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So if someone asked you

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for the three words that would sum up

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your reputation, what would you say?

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How would people describe your judgment,

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your knowledge, your behaviors, in different situations?

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Today I'd like to explore with you

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why the answer to this question

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will become profoundly important

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in an age where reputation will be your most valuable asset.

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I'd like to start by introducing you to someone

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whose life has been changed by a marketplace

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fueled by reputation.

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Sebastian Sandys has been a bed and breakfast host

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on Airbnb since 2008.

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I caught up with him recently, where, over the course

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of several cups of tea, he told me how

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hosting guests from all over the world

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has enriched his life.

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More than 50 people have come to stay in the 18th-century

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watchhouse he lives in with his cat, Squeak.

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Now, I mention Squeak because Sebastian's first guest

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happened to see a rather large mouse run across the kitchen,

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and she promised that she would refrain from leaving

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a bad review on one condition: he got a cat.

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And so Sebastian bought Squeak to protect his reputation.

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Now, as many of you know, Airbnb is a peer-to-peer

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marketplace that matches people who have space to rent

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with people who are looking for a place to stay

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in over 192 countries.

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The places being rented out are things that you might

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expect, like spare rooms and holiday homes,

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but part of the magic is the unique places

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that you can now access: treehouses, teepees,

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airplane hangars, igloos.

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If you don't like the hotel, there's a castle down the road

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that you can rent for 5,000 dollars a night.

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It's a fantastic example of how technology

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is creating a market

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for things that never had a marketplace before.

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Now let me show you these heat maps of Paris

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to see how insanely fast it's growing.

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This image here is from 2008.

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The pink dots represent host properties.

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Even four years ago, letting strangers stay in your home

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seemed like a crazy idea.

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Now the same view in 2010.

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And now, 2012.

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There is an Airbnb host on almost every main street in Paris.

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Now, what's happening here is people are realizing

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the power of technology to unlock the idling capacity

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and value of all kinds of assets,

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from skills to spaces to material possessions,

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in ways and on a scale never possible before.

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It's an economy and culture called collaborative consumption,

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and, through it, people like Sebastian

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are becoming micro-entrepreneurs.

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They're empowered to make money and save money

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from their existing assets.

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But the real magic and the secret source behind

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collaborative consumption marketplaces like Airbnb

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isn't the inventory or the money.

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It's using the power of technology to build trust

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between strangers.

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This side of Airbnb really hit home to Sebastian last summer

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during the London riots.

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He woke up around 9, and he checked his email

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and he saw a bunch of messages all asking him

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if he was okay.

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Former guests from around the world had seen that

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the riots were happening just down the street, and wanted

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to check if he needed anything.

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Sebastian actually said to me, he said, "Thirteen former guests

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contacted me before my own mother rang." (Laughter)

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Now, this little anecdote gets to the heart of why

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I'm really passionate about collaborative consumption,

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and why, after I finished my book, I decided

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I'm going to try and spread this into a global movement.

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Because at its core, it's about empowerment.

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It's about empowering people to make meaningful connections,

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connections that are enabling us to rediscover

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a humanness that we've lost somewhere along the way,

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by engaging in marketplaces like Airbnb, like Kickstarter,

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like Etsy, that are built on personal relationships

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versus empty transactions.

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Now the irony is that these ideas are actually taking us back

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to old market principles and collaborative behaviors

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that are hard-wired in all of us.

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They're just being reinvented in ways that are relevant

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for the Facebook age.

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We're literally beginning to realize that we have wired

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our world to share, swap, rent, barter or trade

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just about anything. We're sharing our cars on WhipCar,

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our bikes on Spinlister, our offices on Loosecubes,

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our gardens on Landshare. We're lending and borrowing

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money from strangers on Zopa and Lending Club.

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We are trading lessons on everything from sushi-making

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to coding on Skillshare,

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and we're even sharing our pets on DogVacay.

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Now welcome to the wonderful world of collaborative consumption

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that's enabling us to match wants with haves

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in more democratic ways.

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Now, collaborative consumption is creating the start

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of a transformation in the way we think about supply and demand,

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but it's also a part of a massive value shift underway,

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where instead of consuming to keep up with the Joneses,

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people are consuming to get to know the Joneses.

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But the key reason why it's taking off now so fast

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is because every new advancement of technology

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increases the efficiency and the social glue of trust

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to make sharing easier and easier.

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Now, I've looked at thousands of these marketplaces,

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and trust and efficiency are always the critical ingredients.

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Let me give you an example.

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Meet 46-year-old Chris Mok, who has, I bet,

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the best job title here of SuperRabbit.

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Now, four years ago, Chris lost his job, unfortunately,

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as an art buyer at Macy's, and like so many people,

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he struggled to find a new one during the recession.

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And then he happened to stumble across a post about

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TaskRabbit.

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Now, the story behind TaskRabbit starts like so many

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great stories with a very cute dog by the name of Kobe.

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Now what happened was, in February 2008,

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Leah and her husband were waiting for a cab to take them

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out for dinner, when Kobe came trotting up to them

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and he was salivating with saliva.

