The Trust Factor

The relationship economy is founded on technology, but can only be built on relationships. It starts with relationship networks and ends with trust.

In relationships trust may refer to a relationship of reliance .

Sociologists recognize a hierarchy of forms of activity and interpersonal relations that impact trust, divided into;

behavior action

social behavior

social action

social contact

social interaction

These collective factors create interactive elements by which others, consciously and unconsciously determine the factors of trust that influence an individuals success with others and with entity communities networked together through a series of contact points.

In computer science trust can be referred to:

Trusted system, a system which failure may break a security policy

Web of trust, a system to establish authenticity

A trust metric rates users of social software

In psychology and sociology, a trust metric is a measure of how a member of a group is trusted by the other members. Trust metrics may be abstracted in a manner that can be implemented on computers, making them of interest for the study and engineering of virtual communities, such as Facebook and the host of other large networks. Attack resistance is an important property of trust metrics which reflects their ability to handle individuals who participate within social networks in bad faith (ie who aim to abuse the presumption of trust). feedback rating. Slashdot introduced its notion of karma, earned for activities received to promote group effectiveness, an approach that has been very influential in later virtual communities. Amazon's review system enables community members to rate a book or a seller of a book.

Enter Social Networks

The social interactions between individuals and networks assume a trust metrics in the undering social networks. Even if one assumes closed populations of constant size, due to mobility and communication, new links are created and new acquentions are made at all times. This means that the landscape and dynamics of social networks change over time. As new links are added to the network the path between each two individuals become shorter over time. In other words, the probability that any two randomly selected individuals know each other increases with time, thereby modifying the content of the collective memory in a evolutionary manner. Memory of an individuals trust factor is driven by the following dynamics

Players can communicate and inquire about the reputation of their co-players. The networks of acquainthood grows dynamically over time and the word spreads on who to trust and who not to trust . Information about the reputation of co-players is not obtained randomly; rather, players selectively acquire information from their acquirement network by taking advantage of the collective memory of the social networks to which they belong.Information is not propagated randomly in a population. New information resulting from new interactions modifies the content of the collective memory of a recipient and is hence selectively propagated through the recipient's acquaintance network.

A social network is an evolving dynamic entity . With new interactions, new links are created which in turn increase the likelihood of any two randomly selected players would know each other and the trust factors of each others history in the network. In other words if you violate the trust factors it can hang like a do not trust sign on your profile through an entire network.

The proliferation of web-based social networks has lead to new innovations in social networking, particularly by allowing users to describe their relationships beyond a basic connection. On any social network trust can be leveraged for profit. If a qualified member of a network offers a product or service the adoption of said offering is directly correlated to the "trust factor" said individual has built within and through the network. Trust factors in relationships follow form on line and in our physical world. Trust is the most important factor to individual and collective success. To violate it means a long road to recovery and in the virtual world negative impact to the factors of trust can stay with you for a very long time.

The Relationship Economy will be built on TRUST! What Say You?

You may also like...