Musings on Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Saturday, May 03, 2003Thanks Micah Alpern for pointing me toward an interesting conversation regarding my friend Duncan Work's efforts to launch the global trust exchange. My own experience with Pioneer Entrepreneurs confirms the observation made by another friend, Laura Black, whose research has shown how people collaborate purposefully.
Building social capital is costly. Consequently, people invest in building relationships selectively. Trust is essential, but it is often the result of repeated interaction over time. Consequently, trust can't be declared, it must be earned. It seems to me that we have a limited capacity to trust, because we have a limited capacity to make the investment necessary to develop trust.
I suspect that it will be very difficult to cultivate generalized reciprocity in a context as broad as the GTX. Nevertheless, I hope that Duncan is right, and I am wrong.
If you are interested in the relationship between geography and innovation, check out a recent paper by Meric Gertler. It's in an academic journal, but it is readable, nonetheless.
My colleagues and I are big fans of Groove Workspace, but there's an interesting new collaboration tool on the block: Kubi Software. I haven't had the opportunity to look at Kubi closely, but it's major distinguishing feature is its tight integration with popular business email applications such as Microsoft Outlook. In fact, Kubi touts its software as "collaborative email." The ubiquity of email is certainly very appealing, but I've come to appreciate the value of presence, particularly in the context of a specific, purposeful shared space.
Thank you Jeroen Bekker for the pointer.