Why Not a Ranking System for People?

My friend Dan Schawbel, founder of Personal Branding Blog, put on his futurist cap and wrote the post, "The Personal Brand Marketplace of the Future. Are Your Prepared?" In this, Dan made the point that we rate products and companies, so why not rate people? That is a good question Dan, so let me tell you why I think we don't rate people:

In 2007 we launched a little web product based on an algorithm we wrote here at Workface Inc. We never marketed it, and it never took off, but we for a very short period of time allowed for the rating of people. The service is called PeopleTrusted. You can find a link to the people rating site here.

The reason a company like ours has such a problem ranking people isn't the fact that it would provide value to some other person or group of people, it's the CYA problem (CYA as in cover your ass). Rating or ranking a specific person (vs. a company or product) has substantial (libel) defamation of character implications. The nature of providing a service like this comes down to the courts historical preference in protecting a person's name and status, and awarding damages for those who inflict any harm on their name/status/personal character.

I agree with Dan that having nothing but positive fluff out there doesn't help other people in making decisions. In most cases when you rate a vendor in Ebay, you're really talking about your buying experience with that person, but Ebay can avoid the slander and defamation by calling them a vendor.

How many negative recommendations have you seen in LinkedIn? If you've every seen one, I want to know about it. Of course you haven't. The recommendation system is filtered by the respective account owner. There are only good recommendations in LinkedIn, NEVER bad ones.

What's New at BusinessCard2 (week of November 9, 2009)

There have been many recent additions to BusinessCard2. Here is what's new:

• Statistics: Track the performance of your card and how many new people are discovering you.
• Facebook Application: Now you can post your BusinessCard2 right within Facebook. Grab the application here: BusinessCard2 Facebook App.
• Contacts: Collect and manager other BusinessCard2's.
• Internal Messaging System: Send and receive messages with your contacts within BusinessCard2.
• Redesigned "Edit Card": Editing and improving your BusinessCard2 has become even easier with the complete overhaul of the "Edit Card" section.
• Share Card: Now you can directly publish your card on major social websites from you card with the "Share Card" feature.
• Image Cropper: Time to give yourself a facelift? The newly launched image cropper will help you make your picture look its best.
• Billboard: We've been calling BusinessCard2 the "world's tiniest billboard" for some time, but on Saturday we actually pushed out a tool called "Billboard" that helps you create an image ad right inside your card. You can see an (albeit rudimentary) example here: http://lieflarson.businesscard2.com.
• Domain Resolved: Now your vanity BusinessCard2 URL resolves from the www variant. For example, http://www.lieflarson.businesscard2.com resolves to http://lieflarson.businesscard2.com.
• Knowledge Base: This is in it's very early stages, but we've created a BB forum for support, community, and how-to's. You can visit it at: http://support.businesscard2.com/bb/.

BusinessCard2 is the new way to connect with customers. Because of great users like you, BusinessCard2 has recently been covered on CNN.com, Wall Street Journal Online and Dow Jones MarketWatch. We are continually improving BusinessCard2 to make it an even more powerful tool for managing the way customers see you online.

You have many choices for your online marketing. Thank you for choosing BusinessCard2.

What is Weltschmerz and how to get rid of it?

Have you ever heard of the word Weltschmerz? It's an interesting word for which I've not been able to find an English equivalent (synonym). Weltschmerz comes from the German for "world pain" and is a general sadness over the state of the world. If you're still curious about the word, you can find a little more at Wikipedia.

A combination of H1N1, macro recessionary economic conditions, and fashionably pessimistic friends have many of us walking around in the fog of Weltschmerz. And who can blame us? A person only goes to the moon for the first time once, right? What is the next milestone in human achievement we can aspire to? We all need something to put on a pedestal; that special something to give us hope that new opportunities exist right around the corner.

I'm pleased to say that over the last several days I finally shed myself of my Weltschmerz. No, this didn't happen by me being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Rather, I discovered that the Kryptonite of Weltschmerz is connecting with people at a hyper personal level. This singular act of understanding the human condition that governs other peoples' lives makes the world seem a more joyous place to live in. It is egoless empathy that enables us to replace the "world pain" with shared optimism. When you can recognize the promise in those around you, it makes groundswell plausible.

I'm seeing the slow but steady adjustment in people's demeanor. People are starting to build (or at least talk about building) their own businesses. I'm hearing whispers of a slow, but noticeable uptick in commercial activity. I'm hearing people talk more about the things they cherish (rather than those they renounce). I'm witnessing incredible technological advances in computing, environmental awareness, and medicine. What an incredible time to be alive!

If you want to free yourself of Weltschmerz, sit down with a couple of people and ask them what makes them hopeful. Ask them what inspires them and what they are working towards. In the process, you might just find the optimism you're desperately seeking.