The Virtual Trading Post

With the economy in the tank, I ran across this article in which the author was "shocked" and "floored" that an individual had offered to trade services for merchandise. This is how you ruin your business reputation, she claims, and offers advice. While her three tips are interesting from the perspective of crafting perception for a target audience, the point that bugged me until I had to stop swinging cats and say something was this: yes, perception is reality, but the nature of innovation is to create new realities. Virtual realities. Like a virtual trading post. Like eBay without PayPal.

Academic hat is ON: The idea of a barter economy is not new. We can imagine a two-by-twosy of two categories, tangibles and intangibles, wherein one corner we are trading tangibles for tangibles, to the catercorner where we are trading intangibles for intangibles. (Like it? Don't be a SICI (Swipes It but doesn't Cite It.) And hat OFF.

Regardless of its tangibility, what is in trade is value. If a consultant's services are seen as high value, I'd gladly give him or her a nice table lamp if I don't have the cash handy. Why not? Before there was money there was the old trading post. Or travel outside of the developed world sometime and see how every transaction is a negotiation of value as well as a valuable experience in itself. "You make me laugh? Okay, I take off 5 dinars!" I'm not sure how the economists will react, but business is about adapting to a changing economy and finding that fledgling opportunity in a crisis flock.

One of the underlying cultural prejudices reflected by the author - one that we may all find ourselves guilty of from time to time as is the nature of categorization strategies to reduce complexity in the world - is that a failure of marketing is a failure of the value a customer or client may ultimately receive. While the perception of value remains perceptual and can certainly affect the utility of experienced value, it does not necessarily follow that the utility of value is undermined by it's branding or marketing. I know personally some terrific consultants who do not and will likely never get their professional brand to a "socially acceptable" level, and a few are no fun to work with either. But they know their thing and they do it well. So we're human. Let's be more accepting of each other's differences, even in business. Especially in business.

So not to pass judgment on either the author, the consultant's email that triggered the article, or the rest of the posting. Just let us bring down our shock level to, say, around floor level. Meet me there for a drink. Cheers.

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