuable by adding technology to it.

Practice: Metal Cargo or shipping containers. Use them for housing.

http://www.ecomagination.com/working-inside-the-box-shipping-container-buildings-catch-on?utm_campaign=outbrain






Thoughts on economic emancipation. Sharing abundance and freedom: Empowering us out of dependence; acting upon independence; seeking interdependence.

Why I love Multi-level Marketing

I am a huge fan of companies that adopt multi-level marketing, network marketing, and direct marketing if for no other reason it allows anyone anytime to instantly begin to create and control their future through hard work, responsibility and initiative irrespective of or despite the opposition of all arbitrary barriers from elitists.  I despise elitists and arbitrary barriers imposed by elitists.  I don't care who you are, where you're from, what you did in the past as long as you are responsible, improve the quality of life for others and obey the rule of law.

I believe in the American Dream.  I believe in hope, hard work, independence, abundance mentality and rewarding excellence with stewardship.

I believe in hierarchies or vertical integration in "not good enough circumstances" and networks or horizontal integration in "good enough circumstances".

This is what I wrote to a friend regarding the value of multi-level marketing (MLM).

M. -

Your husband is spot on correct.  MLM's in fact do make a few very rich and the rest of us very little--and that's because we don't do what the very few are willing to do.  Either because of lack of interest, motivation, time, skills or comfort--honestly its difficult to approach a friend and say, "Buy this product so that I can make some money."  The rich have no problem doing that.  I'm not saying that's good or bad, I'm just saying it is.  

And yet we have been conditioned into doing the same thing without hesitation for people that we don't even know --we buy their product and they make money.  MLM's in that regard are no different from any other company, a few at the top--the owners-- are very rich and the many at the bottom have very little--and yet we don't even blink an eye when we buy products from a company where a few at the top are rich.  Nor should we--no one is forcing us to purchase their product--usually we are happy to do so because it improves the quality of our lives either through competitively lower prices or a higher quality product.  We should reward people that improve the quality of our lives not punish them.

But the point is that where there was no opportunity before to be a marketer and make money, MLM's provide that opportunity. It's no different than anything else in life--there are very, very few excellent individuals in anything in life, and there are tons of us mediocre folks. That doesn't mean the excellent people should be punished for being excellent.  We should applaud their excellence if for no other reason that we too can be like them and do what they have done and be excellent ourselves in whatever area interests us.  

That is the great thing about the American Dream (The American Hope); in America rather than covet or envy another person's excellence (scarcity mentality) we are given the liberty (the U.S. Constitution) to do the same thing--to excel and prosper (abundance mentality).  We don't have an arbitrary ceiling over our heads stopping us from succeeding or compelling us not to succeed--the only thing that impedes our success is our lack of motivation, skills, or knowledge, and those three things can be learned and obtained though our own will, our own choice, our own volition.  With hopes and dreams there is always a chance--always a chance--and in America there is a fighting good chance because the liberty has been established so that you can fulfill your dreams--through hard work.  You just have to work hard and go get it--people will pay you to improve the quality of their life.

So I think over time people will start to realize that we are already exchanging our money for products/services anyway--might as well 1) purchase it from someone that we want to receive our money 2) earn some money in the process of the exchange or at least have the possibility of earning money in the exchange.  When I purchase health products at Walmart I neither know the person that is making money off of me nor does Walmart pay me or give me the opportunity to earn money by means of the transaction.

For some odd reason we have been conditioned into thinking its is more noble to exchange our money to people we don't know and who don't give us the opportunity to earn money from the transaction.   

And that is the amazing break-through of MLM's: we instantly become the marketers; we instantly control our future; we instantly become active participants (marketers--a chance or opportunity to earn money), which is a step up into independence from the passive dependence of just purchasing a product but without the opportunity to earn money from it.  

So, businesses have a marketing budget--they will be paying someone to do their marketing for them.  All businesses are in the business of retailing or selling their product.  MLM's open the door to us unwashed masses to now receive the marketing money (without having to go to graduate school) that was previously funneled only to the professional marketers.  And to your husband's point, some people are much better marketers than the rest of us.  And good for them, they deserve it.  But the point is that if you are a good marketer you can do very, very well (without graduate school or any other arbitrary barriers).  And beyond that, your up-line has the incentive for you to do well since they prosper when you prosper.   

I love YL products for personal use--they have improved the quality of my life.  I've experienced a big decrease in the number of colds I've had.  Also, I had terrible, I mean terrible acid reflux where the acid would burn my throat severely all the time, completely irrespective of anything I did to try to combat it--antacids, diet change etc.  Not once have I had acid re flux nor even heartburn since taking NingXia Red.  The wolfberry has completely neutralized the acid.

So back to your husband's point--he is absolutely correct--to the owners go the spoils.  Ownership is key.  Owners is what we need to be.  But for most of us MLM's are a great half-step to ownership.  We own our little independent contractor marketing company with the short-term goal of obtaining our product for free and the long-term goal of owning a business, be it a MLM or a traditional business.  As longs a we are employees we are dependent on the employer.  MLM's allow people to take a half-step out of dependency. 

Ownership moves us out of dependence and into independence.  I believe in independence--that is what I do--I propagate emancipation.  By the way, the only way to give is if you first possess and possession is ownership.  You can't give of yourself if you don't first know who you are.  Self possession is so important--"To thine own self be true and it must follow as the night the day thou canst not then be false to any man" says Polonius to Laertes in Hamlet.  Self possession is self ownership--its independence. 

Thoughts on economic emancipation. Sharing abundance and freedom: Empowering us out of dependence; acting upon independence; seeking interdependence.

Victor Davis Hanson Obama's Economic Quackery

Thoughts on economic emancipation. Sharing abundance and freedom: Empowering us out of dependence; acting upon independence; seeking interdependence.

Eric Schmidt on the stupidity of Big Government

Thoughts on economic emancipation. Sharing abundance and freedom: Empowering us out of dependence; acting upon independence; seeking interdependence.

Larry Downes on disruption

Thoughts on economic emancipation. Sharing abundance and freedom: Empowering us out of dependence; acting upon independence; seeking interdependence.