In Us We Trust

Dale Peskin introduced the day’s last session explaining that the panel was formed to talk about collaboration and the social and business changes that it is causing. Panelists were asked to give their perspectives on ‘trust systems.’

Wacker – trust and ethics are going to be dominant in the next generation. ‘Institutional crisis is pandemic.’ The real key is culture, who’s definition is what we pay our reverential hommage to, what we respect. In the world of ‘we’, it’s very easy to shut off anything you don’t want to listen to. How do we create mediation in a world of complexity and paradox? We need to distinguish between ‘true’ stories and ‘truth’ stories.

Craigslist is a community. Why is it such a phenomenon in which communities have begun telling their stories? People connect for all sorts of reasons, commerce, social, etc., said Newmark. ‘Providing good customer service, we’ve created a culture of trust… we don’t say it so much as practice it."

Stephenson was asked how these communities of trust are emerging. She answered that human society is changing, that we can all converse through the Internet in ways never imagined. Trust and authenticity are being redefined. ‘Little clutches of trust distributed around the world in different societies are being formed.’ Using a graph done by the Media Center in Synapse, she described her idea of where trust currently stands in human society.

Edelman used the example of European societies trusting in NGO’s more so than large corporations. In the past, we used to trust in doctors, but now we beleive in those close to us, family, friends, employees, and we don’t trust large corporations anymore, which is exaclty the problem with the mainstream media.