The Honest Give-and-Take

Information technology has not only expanded the scale and scope of global markets, it has also provided the means for probing the meaning of every give-and-take transaction. Suggestion systems search for valuable ideas from customers or employees. Recommendation systems present ideas with the intent that customers or employees will find value in them. Both have long histories that could probably be traced, with little difficulty, to transactions on the Silk Road. However, both have been the object of careful analytic study and engineering practice. They show how we systematically try to extract or create ideas.