Flipping the Script on the Value of Data with Erik Rind

On this week’s episode of the Innovation in Compliance Podcast, our host TomFox, the Compliance Evangelist, has the pleasure of speaking with Erik Rind, founder and CEO of ImagineBC. Erik has a background in Russian history and started his career by working as a management consultant (After turning down the CIA, true story.) After 9 years, however, he had to make a huge decision - stay on the consulting track and lose his home, or stick around and see what would happen. He finally decided to stick around and started a second career as an entrepreneur in Human and Talent Management. After more than 2 decades in that field, he moved on to founding ImagineBC.

What is ImagineBC All About?In a nutshell, their main goal is to teach people to get back control of their personal data, and more importantly, and to start making money with it - all powered by blockchain. Erik says at ImagineBC, they don’t believe that people should be giving away their intellectual property for nothing, and have developed an innovative new platform to make it happen.

How Does it Work?This is a revolutionary idea, and Tom asks Erik to share a few case studies about how the company works:

1. The YouTube Expert in Online Gaming.YouTubers have to work really hard to build their content and get it out there. Even a YouTube user that has millions of views per month only makes about 17k per year. To get to and maintain that level of audience and compensation, they have to work about 55 hours a week. ImagineBC is changing this model by letting a content creator put their videos on their platform, charging users of the platform to see it - but giving users a fast and easy way to ‘earn’ the money by selling their time, attention or personal information - all in the app. This is a more equal distribution of resources, and for popular content, considerably more lucrative for creators.

2. Real Estate GaryNext, let’s look at the example of a house flipper, Gary, who spends thousands of dollars on  Google advertising and isn’t getting the quality leads he was hoping for. Instead, he could use ImagineBC’s interface to get much better results. Because the ecosystem is balanced, every time a potential lead takes an action that helps Gary qualify them as potential customers, Gary pays them through ImagineBC. He can narrow down his leads list with people opting in to engage with him more deeply for a nominal fee, ending with a paid sales call opportunity.

There are dozens or hundreds of different ways this platform can be used, all predicated on the idea that your time, attention and information have a monetary value that you should be compensated for.

Creating New OpportunitiesAnother principle of ImagineBC is that this more equitable distribution of money is a needed move for the world. It will create new jobs, and it will empower people to generate income from creative endeavors while compensating the people who are making it possible. Tom points out that this can really fuel the gig economy, and Erik shares how he believes that it is technology’s responsibility to always create new opportunities. He acknowledges that while not everyone is a creator, everyone has time - and time is value, meaning that people can consider the value of their time to be their intellectual property.

Resources Imaginebc.net