"RepScore": The New Measure of Your 'Reputation Capital'?

Globally, we are in transition. Technology is rapidly shaping every aspect of our lives into a more mobile, social and collective-connected way. Daily we discover new insights as to how our every 'footprint' on the web and smartphone 'search and call' are being tracked. Our 'online' presence & activity are fast becoming the 'building blocks' that will be used to measure, quantify and ultimately build our personal and or business "reputation score". 

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Most everyone clearly understands the economic impact of a personal or business  credit score.   While the Fair Isaac Credit scoring system (FICO) got started in the 50's it wasn't until forty years later into the 1990's when the American Banker's Association and FNMA adopted the scoring system as 'the standard' for scoring creditand mortgage loan risk. Now today, whether you are buying a car or applying for a home mortgage your credit score directly translates into a financial asset or liability. 

Now consider this statement by Rachel Botsman, author, journalist & social innovator: "Reputation is becoming a currency that will be more powerful than our credit history in the 21st Century. In the 20th century the invention of traditional credit transformed our consumer system and in many ways controlled who had access to what. In the 21st century new trust networks and the reputation capital they generate will reinvent the way we think about wealth, markets, power and personal identity, in ways that we can't yet even imagine. This 'reputation capital' represents the worth of your reputation-intentions, capabilities and values-across communities and marketplaces. We are reinventing how our socio-economic system works. We are at the start of a collaborative revolution that will be as significant as the industrial revolution. Reputation is the currency that says, "you can trust me".   

I would suggest that given the evolutionary history of credit-scoring and the impact it has in our personal and business affairs that we take seriously what appears to be a trending and emerging reality: a reputation-scoring system or your personal or business "RepScore".  

Given today's "Mobile Revolution", and social media giving rise to the concepts of  "social-influence" monetization and "reputation capital",  it is imperative for anyone in business to integrate mobile and social solutions into their marketing strategies and reputation-risk management. After all, an effective mobile-social strategy is more engaging and less costly than traditional marketing methods; and, a well crafted system works 24/7!

Greg Johnson