The Not-Too-Distant Future of Reputation

Are you protecting your most valuable asset?

We’ve been saying for years that reputation is, without a doubt, your most valuable asset, and as time rolls on that statement continues to be cemented as truth on an almost daily basis.

Whether you’re a massive multinational organization or a single person, your reputation will continue to carve your path to success, or, on the flip side, a need for crisis management.

Social scientist Heather Schlegel penned a compelling article for CNN.com which included this quote on the not-too-distant future of reputation:

Reputation will become an increasingly visible part of our everyday transactions. While we will create reputation on individual platforms, there will be an increasing demand for fluid exchange of reputation and ratings from one system to another. We’ll see tools to aggregate your reputation in one place. We may even see reputation system APIs developed to enable the transfer of your reputation to new platforms.

Picture this: four friends having dinner in a restaurant in the not-too-distant future. After the meal, they pay using a “Smart Check,” using integrated mobile payments, credit cards and private coins. As part of the Smart Check experience, diners can rate their experience immediately — everything from individual dishes, the service, and even the restaurant itself.

If you look around, you’ll realize this is already happening today. Not everything is as integrated and fluid, but with a few taps on a smartphone anyone can, and of course many do, affect a reputation through reviews, social media shares, blogs, and any number of other means.

Grow your reputation constantly, and safeguard it with a passion, or the not-too-distant future won’t look so good for you.