I have been seeking some constructive feedback on “Introducing Social Capital Value Add” at a leading forum “Serving the Quantitative Finance Community”.

There I have learned that I am “not a kook” and that “Your writing sucks. In a world of people with no incentive to tell the truth, I am giving you the gift of honesty.”

Tough crowd, eh?

Golly gee whiz, I guess that the quant finance set hasn’t heard that its time to come together Web 2.0 style?

I am still hopeful that the discussion there will improve “Introducing Social Capital Value Add”.

One post has been helpful and noted “This manifesto only speaks about demand-side social capital. A more complete theory would estimate internal social capital, supply-side social capital, and government social capital.”

Most of the examples that I use in the paper focus on “demand-side social capital” but I do point out that the change in media paradigm from broadcast to the Individual as Medium has implications throughout the corporate ecosystem:

click for link to slides

A link showed up in my inbox a few days ago through an investment banker friend (investment bankers are so much nicer than those quant finance folks!) and the McKinsey quarterly newsletter that provides some good examples of these effects playing out in product development, etc.

It is entitled: Where will co-creation lead us?

Check it out here: http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Information_Technology/Networking/next_step_in_open_innovation_2155

If you are reading this post you likely already understand that social media is “game changing”. The challenge ahead is to make this case to seasoned decision makers in boardrooms globally.

Perhaps it is because I watched as the public relations profession worked over the last 20 years to attempt to tune the corporation into being more socially motivated. Perhaps it is the lingering fear of the first Internet bubble. But every time I read a blog post about what is better Twitter or Plurk or see a debate raging about whether one has to be a blogger to “get” social media, I hear Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson and this song in my head (sorry – not every time and minus the first 51 seconds, heh, heh).

I don’t want this second wave of the internet coming to crest before crashing through the boardroom door. The prospect of changing the dialog about Web 2.0 and social media is what prompted me to start down the the path of writing “Introducing Social Capital Value Add” last May.

SCVA is a management method rooted in accepted financial theory that connects the pioneering intellectual enterprises of social capital and social network analysis to value based management and the priorities of marketers. SCVA proposes that we establish the link between social media and corporate valuation, in a way similar to the connection made between brand and corporate value in the late 1980s.

Investors and managers need to access the risks to future earnings and stock value associated with social media. When we evangelize Web 2.0 and social media in these terms … risk, future earnings and stock value … the focus will change from saving a few thousand dollars on a web campaign and the quest for that elusive viral story. This is the opportunity to stress the commitment, investment and special management methods required to develop the social capital that underwrites long term success in the networked age.

Over the last month many people have joined in to support the idea of “Introducing Social Capital Value Add” at www.changethis.com/proposals. Thank you very much. It is not over yet. Voting closes sometime, probably end of day, June 19th. It might not come together tomorrow.

The odds are against this prospect of changing the dialog. I must admit though, the process of engaging as many people as I can about these issues and the response has been inspiring.

Symbols (like a brand) are valuable indicators. Some symbols tell us that the environment that businesses operate in has profoundly changed. Netscape is a good example. It is a symbol of great corporate value creation (and new risk) enabled by the introduction of the browser. The term Web 2.0 and the Facebook/Microsoft deal are symbols of the new environment that has emerged since mid-2004 when broadband over took dial up.

Examination and discussion of these symbols is the preoccupation of a lot of great bloggers. Who did what deal? What one ego said about another? The death pool mentality … that benefits from the energies of risk takers, but also may stifle some. It is too bad that Randal Graves was right, “There’s nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there?”.

Dwelling on the symbols can only take us so far in changing corporate management and dealing with the complexities of an “inflection point” for business that is the result of so many factors that challenge us in so many different ways.

Social Capital Value Add is designed to focus the attention and efforts of investors, managers and their agents beyond the symbols towards building out corporate social networks that are maximized for social capital.

Over the first 20 posts or so of this blog, we’ll introduce the SCVA argument with short pithy little gems like this.