Certificates of the future
People seem to love certificates. Doctors put them up on their walls and kids get them for participating in 1-day events. MIT’s move to digitize their certificates and move them to the Bitcoin blockchain has gotten me thinking about what all this means in terms of individual reputation, institutional reputation, and how to grow both. One of MIT’s partners in this endeavor has a great quote in the article, “We heard of students trying to Snapchat their grades to admissions; they didn’t understand why they couldn’t just text a picture,” said Jagers. “It should be that easy to share records, and this generation of digital natives expects that. But before this technology came along, this wasn’t possible.”
Certificates are interesting because they derive their value from a combination of the reputation of the institution issuing the certificate combined with the reputation of the person who has received it. If an MIT graduate does something remarkable, that increases the value of all MIT certificates. This gives both MIT (the issuer) and future students (the recipients) more stature in society.
Similarly, the fact that Google has done great things and remains in the common lexicon has helped all Google employees. They go out and tell people, “I was with Google,” and can thus get better jobs and easier funding for their startups. When these people achieve success, it then makes it easier for Google to hire better engineers. I don’t think Google issues certificates to their employees, but the principle is the same.
Your reputation matters. The reputation of the institutions you work with matter — this includes your alma maters, your clients’ companies, etc. This is why I am careful about who I write recommendations for and in what context, especially on behalf of Tunapanda Institute. If I’m not careful, I could hurt Tunapanda’s reputation by recommending someone who ends up performing poorly. Context matters. If someone on my team does some of does SEO for clients well, but is poor at responding to my emails in a timely manner, it will be hard for me to recommend them as a well-rounded professional — though I might recommend them for SEO work. Similarly, given that entrepreneurs need to be able to take scarce resources (such as time and money) and grow them by producing value and closing deals, if there is someone who has worked with me in the past has shown the ability to teach in the classroom, but hasn’t closed deals on behalf of Tunapanda, how could I recommend them to an investor in the future as an entrepreneur? I can recommend them as a teacher, but not as an entrepreneur.
Closing deals is hard. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of failure. That’s why most people don’t put in the effort, just deliver excuses, and quit at the first roadblock. But then again, entrepreneurship is harder on so many levels. As Elon Musk says, “Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” Closing deals is only a small part of that.
As mentioned above, MIT is now transitioning to digital certificates stored on the blockchain. This trend is great for transparency, and opens up a lot of new opportunities, especially in emerging markets. Employers, employees, investors, clients, business partners, romantic partners, and more will be able to see a great deal more about one’s efforts and achievements in the future. This can be a great equalizer in a world of unequal opportunity.
But let’s not forget that the only place that success comes before work is in the dictionary. Let’s also not forget that, no matter how much data you have, it’s the human element (and human reputations and recommendations) that will make all the difference.
