I too think it’s a great post; it’s very much in sync with how I too think about the connection between trust and technology. Technology is a new bottle, but the underlying quality is very much old wine. Much of what I write about (in my articles, books and blog, TrustMatters) is very much in sync with what you have said.

I write about business and trust; too much of business education and best practices have become seduced by the attractiveness of metrics, processes, and competitive models. It shouldn’t really take much reflection to recognize how critical the role of trust in commerce truly is–yet we have had several decades of thought leaders and practitioners developing and endorsing belief systems in which trust is destroyed or denigrated. Among other things, most large companies in the US today are rather confused about the difference between ethics and compliance; they conflate being ethical with not violating laws.

I could go on, but this is your blog, not mine. Though it is always nice to find other people blogging on points of view so close to one’s own, and that bears mentioning.

Just a quick note on Brandon Klein’s comment about me, above: he’s correct about my area of focus–trust–but momentarily confused my book with another. I am the author of Trust-based Selling, and co-author of The Trusted Advisor. The book Trust Agents, which I heartily endorse, was written by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith. And I think they’re both terrific bloggers as well (and they’d each agree with pretty much everything you’ve said as well).

Great post, and thank you again.

As the founder of the Carnival, I am indebted to the independent hosts who make these tough selections, and in this case I could not possibly approve more of his choice. I’ll add my own comments separately; I want to make sure this one speaks specifically to the fine work you did, and to congratulate you on being included in the Carnival.

Charles H. Green
Trusted Advisor Associates

I believe that the most important off-shoot of trust is collaboration. Here is an interview with myself and Charlie from last month.
http://bit.ly/5hnyBE

My words for 2010 are “Collaboration Steward”

I’ve just included it in the January 2010 Carnival of Trust at:

http://blog.social-advantage.com/2010/01/carnival-of-trust-january-2010.html

A second problem is that “Trust” has two meanings. People focus on Trust as shared ethics, when the meaning that really matters is ‘reliability of outcome’ . In that sense, the best example of a man who can be trusted is Tony Soprano. Not a man whose ethics you might agree with, but if he says something is taken care of, you can bet it’s taken care of.

Focusing on Trust as reliability of outcome re-frames the business conversation and makes sense of all the re-engineering projects. We – corporations and individuals alike – want to be able to do business with strangers, and know that we are safe, and we are going to get the outcome we expected, and we don’t have to keep checking up on one another. It’s the checking that causes expense and waste, regardless of whether your model is contract, covenant, physics or biology.

(BTW, Fukuyama’s other book was “The End Of History” and as we now know, that didn’t happen, either)

Is the idea of the age of physics versus the age of biology caught up in the age of ‘I’ versus ‘We’? It seems rules are about “they say that I can or can’t do that”, where as mores are about “we do and don’t do that”. I’m not sure if that is inherent in rules and mores, but it appears that way.

Taking it from another angle. Data is inherently objective – it reflects an external, shared experience. Emotions are subjective, and I’d count trust in that bucket even though it can be an act of will (and even argued to be calculus based: “Trust more than liking.” Emotions are an internal experience. If we deal with measurable (objective) data, the best we can do is engage with action after the fact. If we deal with emotions, commitment, trust, we deal with (subjective) intent.

Addressing action versus intent leads to very different outcomes. One is like driving using a strategy that says we apply the breaks when we hit the wall, the other is like driving using a strategy that says we steer away from walls.