Tom Friedman today opines about how the increasingly transparent nature of the world, and the persistence of memory that technology brings to the equation is changing the way he personally behaves. Here's the link, hidden in Times Select, and there is irony there, if you think hard enough. His key point:
When everyone has a blog, a MySpace page or Facebook entry, everyone is a publisher. When everyone has a cellphone with a camera in it, everyone is a paparazzo. When everyone can upload video on YouTube, everyone is filmmaker. When everyone is a publisher, paparazzo or filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure. We’re all public figures now. The blogosphere has made the global discussion so much richer — and each of us so much more transparent.
The implications of all this are the subject of a new book by Dov Seidman, founder and C.E.O. of LRN, a business ethics company. His book is simply called “How.” Because Seidman’s simple thesis is that in this transparent world “how” you live your life and “how” you conduct your business matters more than ever, because so many people can now see into what you do and tell so many other people about it on their own without any editor. To win now, he argues, you have to turn these new conditions to your advantage.
He misses, IMHO, the lessons here. It's not that young people will be hurt by their transparency, or that business will not just be able to "hire a PR firm to fix the problem by taking a reporter to lunch." Oh that it were that simple! The implications are also not in the simple nostrum about listening to customers, empowering employees and building trust and loyalty.
Instead, the implications are on how individuals and society will adapt to technology, and how technology will adapt to society. Our networks are as much online as offline, and our friends and acquaintances live in both worlds as well. The persistence of our digital footprints, while important, is not the biggest driver of change. Instead, it is the role of the community and network that is now forming.