BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
OF THE GLOBAL TRUST EXCHANGE
The Internet was initially designed to connect people to
information. Collaborative technology quickly evolved to connect
people to people. In only the past few years "Social Networks"
have emerged on the Internet to connect the personal profiles and
personal connections of millions of users. Online social networks use
personal connections of trust that already exist to make these existing
trust networks more accessible, more abundant, and more useful.
The entire field of Internet-enabled social networks is still
relatively young with a great deal of promise yet to be fulfilled.
The most promising and advanced current and future social
network applications involve the exchange of trust. Currently
only a few online social networks are being used for professional
applications, which especially require emphasis on trust and
user-controlled privacy.
The basic concept of a trust exchange is that personal trust is the
last and most difficult type of exchange to automate – in
contrast to exchanges for goods, currencies, securities, services, and
information. The exchange of personal trust is difficult to
automate because personal evaluations of trust can’t easily be
standardized.
The Global Trust Exchange will begin by making use of online social networking services provided by LinkedIn.
LinkedIn’s basic features and services are powerful and free for
individuals and organizations to use. LinkedIn
enables the exchange of trust by requiring that all connections in the
network are mutually confirmed; and by relying on each individual
member to act as a trusted broker/gatekeeper for each of the people
they’re connected to. This works extremely well for
the exchange of most information related to professional expertise,
experience and current and past affiliations -- that is, information
people are willing to share in professional bios, CVs and
resumes.
Searching a database of millions of professional profiles is extremely
valuable. On top of this ability to locate someone with needed
expertise or influence, LinkedIn adds the ability to also find a
personal introduction through a mutually trusted connection. For
a list of more benefits, see this list.
The Global Trust Exchange will add value to the services provided by LinkedIn by:
- Creating specialized networks, such as the Social Transformation Network, that facilitate professional networking across organizational boundaries within large professional communities;
- Providing
consulting, training and learning programs to enable organizations and
individuals to get maximum value from their collective trust networks;
(see Demonstration Project )
- Facilitating
development of applications to integrate the more private data of
organizations and individuals with the more public data and services on
the LinkedIn network;
- Facilitating development of advanced technologies and applications to help further automate the exchange of trust.
The Social Transformation Network is the first project of the Global Trust Exchange.
For more information about the Global Trust Exchange and Social Transformation Network contact Duncan Work, duncan@trustexchange.net.
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