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They realized they'd run out of dog food.

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Kevin had to cancel the cab and trudge out in the snow.

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Now, later that evening, the two self-confessed tech geeks

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starting talking about how cool it would be if some kind of

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eBay for errands existed.

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Six months later, Leah quit her job,

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and TaskRabbit was born.

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At the time, she didn't realize that she was actually hitting

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on a bigger idea she later called service networking.

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It's essentially about how we use our online relationships

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to get things done in the real world.

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Now the way TaskRabbit works is, people outsource

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the tasks that they want doing, name the price

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they're willing to pay, and then vetted Rabbits

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bid to run the errand.

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Yes, there's actually a four-stage, rigorous interview process

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that's designed to find the people that would make

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great personal assistants and weed out the dodgy Rabbits.

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Now, there's over 4,000 Rabbits across the United States

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and 5,000 more on the waiting list.

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Now the tasks being posted are things that you might

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expect, like help with household chores

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or doing some supermarket runs.

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I actually learned the other day that 12 and a half thousand

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loads of laundry have been cleaned and folded

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through TaskRabbit.

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But I love that the number one task posted,

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over a hundred times a day, is something that many of us

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have felt the pain of doing:

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yes, assembling Ikea furniture. (Laughter) (Applause)

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It's brilliant. Now, we may laugh, but Chris here

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is actually making up to 5,000 dollars a month

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running errands around his life.

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And 70 percent of this new labor force

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were previously unemployed or underemployed.

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I think TaskRabbit and other examples of collaborative consumption

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are like lemonade stands on steroids. They're just brilliant.

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Now, when you think about it, it's amazing, right,

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that over the past 20 years, we've evolved

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from trusting people online to share information

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to trusting to handing over our credit card information,

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and now we're entering the third trust wave:

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connecting trustworthy strangers to create all kinds

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of people-powered marketplaces.

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I actually came across this fascinating study

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by the Pew Center this week that revealed

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that an active Facebook user is three times as likely

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as a non-Internet user to believe that most people are trustworthy.

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Virtual trust will transform the way we trust one another

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face to face.

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Now, with all of my optimism, and I am an optimist,

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comes a healthy dose of caution, or rather, an urgent need

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to address some pressing, complex questions.

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How to ensure our digital identities reflect our

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real world identities? Do we want them to be the same?

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How do we mimic the way trust is built face-to-face online?

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How do we stop people who've behaved badly

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in one community doing so under a different guise?

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In a similar way that companies often use some kind of

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credit rating to decide whether to give you a mobile plan,

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or the rate of a mortgage, marketplaces that depend

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on transactions between relative strangers

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need some kind of device to let you know that Sebastian

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and Chris are good eggs,

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and that device is reputation.

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Reputation is the measurement of how much a community trusts you.

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Let's just take a look at Chris.

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You can see that over 200 people have given him

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an average rating over 4.99 out of 5.

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There are over 20 pages of reviews of his work

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describing him as super-friendly and fast,

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and he's reached level 25, the highest level,

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making him a SuperRabbit.

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Now — (Laughter) -- I love that word, SuperRabbit.

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And interestingly, what Chris has noted is that as his reputation

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has gone up, so has his chances of winning a bid

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and how much he can charge.

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In other words, for SuperRabbits, reputation

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has a real world value.

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Now, I know what you might be thinking.

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Well, this isn't anything new. Just think of power sellers

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on eBay or star ratings on Amazon.

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The difference today is that, with every trade we make,

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comment we leave, person we flag, badge we earn,

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we leave a reputation trail

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of how well we can and can't be trusted.

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And it's not just the breadth but the volume

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of reputation data out there that is staggering.

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Just consider this: Five million nights have been booked

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on Airbnb in the past six months alone.

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30 million rides have been shared on Carpooling.com.

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This year, two billion dollars worth of loans

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will go through peer-to-peer lending platforms.

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This adds up to millions of pieces of reputation data

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on how well we behave or misbehave.

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Now, capturing and correlating the trails of information

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that we leave in different places is a massive challenge,

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but one we're being asked to figure out.

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What the likes of Sebastian are starting to rightfully ask

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is, shouldn't they own their reputation data?

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Shouldn't the reputation that he's personally invested

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on building on Airbnb mean that it should travel with him

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from one community to another?

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What I mean by this is, say he started selling second-hand

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books on Amazon. Why should he have to start from scratch?

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It's a bit like when I moved from New York to Sydney.

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It was ridiculous. I couldn't get a mobile phone plan

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because my credit history didn't travel with me.

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I was essentially a ghost in the system.

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Now I'm not suggesting that the next stage

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of the reputation economy is about

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adding up multiple ratings into some kind of empty score.

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People's lives are too complex, and who wants to do that?

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I also want to be clear that this isn't about adding up

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tweets and likes and friends in a Klout-like fashion.

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Those guys are measuring influence, not behaviors

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that indicate our trustworthiness.

