17 June 2005

The Physics of Measuring Relationship Assets in a Network Society

What are the physics of measuring our relationship assets in a networked society?

Just like in physics, the things are not the only things that are important. The relationships between things and other things play such an important role in life. These relationships enslave things into concepts.

As we begin to work more and more with dynamic networks - people, things, channels, messages and media - we need new measurement systems to account for the value of these relationships.

Since the new economic models are evolving from only counting transactions, we need tools to measure the value of our relationships with others. Where do we start?

I've been exploring and experimenting with how to define the paramenters for identifying and organizing the value criteria for networked relationships. I started with what I would lose if certain relationships were no longer in place. (Since I recently lost a working partner, the evidence of this loss was very clear to me on all 4 levels of capital: human, social, creative and financial.) It became clear to me that several factors play a role in determining the value of particular relationships between people, things, channels, formats, timing, and communication. For instance, there is an attraction factor. And, just like in physics, each factor has its own set of behavior principles, like the enslavement principle for concepts.

I've also been playing with the notion that our relationships with the people controlling the flow of capital are sometimes more important than the capital itself. What would that factor be?

I want to build a working formula and play with the factors to see what shows up. If I can really work this out, I could build an algorithm to track value as relationships evolves, which would lead to a dynamic accounting model that could capture value on all 4 capital levels.

If you have any ideas to contribute here, please share!

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