![\"Venessa](\"http:\/\/technologybubbles.files.wordpress.com\/2010\/03\/picture-17.jpg?w=400&h=306\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I recently read a post by Brian Solis titled Social Capital: The Currency of the Social Economy, which served as the catalyst for one of the most entertaining Twitter conversations I\u2019ve had so far. I personally had a problem with the way the term \u201csocial capital\u201d was used in the piece, which was inspired by the definition given to it by Tara Hunt in The Whuffie Factor. The reason I had a problem was that \u201csocial capital\u201d already exists as a sociological concept that\u2019s been in development for many years, and to now boil it down to an equivalent to \u201creputation\u201d didn\u2019t seem appropriate. And so I tweeted the sentiment. A lively discussion ensued with all kinds of people chiming in, including Brian Solis and Tara Hunt themselves. (Even Umair Haque from the Harvard Business Review made a cameo appearance. fun!)<\/p>\n
Below I\u2019m going to \u201cunpack\u201d Brian\u2019s post a bit, and inject some thoughts that came to mind when reading it. The reason for this is to foster dialogue. We\u2019re in the middle of a transformational age, and in order for us to effectively co-create new models of operating, we need to have a shared language. It\u2019s not about who\u2019s right or wrong \u2013 it would be incredibly small-minded to put an individual down. Instead, I want to show that different perspectives on these ideas\/terminologies exist, and we should acknowledge and talk about what we\u2019re actually trying to say and where we\u2019re trying to go. It\u2019s important if we want to make progress, so here we go.<\/p>\n
The piece starts with:<\/p>\n
The convention for creating financial opportunities is evolving and changing the way we seed prospects, promote our expertise and prowess, and connect with those who can help us learn and advance through the facilitation of strategic and mutually beneficial alliances.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
translation: There are emerging methods for exploiting connections in order to make money, promote ourselves, and get ahead. ok so far\u2026..<\/p>\n
Digital capitalization is laying a foundation for expanding the need to cultivate and participate, not only in the real world, but also in the online networks and communities that can benefit us personally and professionally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
translation: Participation in social networks is required in order to capture potential market value. ok\u2026.<\/p>\n
In an era of democratized publishing and equalized influence, it can be said that engagement and participation are a new, powerful and effective form of \u201cun\u201d marketing. At the very least, this is an epoch of empathy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Maybe I\u2019m just being picky here, but we don\u2019t have universal access to the internet (yet), so I disagree with the statement of democratized publishing. And even if there was, for the sake of argument, we don\u2019t have universal \u201cdigital literacy,\u201d or understanding of how to effectively use the tools at our disposal, therefore we do not have access to equalized influence. But anyway, up until this point I was following the argument, and understood what he was trying to say. But then:<\/p>\n
Social capital is a strong ally, an elite catalyst for lucrative relationships, and now a metric for qualification, consideration and ultimately success (however you define it). This is a state of human economics that is thoroughly discussed in Tara Hunt\u2019s book, The Whuffie Factor. Our \u201cWhuffie\u201d or social capital and intellectual assets are defined by both online and real world conduct and its \u201cbalance sheet\u201d is available for anyone with a web browser to review, assess, and analyze.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This is where things started to break down for me. Maybe this whole post is moot, because ultimately we\u2019re talking about two different definitions here, but I want to address the discrepancy. In this paragraph Solis does 2 things that trouble me:<\/p>\n
1. he equates social capital with \u201cwhuffie\u201d
\n2. he uses the words \u201cmetric\u201d \u201cassets\u201d and \u201cbalance sheet\u201d<\/p>\nFirst point: He references the book The Whuffie Factor as his source for this definition. The author, Tara Hunt, describes whuffie as social capital here, saying you earn it by being \u201cnice, networked, and notable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The thing is, to me this sounds like describing reputation, not social capital. I believe the idea of social capital was first proposed by Marx back in 1867, but I\u2019m not even going to pretend to be able to speak to his writings. Socioeconomic theory is not my forte. Instead, I\u2019ll skip ahead to three modern social capital theorists \u2013 Coleman, Putnam, and Fukuyama \u2013 and their definitions.<\/p>\n
James Coleman: a sociological theorist, described social capital in an educational context:<\/p>\n
\u201csocial capital is the set of resources that inhere in family relations and in community social organization and that are useful for the cognitive or social development of a child or young person\u201d (Coleman 1994: 300)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Robert Putnam: a political scientist at Harvard University, described social capital in terms of civic participation:<\/p>\n