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But the most important thing that we have to keep in mind

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is that reputation is largely contextual.

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Just because Sebastian is a wonderful host

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does not mean that he can assemble Ikea furniture.

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The big challenge is figuring out what data

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makes sense to pull, because the future's

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going to be driven by a smart aggregation of reputation,

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not a single algorithm.

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It's only a matter of time before we'll be able to perform

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a Facebook- or Google-like search

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and see a complete picture of someone's behaviors

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in different contexts over time.

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I envision a realtime stream of who has trusted you,

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when, where and why, your reliability on TaskRabbit,

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your cleanliness as a guest on Airbnb,

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the knowledge that you display on Quora or Tripovo,

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they'll all live together in one place,

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and this will live in some kind of reputation dashboard

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that will paint a picture of your reputation capital.

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Now this is a concept that I'm currently researching

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and writing my next book on, and currently define

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as the worth of your reputation, your intentions,

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capabilities and values across communities and marketplaces.

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This isn't some far-off frontier.

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There are actually a wave of startups like Connect.Me

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and Legit and TrustCloud that are figuring out how

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you can aggregate, monitor and use your online reputation.

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Now, I realize that this concept may sound a little

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Big Brother to some of you, and yes, there are some

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enormous transparency and privacy issues to solve,

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but ultimately, if we can collect our personal reputation,

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we can actually control it more, and extract

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the immense value that will flow from it.

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Also, more so than our credit history,

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we can actually shape our reputation.

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Just think of Sebastian

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and how he bought the cat to influence his.

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Now privacy issues aside, the other really interesting issue

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I'm looking at is how do we empower digital ghosts,

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people [who] for whatever reason, are not active online,

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but are some of the most trustworthy people in the world?

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How do we take their contributions to their jobs,

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their communities and their families,

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and convert that value into reputation capital?

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Ultimately, when we get it right, reputation capital

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could create a massive positive disruption

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in who has power, trust and influence.

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A three-digit score, your traditional credit history,

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that only 30 percent of us actually know what it is,

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will no longer be the determining factor

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in how much things cost, what we can access,

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and, in many instances, limit what we can do in the world.

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Indeed, reputation is a currency that I believe will become

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more powerful than our credit history in the 21st century.

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Reputation will be the currency that says

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that you can trust me.

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Now the interesting thing is, reputation

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is the socioeconomic lubricant

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that makes collaborative consumption work and scale,

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but the sources it will be generated from,

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and its applications, are far bigger than this space alone.

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Let me give you one example from the world of recruiting,

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where reputation data will make the résumé seem

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like an archaic relic of the past.

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Four years ago, tech bloggers and entrepreneurs

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Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood, decided to start something

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called Stack Overflow.

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Now, Stack Overflow is basically a platform where

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experienced programmers can ask

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other good programmers highly detailed technical questions

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on things like tiny pixels and chrome extensions.

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This site receives five and a half thousand questions a day,

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and 80 percent of these receive accurate answers.

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Now users earn reputation in a whole range of ways,

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but it's basically by convincing their peers

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they know what they're talking about.

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Now a few months after this site launched, the founders

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heard about something interesting,

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and it actually didn't surprise them.

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What they heard was that users were putting

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their reputation scores on the top of their résumés,

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and that recruiters were searching the platform

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to find people with unique talents.

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Now thousands of programmers today are finding

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better jobs this way, because Stack Overflow

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and the reputation dashboards provide a priceless window

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into how someone really behaves,

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and what their peers think of them.

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But the bigger principle of what's happening behind Stack Overflow,

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I think, is incredibly exciting.

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People are starting to realize that the reputation

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they generate in one place has value

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beyond the environments from which it was built.

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You know, it's very interesting.

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When you talk to super-users, whether that's SuperRabbits

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or super-people on Stack Overflow, or Uberhosts,

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they all talk about how having a high reputation

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unlocks a sense of their own power.

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On Stack Overflow, it creates a level playing field,

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enabling the people with the real talent to rise to the top.

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On Airbnb, the people often become more important

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than the spaces. On TaskRabbit,

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it gives people control of their economic activity.

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Now at the end of my tea with Sebastian, he told me how,

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on a bad, rainy day, when he hasn't had a customer

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in his bookstore, he thinks of all the people around

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the world who've said something wonderful about him,

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and what that says about him as a person.

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He's turning 50 this year, and he's convinced

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that the rich tapestry of reputation he's built on Airbnb

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will lead him to doing something interesting

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with the rest of his life.

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You know, there are only a few windows in history

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where the opportunity exists to reinvent

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part of how our socioeconomic system works.

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We're living through one of those moments.

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I believe that we are at the start of a collaborative revolution

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that will be as significant as the Industrial Revolution.

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In the 20th century, the invention of traditional credit

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transformed our consumer system, and in many ways

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controlled who had access to what.

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In the 21st century, new trust networks,

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and the reputation capital they generate, will reinvent

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the way we think about wealth, markets, power

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and personal identity, in ways we can't yet even imagine.

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Thank you very much. (Applause)

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(Applause)