ethics

The Economy of Collaboration 3.0

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Image Credit: Jill Clardy | Edits under CC: Andrew Swenson

Original Image: Jill Clardy

Recently, Carlos Miceli argued that the future of collaboration is not in win-win transactions, but in a pay-it-forward type of interaction where one gives for the sake of giving and not for the sake of winning. Miceli states:

The future of collaboration is ego-less….The real test comes when you have the opportunity to help someone with the previous knowledge that that person won’t be able to reciprocate. Paradoxically, the only way to do this consistently is to forget about the economic way of thinking.”

Seeing Collaboration 3.0 in Economic Terms

In economic terms, there are typically two types of exchange (Lapavistas, 2004):

Evil, Ancient Greece, and other Marketing Stuff

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
image credit: Raymond Yee

image credit: Raymond Yee

Is marketing evil?

When Seth Godin pondered the question earlier this year, he came to this conclusion:

Just because you can market something doesn’t mean you should. You’ve got the power, so you’re responsible, regardless of what your boss tells you to do.

Last night in a Twitter exchange with Jessica Gottlieb (@JessicaGottlieb) about how people market and sell, I suggested that the question isn’t anything new. In fact, I think it dates back a few millennia…

[Disclaimer: this post is purposefully philosophy light.
Email theword[at]wordpost[dot]org if you’re craving discourse on metaphysics]