Initial or mutual trust (the type of trust that makes us, irrationally, trust strangers) then enabled the complex planning that allowed man to transition from a tribe of hunter-gatherers whose fate depended on external factors to an agricultural society where complex, planned outcomes could be put into motion.

In the digital domain trust is now important not only because we really need to know how to trust people and whom to trust but because we need others to trust us and have to learn how to help them do so.

We live in the age of the semantic web. Semantic search is constantly mining relationships and ascribing interaction values to people, organizations and things. Semantic technologies are constantly surfacing information looking for trustworthy sources to use as a benchmark.

The extension of trust is an articulation of our assessment of a situation to deliver an expected outcome.

Familiarity with the brand requires some experience of it (via advertising, word of mouth, internet publicity), Confidence comes with the perception of competence in the brand itself (which is why new brands really need to work hard for people to experience them first) and Trustworthiness refers to the sense of whether the brand is going to live up to its promise of reliability for the price paid.

Every relationship is governed by motive, capability and reliability and these three factors become the core components of the trust equation

Trust is an ethereal quality. Like oxygen or light we notice it only by its absence.

We trust strangers not because they are always trustworthy but because we want to believe in a world where they are.

Leaders lead by example. No leader asks more than he is prepared to give himself.