David Batstone on Microsoft's Position Change

David Batstone comments on the Microsoft change of position on anti-discrimination legislation in the State of Washington in this posting on the Worthwhile blog:

Imagine a company in Alabama in the 1950s and the dilemma it faced around civil rights for blacks. Would we today laud that company for upholding its shareholder value and staying "neutral" on laws of discrimination that prevented blacks from working at a company, let alone being served as a customer? I think not, though history is a harsh judge.

Not every company should be expected to engage in social reform, of course. But any firm, most especially one as wealthy as Microsoft, is an influential player in civil society. When it takes the higher ground, it elevates the potential for every member of the community.

Corporate marketing, the corporate citizen, the corporate blog...
engagement is one thing, political stands are something else.
Or are they?

What is your take on this?

Asacker and the Brand Discussion

Check out Tom Asacker's posting today for an interesting brand discussion.

Here is what I posted as a comment on this:

The posting and article are certainly attracting a lot of passionate
comments.

Initially, having read the whole on a first pass, I'll side
with Chris Costello's summary. And then sleep on it.

Sometimes, the best thinking comes with the new light of day.

How do you define a brand?

FASTCompany - The Business of Design

The online version of FASTCompany leads this week with this article on The Business of Design.

"In an economy where style is king, we all need to start thinking and acting more like design."

Taking a wholistic approach, I agree that design needs to be recognized more and more as truly important to the product or service being offered.

The upshot, says Martin, is nothing less than the emergence of the design economy -- the successor to the information economy, and, before it, the service and manufacturing economies. And that shift, he argues, has profound implications for every business leader and manager among us: "Businesspeople don't just need to understand designers better -- they need to become designers."

McDonald's made price, service, quality and value a commodity. The next "McDonald's" will be successful when they can deliver the same PSQV with a better design.

Now, that's food for thought! What would it look like?

Time travel and what's left behind

An interesting post from Alex Halavais.

I have a feeling that the web will gradually shift from being something that needs to be archived (and the Internet Archive is the vanguard here), to being self-archived—think the kind of versioning control found on wikis. I have the feeling that the future time traveler will be turning to archives of the web to find out what was in the New York Times by looking on the Web.

Reminds me of the Google Futuristic View.

Where do you think folks from the future will look back to, in order to find out about us?

Will they even look back?

The Test for Authenticity - Redux

I have posted about what Evelyn Rodrigeuz wrote on the test for authenticity:

"I've learned that if I could not be authentic and in integrity (more in the sense of being whole, and reclaiming the disowned fragments of your soul) in business, then that says more about me than it does about the big bad Corporate World.

Personal authenticity is not situational.

Here is one of my tests that applies in business settings: If I would say or do anything differently whether I have $14 or $140,000 (liquid, not 401K or real estate holdings) or $1.4M in the bank account - then it's not authentic. "

Two current news items reveal individuals who have failed this test.

1 - The would-be bride from Georgia

2 - The guys who "found" buried treasure

The choice was there for them and they failed the test.

When it is your turn, what will you do?