The Reputation Economy

Reputation is power. Your reputation defines how people see you and what they will do for you. It determines whether your bank will lend you money to buy a house or car; whether your landlord will accept you as a tenant; which employers will hire you and how much they will pay you. It can even affect your marriage prospects. And in the coming Reputation Economy, it’s getting more powerful than ever. Because today, thanks to rapid advances in digital technology, anyone access huge troves of information about you – your buying habits, your finances, your professional and personal networks, and even your physical whereabouts - at any time. In a world where technology allows companies and individuals alike to not only gather all this data but also aggregate it and analyze it with frightening speed, accuracy, and sophistication, our digital reputations are fast becoming our most valuable currency. Here, Michael Fertik, CEO of Reputation.com and one of Silicon Valley’s leading futurists will draw on the insider tools, insights, research, and secrets that has make Reputation.com the leading reputation management firm, to show how to capitalize on the trends the Reputation Economy will trigger to improve your professional, financial, and even social prospects. You will learn: · What keywords to put in your resume, performance review, and LinkedIn profile to come up at the top of potential employers' search results. · How to curate your on and offline activity in way that will reduce the premiums calculated by insurers, lenders, and investors. · Tricks that will get you express or VIP treatment at banks, hotels, and other exclusive special offers. · Ways to improve your review or rating on sharing or peer review sites like Yelp or Angie’s List, or your standing – as buyer or seller - on sharing economy sites like AirBnB or Uber · How to create false tails and digital smokescreens to hide the negative information that's out there With a good digital footprint, the world is your oyster. This book will show you how to control, curate, and optimize your digital reputation to become “rich” in a world where your reputation is as valuable as the cash in your wallet.

Exploring the new professional scenes in digital and freelance knowledge, this innovative book provides an account of the subjects and cultures that pertain to knowledge work in the aftermath of the creative class frenzy. Including a broad spectrum of empirical projects, The Reputation Economy documents the rise of freelancing and digital professions and argues about the central role held by reputation within this context, offering a comprehensive interpretation of the digital transformation of knowledge work. The book shows how digital technologies are not simply intermediating productive and organizational processes, allowing new ways for supply and demand to meet, but actually enable the diffusion of cultural conceptions of work and value that promise to become the new standard of the industry.

As the internet has increasingly become more social, the value of individual reputations has risen, and a new currency based on reputation has been created. This means that not only are companies tracking what an individual is tweeting and what sites they spend the most time on, but they're using this knowledge to predict the consumer's future behavior. And a world in which Target knows that a woman is pregnant before she does, or where a person gets a job (or loses one) based on his high school hijinx is a scary one indeed. Joshua Klein's Reputation Economics asks these crucial questions: But what if there were a way to harness the power of these new technologies to empower the individual and entrepreneur? What if it turned out that David was actually better suited to navigate this new realm of reputation than Goliath? And what if he ushered in a new age of business in which reputation, rather than money, was the strongest currency of all? This is all currently happening online already. Welcome to the age of Reputation Economics: -Where Avis is currently discounting car rentals based on Twitter followers -Where Carnival Cruise Lines are offering free upgrades based on a Klout score -Where Amazon and Microsoft are a short way away from dynamically pricing their goods based on a consumer's reach and reputation online -Where Klout scores are being used to vet job applications The value of individual reputation is already radically changing the way business is done.

A compelling exploration of how reputation affects every aspect of contemporary life Reputation touches almost everything, guiding our behavior and choices in countless ways. But it is also shrouded in mystery. Why is it so powerful when the criteria by which people and things are defined as good or bad often appear to be arbitrary? Why do we care so much about how others see us that we may even do irrational and harmful things to try to influence their opinion? In this engaging book, Gloria Origgi draws on philosophy, social psychology, sociology, economics, literature, and history to offer an illuminating account of an important yet oddly neglected subject. Compellingly written and filled with surprising insights, Reputation pins down an elusive subject that affects us all.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The Reputation Economy is built on the backs of digital technology that allows for the collection, storage, and analysis of massive amounts of data about individuals. This data is used to predict and control people’s actions, behaviors, and decisions. #2 The future will be dominated by those who can make the most sense of massive data sets. This is how companies are developing systems to make millions of decisions about consumers each minute. #3 The Reputation Economy will rely on massive data sets companies have acquired to assign you reputation scores based on your reputation for hard work, financial responsibility, and health. These scores will be used by others to make major decisions about your life. #4 Reputation is just as powerful for businesses, professionals, and private individuals. In business, up to 75 percent of a company’s value is its reputation. In your personal life, the figure for reputation may be closer to 100 percent.

How does cooperation emerge in a condition of international anarchy? Michael Tomz sheds new light on this fundamental question through a study of international debt across three centuries. Tomz develops a reputational theory of cooperation between sovereign governments and foreign investors. He explains how governments acquire reputations in the eyes of investors, and argues that concerns about reputation sustain international lending and repayment. Tomz's theory generates novel predictions about the dynamics of cooperation: how investors treat first-time borrowers, how access to credit evolves as debtors become more seasoned, and how countries ascend and descend the reputational ladder by acting contrary to investors' expectations. Tomz systematically tests his theory and the leading alternatives across three centuries of financial history. His remarkable data, gathered from archives in nine countries, cover all sovereign borrowers. He deftly combines statistical methods, case studies, and content analysis to scrutinize theories from as many angles as possible. Tomz finds strong support for his reputational theory while challenging prevailing views about sovereign debt. His pathbreaking study shows that, across the centuries, reputations have guided lending and repayment in consistent ways. Moreover, Tomz uncovers surprisingly little evidence of punitive enforcement strategies. Creditors have not compelled borrowers to repay by threatening military retaliation, imposing trade sanctions, or colluding to deprive defaulters of future loans. He concludes by highlighting the implications of his reputational logic for areas beyond sovereign debt, further advancing our understanding of the puzzle of cooperation under anarchy.

It would be easy to cheat someone on eBay. However, an essential characteristic of the site prevents this from happening: buyer and seller reviews form what amounts to an "index of reputation." The availability of such an index provides a strong incentive to be an honest trader. Reputation-Based Governance melds concepts from businesses like eBay with politics. Author Lucio Picci uses interdisciplinary tools to argue that the intelligent use of widely available Internet technologies can strengthen reputational mechanisms and significantly improve public governance. Based on this notion, the book proposes a governance model that leans on the concept of reputational incentives while discussing the pivotal role of reputation in politics today. Picci argues that a continuous, distributed process of assessing policy outcomes, enabled by an appropriate information system, would contribute to a governance model characterized by effectiveness, efficiency, and a minimum amount of rent-seeking activity. Moreover, if citizens were also allowed to express their views on prospective policies, then reputation-based governance would provide a platform on which to develop advanced forms of participative democracy.