Trust Decisions: The Wealth of Our Cognitive and Digital Transactions...

As you embark on your journey out the door today, you will be required to make dozens of "Trust Decisions".  You and the digital smart machines and the numerous human and digital trust transactions that you will encounter is quite fundamental.  Or is it?  As you walk into your office building the surveillance cameras are watching you and recording your behavior.  The iPhone in your pocket is transmitting your unique signals to digital data sensors embedded in the lobby.  As you press the button on the elevator to go up to your office, you are making another affirmative decision to trust.

When you step off at your floor and approach the door to your office, you might utilize your small "Radio Frequency Identity (RFID) device to swipe a small square mounted on the wall.  You hear the deadbolt unlock and you are now granted access to your office space to start your workday.  Now as you walk to your corner office, you glance at the top of the screen of your iPhone to see if you are connected automatically to the corporate wireless network and the VPN.  When you were granted access to the office, the corporate computer network knew you were now present in the office and you have been automatically granted access for your role on numerous software applications on your computing devices.

Start your day at work and now the number of digital trust encounters has just begun.  The "Trust Decisions" that you and your digital devices will be making, could reach into the hundreds after a long 8 hour day.  Yet there are five principles that emerged in May of 2015 from Oxford professor and author Jeffrey Ritter in his book "Achieving Digital Trust" we should consider now:

• Every transaction creating wealth first requires an affirmative decision to trust.
• Building trust creates new wealth.
• Sustaining trust creates recurring wealth.
• Achieving trust superior to your competition achieves market dominance.
• Leadership rises (or falls) based on trust (or the absence of trust).

Think about a day in the life of your entire organization and the number of digital trust transactions that have nothing to do with actual monetary currency transfers.  The wealth that is being described here on first glance may be thought of in terms of dollars or yuan or property, yet what about the wealth of human trust?  A plentiful amount or an abundance of anything.  How tangible is the decision to trust the computing machine before you, or the person sitting across the desk who is a key supplier or that new client half way around the world just sending you a text message?

You see, we walk to work and communicate everyday, making hundreds of trust decisions.  Our corporate computing devices are making tens of thousands or millions of transactions of trust each hour.  The rules, information and calculations are known, because they are being measured.  Jeffrey Ritter says it this way:

Take a moment and think about each of these with respect to what you do in your business or in your job. How does the organization acquire wealth? Where does new wealth originate? How are customers retained? What provokes them to keep coming back and paying for your goods or services? Why does the leader in your market succeed? If you are not the market leader, why not? How is the loyalty of your team maintained? 

 The future is clear and becoming more revealing to us each day.  Digital trust, security and privacy of your organization and our societies are being defined before us in plain sight.  Can you see it?  The Washington Post illustrates a single example:

By Hayley Tsukayama and Dan Lamothe April 22 at 7:22 PM

Ever since Chinese computer maker Lenovo spent billions of dollars to acquire IBM’s personal-computer and server businesses, some lawmakers have called on federal agencies to stop using the company’s equipment out of concerns over Chinese spying.

This past week, those lawmakers thought the Pentagon finally heeded their warnings. An email circulated within the Air Force appeared to indicate that Lenovo was being kicked out.

“For immediate implementation: Per AF Cyber Command direction, Lenovo products are being removed from the Approved Products List and should not be purchased for DoD use. Lenovo products currently in use will be removed from the network,” stated the message. The apparent directive was generally welcomed as it circulated around Capitol Hill.

Then the Pentagon’s press office weighed in. Not so fast, it said.

Making "trust decisions" today at work and as you navigate home for the evening will be more apparent.  A heightened understanding of digital trust and how you engage with these transactions each waking hour may assist you in creating new wealth.  Improving the trust you have with computing machines and others at home or work, can make all the difference in life.

Where do you work and live?  Washington, DC.  London.  Moscow.  Beijing.  New Delhi.  Sydney.  It doesn't matter anymore because we are all connected by the Internet.  The opportunity for the societies of our planet to utilize "Information & Communication Technology" (ICT) to produce greater wealth is before us.  How will you proceed with your Trust Decisions?