Building the open space agenda for day three (click to enlarge)

Today was an open space day. The more I participate in open space, the more I'm convinced that it's the right way to do workshops. I wish we'd had two days of open space because the agenda for today was so packed with things I wanted to hear about. The first session I attended was labeled "The Laws of Reputation." I also wanted to go to Marty Schleiff's meeting on XRI, but I felt like I had to do the reputation thing.

I don't know that we got to "laws" as such, but we did get some ideas out that might be useful as principles:

• Reputation is one of the factors upon which trust is based
• Reputation is someone else's story about me - this means that I can't control what you say about me although I may be able to affect the factors you based your story on. Also, every person should be able to have their own story about me.
• Reputation exists in the context of community - this is different than saying "communities have a reputation about someone."
• Reputation is based on identity - reputation, as someone else's story, isn't part of your identity, but is based on an identity or set of identities.
• Reputation is a currency - while you can't change it, reputation can be used as a resource. Paul Resnick has a paper showing the value of a positive eBay reputation.
• Reputation is narrative - you have to apply metaphor to interpret, reputation is dynamic becase the factors that affect it are always changing, reputation may require weaving together of plot lines.
• Reputation is based on claims (verified or not), transactions, ratings, and endorsements. - this brings up the issue of evidence, recourse for slander or mistakes, etc.
• Reputation is muti-level - a reputation isn't just based on facts, but is also based on other's beliefs about the target of that reputation. This requires some way of signaling beliefs to others.
• Mutiple people holding the same opinion increases the weight o that opinion - repeat behavior is also another way of weighting reputation.

The participants in this session were: Daniel Lulich, Daniel Perry, Martin Rosvall, Mari Kuraishi, Eric Harris-Braun, Matthew Hochhauser, Daniel Hausermann, Phil Windley, David Evan, Casper Biering, and Niegel Jacob.