Editor’s note: Ahead of ISACA Europe Conference: Digital Trust World, which is set to take place in person in Dublin, Ireland, from 17-19 October 2023, ISACA Now caught up with keynote speaker Rachel Botsman. Botsman is a leading expert on trust in the modern world. Her two critically acclaimed books—What’s Mine is Yours and Who Can You Trust?—have been translated into 14 languages. She has been recognized as one of the world’s 30 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50 and honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Her TED talks have been viewed more than 5 million times. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity:
ISACA Now: Although trust in businesses, media and the government seems to be at an all-time low, do you still believe we are far from an age of distrust?
The idea that trust is in a state of complete decline across our lives is a narrative that has taken hold. Don’t get me wrong, there are serious trust issues in the world with everything from political to financial systems. But it’s more helpful to think of trust like energy—it’s not being destroyed but changing form. One of the reasons we’re experiencing so much change, disruption, and volatility is because trust is going through one of the most significant paradigm shifts in history—from local to institutional to distributed trust. It’s changing whom and what we trust.
ISACA Now: One of your famous TED talks is titled “The currency of the new economy is trust.” Could you expand on the idea of trust as a currency?
In any organization,money is the currency of transactions—trust is the currency of interactions. Why is this important? You can choose to just focus on money and design every measurement and incentive around making money. It’s fine, however, the relationship you have with employees and customers will be purely transactional. Businesses that have a deeper purpose and a desire to interact with people in meaningful ways will always prioritize trust over money. They know that in the long-term trust is more valuable.
ISACA Now: What motivated you to create Oxford University’s first course on trust in the digital world?
Understanding how trust works and how trust is changing in the digital world is a critical lens for students to understand. Courses existed on specific subjects such as blockchain or the ethics of AI. But I’m also trying to design learning that helps people rethink different shifts. My goal is to help students stitch together and critically think about how lots of changes are connected. Trust is one of those funny subjects—we all use the word “trust,” but dig deeper into it and most people don’t really know how it works. Giving people a clear language and frameworks to talk about something complex is very important to my work.
ISACA Now: Your writings on trust have been widely published in the Guardian, Financial Times, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and Wired. Does the existence of such large audiences for digital trust make you feel like it is being successfully integrated into digital and business spaces?
Um, yes and no! The conversation amongst leaders on the importance of trust in digital innovation, ethics, and change has made enormous progress over the past decade, but we still have a long way to go. I think most businesses still think of trust as a value or attribute versus a design and cultural principle. Trust has to be earned, and that often involves tough decisions around not just what to do but what not to do.
ISACA Now: The global ISACA community is composed of passionate digital trust professionals. When you think of the phrase “digital trust,” what do you envision for the future of communities like ours?
I think “digital trust” will move well beyond key trust issues in the technology itself—security, privacy, functionality, etc. Communities such as ISACA will play a critical role in understanding the intentions, beliefs and goals of digitally enabled products and services. The central focus of trust is shifting from confidence in tech in doing things (capability) to doing the right things (character).