Coming off a summer of metrics presented through the Society’s monthly Mission Intangible Monthly Briefings, a recent posting by reputation futurist Ross Dawson seems timely. I summarize the article below. Further, in view of a posting earlier this week, Whole Feuds, on Whole Foods Markets comprising both the Financial Times Newssift sentiment metric and the Steel City Re’s Reputation Index, direct your attention to items #2 and 3 below.

1. Influence is democratized
In a world of blogging, Twitter, and social media anyone can become highly influential, shaping how we think, behave, and spend. Position and rank matter less; companies can ignore no-one.

2. Influence can be measured
New metrics for individual influence and reputation will replace subjective assessments and will guide who we hire, do business with, and even date.

3. Reputation shifts from the corporation to the individual
Today corporate reputation matters less than the reputation of the individuals in the company. People don’t trust companies, but they might trust the people working for them. The corporate war for talent will become the war to attract the influential and trustworthy.

4. “Influence is the future of media”
We now discover the movies, music, news, books, conversation and even new friends we like through influence – the recommendations of many are driving our choices.

5. Business models for influence are emerging
If you can earn directly from your trust and respect, through tools such as TweetROI and IZEA’s sponsored conversations, what is the future for the $500 billion advertising industry?

At the Society, we see the above embodied in decision and prediction markets and other market-based metrics; and of course, the best practices associated with the business processes that drive the reputations ultimately measured through these metrics. The art, from a financial perspective, will be identifying the leading indicators of a rising reputation. Indeed, data consistently show that firms with superior reputations reward their stakeholders with above average returns.