Hey with unemployment at record highs its about time we had another form of value in our society.  In my opinion, relying exclusively on unfettered capitalism has brought us to our knees.  Everything is not about money - but it is about value.  As a personal brand I attempt to bring value everyday.    Mostly, this means creating something positive and contributing.

I was reading a book recently called The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt.   Whuffie might be described as reputation based currency and can be used as an synonym for Social Capital.  In an online social community participants build up equity by contributing in many ways - as blogging,  commenting, or posting images.  I predict we will start to see "whuffie" counts attached to people online.   So we will see who is contributing and who is not.  I have to imagine this will be a great motivator.

I would like to think that building up social capital leads to monetary wealth some how.  Employers already look at prospective employees online presence - if they can see that if a person contributes in the social websphere then they will probably contribute to a companies bottom line.