Amitai Givertz's Blogversity Blog

Two years ago, I found myself taking a crash course on influence, advocacy and online behavior. We had taken in a family in need and leveraged the web, specifically Twitter, Paypal, a blog, and most importantly, our real social network, to raise nearly seventeen thousand dollars for the family.The velocity of the effort — nearly twelve thousand dollars was raised in less than twenty four hours — was amazing and made me realize that the old model of a few people controlling information and distribution is giving way to a new, highly distributed, individually empowering system that leverages social media. In this case, I had enough influence and trust with my core network to create a ripple effect that spread to other networks, which were transformed into advocates for the family. This is the new, emerging model of influence.

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During challenging economic times, the relationship between employees and employers is often tested. Frequently, executives are forced to make decisions that broadly affect their workforces and alter what matters in the workplace. Today’s business environment is no exception; it appears that the recession has diminished two important forms of business currency: trust and ethics.

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Trust in other people is established on the basis of promises kept. Either explicitly or implicitly we judge that a particular person is reliable, based on our own experiences or those of others. We don’t trust everyone we encounter of course, but a small number of those people we trust and who we happen to like will become friends; especially if the trust and attraction is reciprocated.

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The most popular students in school sometimes are the best liars, according to a study conducted by University of Massachusetts psychologist Robert S. Feldman and published in the most recent Journal of Nonverbal Behavior.

The study found that older adolescents were more adept at deception than the younger ones. Younger or older females were more likely to excel at lying than their male counterparts. Among all ages and genders, those adolescents with the highest level of social competence were the most talented liars.

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