[Tango-L] [Fwd: NYT: The Whole World Is Watching]

[Carol Shepherd]

Apropos to the thread on "Videos of Dancing - the law and the morality"

Carol Shepherd

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: NYT: The Whole World Is Watching
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:54:05 -0400
From: Carol Shepherd <arborlaw at comcast.net>
Reply-To: shepherd at arborlaw.com
Organization: Arborlaw Associates PLLC
To: carol at arborlaw.com

The Whole World Is Watching

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

(c) New York Times

June 27, 2007

Three years ago, I was catching a plane at Boston’s Logan airport and
went to buy some magazines for the flight. As I approached the cash
register, a woman coming from another direction got there just behind me
— I thought. But when I put my money down to pay, the woman said in a
very loud voice: “Excuse me! I was here first!” And then she fixed me
with a piercing stare that said: “I know who you are.” I said I was very
sorry, but I was clearly there first.

If that happened today, I would have had a very different reaction. I
would have said: “Miss, I’m so sorry. I am entirely in the wrong.
Please, go ahead. And can I buy your magazines for you? May I buy your
lunch? Can I shine your shoes?”

Why? Because I’d be thinking there is some chance this woman has a blog
or a camera in her cellphone and could, if she so chose, tell the whole
world about our encounter — entirely from her perspective — and my
utterly rude, boorish, arrogant, thinks-he-can-butt-in-line behavior. Yikes!

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.

For young people, writes Seidman, this means understanding that your
reputation in life is going to get set in stone so much earlier. More
and more of what you say or do or write will end up as a digital
fingerprint that never gets erased. Our generation got to screw up and
none of those screw-ups appeared on our first job résumés, which we got
to write. For this generation, much of what they say, do or write will
be preserved online forever. Before employers even read their résumés,
they’ll Google them.

“The persistence of memory in electronic form makes second chances
harder to come by,” writes Seidman. “In the information age, life has no
chapters or closets; you can leave nothing behind, and you have nowhere
to hide your skeletons. Your past is your present.” So the only way to
get ahead in life will be by getting your “hows” right.

Ditto in business. Companies that get their hows wrong won’t be able to
just hire a P.R. firm to clean up the mess by a taking a couple of
reporters to lunch — not when everyone is a reporter and can talk back
and be heard globally.

But this also creates opportunities. Today “what” you make is quickly
copied and sold by everyone. But “how” you engage your customers, “how”
you keep your promises and “how” you collaborate with partners — that’s
not so easy to copy, and that is where companies can now really
differentiate themselves.

“When it comes to human conduct there is tremendous variation, and where
a broad spectrum of variation exists, opportunity exists,” writes
Seidman. “The tapestry of human behavior is so varied, so rich and so
global that it presents a rare opportunity, the opportunity to outbehave
the competition.”

How can you outbehave your competition? In Michigan, Seidman writes, one
hospital taught its doctors to apologize when they make mistakes, and
dramatically cut their malpractice claims. In Texas, a large auto
dealership allowed every mechanic to spend freely whatever company money
was necessary to do the job right, and saw their costs actually decline
while customer satisfaction improved. A New York street doughnut-seller
trusted his customers to make their own change and found he could serve
more people faster and build the loyalty that keeps them coming back.

“We do not live in glass houses (houses have walls); we live on glass
microscope slides ... visible and exposed to all,” he writes. So whether
you’re selling cars or newspapers (or just buying one at the newsstand),
get your hows right — how you build trust, how you collaborate, how you
lead and how you say you’re sorry. More people than ever will know about
it when you do — or don’t.
-- 
Carol Ruth Shepherd
Arborlaw PLC
Ann Arbor MI USA
734 668 4646 v  734 786 1241 f
http://arborlaw.com

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