Digital Business insights: The genie is out of the bottle

THE government is watching us and tracking us electronically. Not just our government but government in general. Some deliberate and some accidental and some just because they can.

24 hours a day. 7 days a week. That is not going to stop any time soon. And more sensing, imaging and tracking technology is being connected and added every day. More data is being gathered and stored. And the data is being queried, because it can be.

Corporates are doing the same thing. That isn’t going to stop either.

So does it matter? No point worrying about what cannot be changed.

Like most things, there is always a good and bad side to any issue.

Tracking and watching and analysing behaviour allows better matchmaking between those of us looking for things and finding what we are looking for.

It allows us to know where we are, at the same time it allows others to know where we are. It allows us to keep track of what we are doing at the same time it allows others to do the same thing – banks, stores, telcos, advertisers, social media, police, councils and so on.

It allows anticipation. It allows offers. It allows targeted service. None of these are bad things.

The issue is the balance and the shared value in the relationship. 

I get something I want. The vendor gets something they want. As long as the exchange feels fair and we believe it is fair we probably don’t have much to worry about.

But I suspect there will have to be evidence provided at some stage to ensure this new relationship is fair and sustainable otherwise we will do what we are all good at and withdraw.

We will back off. We will walk away. Put Bluetack over the cameras on our devices. Encrypt messages. We will drop out. We will turn off. We won’t visit.

With vendor relationships the deal is obvious. It is commercial. With other vendors and brokers – government and agencies, the deal is less transparent or obvious at this time.

Most of the value is going their way. There is little coming in return. And some government agencies seem to be taking a hell of a lot, for little in return.

If this continues, we will choose to use other channels and the trust and sharing relationship with government will diminish.

It will sort itself out over time. Always does.

But ongoing relationships have to feel fair to continue. Or relationships break up. Divorce happens. Trust disappears.

And that is the real issue.

Shared value builds trust. Unfair relationships destroy trust.

It’s not just about money. In fact it is rarely only about money. It is about perceived value. My view of value is different to your view.

And the connection, conversation and collaboration starts with a shared understanding of what that means.

So who is watching us? Who is tracking us? What are they tracking? Is it accurate? Can we check it? Can we correct it?

Is anybody out there looking after our interests, acting as a trust broker?

Our accountant? Our lawyer? Our industry association? Our colleagues? Member of parliament? Our media? Our government?

The NSA, GCHQ, ASIO will continue to do what they do. We have no leverage on that score. Only the sunny, bright light of exposure and transparency.

Without the considerable courage of Edward Snowden, we wouldn’t even know the worldwide data hoovering was going on. Let alone the enormous scale of it.

What rules do they play by? Will we ever know? Are they accountable to anybody or has that particular genie flown out of the bottle and left town?

With commercial genies we can ask the same questions about transparency and accountability and expect an answer. That is one of the things that government can provide and one of the things we can expect them to provide because we have electoral leverage.

And it is in our national interest for government to provide some protection to our commercial organisations, their IP, business information and collective knowledge. That is what allows us to compete on the world economic stage.

And if we are all going to continue to engage as customers with commercial entities then they have to understand the true value of honesty, integrity and trust.

Look at what happened with the banks after the GFC. They are still struggling to be accepted as normal human beings again, even in Australia where they didn’t go anywhere near as far into rampant greed, scams, “rape, pillage and burn” as London and New York.

Do I believe that the big four Australian banks have my interests at heart today?

No. Of course not. They are a service industry that doesn’t.

It is remarkable how much time and energy they are putting into trying to rebuild the trust and engagement with customers, that they destroyed.

It will take a long time. And will require some considered public investment of social and nation building capital not just self serving advertisements. Some real “skin on the table”.

At least Telstra is honestly trying hard to connect with customers and still being commercial about it. No problem with that.

It would be a good start if the banks would invest in Australia in the same way.

Respect will go to those that add value to customers and share value across all business relationships. Professor Porter of Harvard Business School has defined this new paradigm as shared value. But it is a real thing.

And shared value is the next station along the line from Corporate Social Responsibility where all of our banks are stuck today. They just see social responsibility as the tax they have to pay to play.

That is a boardroom decision not a human decision (somebody with families and kids and friends and neighbours) and is not sustainable in this new shared-value world we live in. Thank Google for that.

Interesting times. And these genies are provocative and will continue to demand our attention for a long while.

- John Sheridan, March 2013.

John Sheridan is CEO of Digital Business insights, an organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, which focuses on helping organisations and communities adapt to, and flourish in, the new digital world. He is the author of Connecting the Dots and getting more out of the digital revolution. Digital Business insights has been researching and analysing the digital revolution for more than 12 years and has surveyed more than 50,000 businesses, conducting in-depth case study analysis on more than 350 organisations and digital entrepreneurs.

http://www.db-insights.com/

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