\u201cby social capital I mean features of social life \u2013 networks, norms, and trust \u2013 that enable participants to act ogether ore effectively to pursue shared objectives\u201d (Putnam 1996: 56)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Francis Fukuyama: political economist and author, who links trust, social capital, and national economic success, describes it as:<\/p>\n
\u201cshared norms or values that promote social cooperation, instantiated in actual social relationships\u201d (Fukuyama, 27)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I\u2019ll build this out a bit more, but based on these quick definitions, it becomes apparent that social capital and reputation are not equivalent things. Social capital is something embedded within networks, not something directly tied to an individual\u2019s status. Moving on.<\/p>\n
Second point: Using those quantitative words (metrics, balance sheet) leads the reader to the conclusion that this is something that we will want to measure. Let\u2019s put aside the term social capital for a moment (since social capital is immeasurable) and look instead at what they\u2019re talking about \u2013 reputation.<\/p>\n
If we decide that reputation is the new \u201ccurrency\u201d of the social economy, and decide to attach a number to it, I\u2019m going to suggest that that would undermine the entire premise itself, instead resulting in commodity fetishism. (Neither Solis nor Hunt directly suggests attaching a number to it, but I\u2019m just pointing out that if we talk about this using economic words, people will be led to develop it accordingly.) I\u2019m just trying to think ahead here. What Hunt is trying to promote is a return to human-centric practices in business and leading from underlying human values. (One of the tweets she sent me was a link to this post of hers, which indicates as much) I think that\u2019s what we\u2019re all trying to do \u2013 I\u2019m just cautioning that people may abuse this premise if it\u2019s meaning is cloaked in economic metaphor.<\/p>\n
Skipping ahead a few paragraphs:<\/p>\n
Like any form of capital, Social capital rises and falls with the market and the individual to which it\u2019s governed by the state of the industry and affected by the state of corresponding affairs. As it escalates, however, it unlocks opportunities that are commensurate with the community\u2019s assessment of its value. In the same regard, the community will not support or reward lackluster, opportunistic, also-ran, or hollow engagement in the long term.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Again, social capital is measured by individual value and collective perception.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I have to disagree with this. One of the characteristics of social capital is that it does NOT deplete with usage, and so I don\u2019t connect how it \u201crises and falls with the market and the individual.\u201d Then the last sentence, \u201csocial capital is measured by individual value\u201d is also incongruous, because by definition social capital is not an attribute of individuals but a function of the relationships between agents.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t want to spend any more time dissecting this. My main objective was to caution against equating social capital with reputation, because I think we\u2019d lose a big opportunity. Social capital is a complex, amorphous concept, which to me makes it an entry point for conversation. These are the oft agreed upon characteristics:<\/p>\n
– it\u2019s a circular concept: social capital is both a characteristic of a flourishing society and a means of achieving it
\n– it\u2019s embedded within networks, not individuals: comprised of trust, social norms, value-sharing, common objectives
\n– it\u2019s not formed from rules and regulations, but from a set of ethical habits and reciprocal moral obligations<\/p>\nIn the end, I think reputations are built on the foundations of social capital, but they are not equivalents. Social capital can be thought of as the fabric of society. You could even say that the psychological health of a nation is dependent upon it. That feels pretty important, so I feel an obligation to raise the level of discourse about it. The idea of whuffie points to the bigger picture, to a shift in thinking about how we want to behave as humans in business. As Tara herself pointed out, the message can quickly get misconstrued, the conversation shifts to ROI, and the question becomes \u201chow do we make and leverage whuffie to make more money!!?\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a lost opportunity for *actual* growth and change.<\/p>\n
Talking about social capital is about having some pretty deep philosophical debates about the underpinnings of how we want to operate as a society, and the values we seek to emulate. How do we up the ante, engage in some plain talk, and push this conversation forward?<\/p>\n
Link to original post at Emergent by Design:
\nSocial Capital is not the same as Whuffie<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I recently read a post by Brian Solis titled Social Capital: The Currency of the Social Economy, which served as the catalyst for one of the most entertaining Twitter conversations I\u2019ve had so far. I personally had a problem with the way the term \u201csocial capital\u201d was used in the piece, which was inspired by … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,132],"tags":[133,26,15,134,135,136],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-venessa-miemis","tag-brian-solis","tag-reputation","tag-social-capital","tag-tara-hunt","tag-the-whuffie-factor","tag-whuffie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}