A Review of Trust Agents: Using The Web To Build Influence, Improve Reputation And Earn Trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith
Our governments cheat and deceive us; our politicians lie to us. Advertising is rarely believed and taken with a pinch of salt. Journalists are mostly seen as having a political agenda depending on which newspaper they write for and as for the tabloid red tops – hey, don’t let the truth stand in the way of a good story. As a global society we are becoming increasingly sceptical yet increasingly us net natives are happily placing all sorts of personal data on the web and interacting with total strangers as though we had known them for years.
Let’s put this into a personal perspective. I am a journalist by training and over the last 40 years or so have honed my cynicism and scepticism into a fine art. I have been known to count my fingers after shaking hands with politicians and would rather soak myself in petrol and walk over burning coals than buy anything that is advertised on TV. Yet some time ago I was quite happy to let an almost total stranger I had met through Twitter12 complete access to my fledging blog so he could do some basic coding to add functionality!
Over the past 15 years on the net I have worked with dozens of people all over the globe and some of them are still close friends for whom I would happily drive more than 300 miles and stay overnight just to have a beer and a chat.
I am currently working with individuals in China, Spain, South Africa and America and although our relationship is less than a year old I feel strongly that if I had a problem that they could help me out with I would have no hesitation is firing off an email even though I have not met face to face and seen the whites of their eyes!
So why this sudden and unexpected rumination on virtual friendship? Well, I have been reading Trust Agents: Using the web to building influence, improve reputation and earn trust by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith which explores the change in how people’s attitudes to information and the people who provide that information on the web is changing.
Brogan and Smith explore the phenomena of trust agents, individuals who from an emotional and psychological point of view are sitting beside you in a bar or across the table in the canteen, having a drink and chatting away. The difference is that they could be – geographically and spatially – anywhere in the world but despite the distances involved have managed to create a close relationship based on empathy with others.
Trust Agents quotes the first agent being Robert Scoble who, while a Microsoft employee, blogged about how Internet Explorer was a dog’s dinner compared to Firefox. Surprisingly he kept his job and continued to blog in a free and unbiased manner about Microsoft from the inside which increased his credibility among his readers.
Brogan and Smith not only explore the whys and wherefores of Trust Agents but include a substantial amount of advice on how to become one – but just don’t ever call yourself one, warn the authors. At times there is a bit of a whiff of Anthony Robbins NLP guff which I don’t have a lot of time for, but that aside the writing style is easy to understand and take in.
The core of the trust agent ethos is to “become one of us” but without appear to be trying to do so. There is nothing more annoying than someone gatecrashing your favourite forums or web hangout trying to be friends but the reek of aggressive commercialism precedes them. Trust Agents have a more Taoist approach, going with the flow, bending with the wind, etc.
Although we are talking about influencing by using Web 2 technologies – and there are a substantial amount of references to services and facilities - the focus of the book is on behaviour and attitudes. It is a sociological study that looks at changes in behaviour patterns and how these ride on the back of new technologies. And although trust agents have come about because of the Internet they are really the core component of a new business model that can easily migrate from web based services such as blogging and customer support to mainstream business.
This is a good book, even for experienced net natives ahd there are tips and hints galore that make it a worthwhile investment for anyone who wants to contribute to the growth of web-based knowledge – and beyond – in a new way.
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