Kathy Gibson is at SingularityU Exponential Finance Summit in Cape Town – Transparency changes everything – and it is here now.
This is the word from Paul Pagnato, founder and CEO of PagnatoKarp, who believes transparency is the future. “And it’s beautiful,” he says.
Pagnato looks at companies and finance through what he calls a “different lens”.
He points out that there are digital companies that are growing exponentially, non-digital companies that are growing exponentially, and companies that started growing exponentially, but hit a wall and failed.
“The companies the succeed are those that took transparency to new levels,” he explains.
He divides eras of transparency into the communication wave, the digital wave and now the intelligence wave.
This wave is characterised by technologies like blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, self-driving cars, mapping, connected systems and human genomics.
“The transparency impacts are rippling through our society,” Pagnato says.
For instance in the lat 100 years, our life expectancy has increased by 30 years; 85% of the world is literate today; poverty has declined; quality of life has improved; and the total wealth in the world is at a record level.
“We are living in the best time,” Pagnato says.
On the opposite side of the coin are major companies that have failed. “But we can learn from them, and that can help us be successful; their past failures can help organisations, corporations and governments to not repeat this.”
There are many reasons that organsations fail, Pagnato says. Fear is possibly the biggest cause. Transparency is non-intuitive for people and companies, but it is now being demanded of us. “When we are asked to be transparent, it is uncomfortable – and this discomfort is real.”
The good news is that we are able to change, Pagnato points out. We’ve made many cultural shifts before and will continue to do them, he says.
Pagnato advocates the concept of exponential transparency, which he believes assure success in the world of exonomics.
He has devised six T’s of exponential transparency. They are: transparent standards, terms, total accountability, transparency cost, truth and trust.
“Every single one of us can follow these six T’s.” he says.