There is a lot of talk at the moment around radical transparency in business-to-customer and business-to-employee relationships. Is there a need for wider radical transparency in everyday life? Is there a social responsibility for us to be completely honest with one another? We do this when blogging (if we are smart) - what about everywhere else? Is there a personal payoff for radical transparency?
Jeri’s family is looking at family vehicle alternatives including the Toyota Prius hybrid. She is honest in saying that the best outcome for Planet Earth would be if her family sold the truck and took the bus - but that this would not work outside of peak commuter hours.
Seth Godin sounds like he is a big fan of the Prius. He talks about the limits of “times a million math” - that is, the big picture and long term imagery is not personal enough. The best advertising campaigns for social issues are ones that make it personal - apart from bringing the issue into sharper focus, they identify the WIIFM - and in turn, this makes enlightened self interest possible.
These are my first thoughts around a recipe for introducing radical transparency into everyday life:
- Look for win-win opportunities - allow people that you interact with to take part in a win-win energy transaction wherever possible. By “energy transaction” I mean any time that you trade anything, and this might be an email, a smile across a room, a sale, a link swapped via a social networking platform, or a blog post.
- Consiously encourange the blooming of enlightened self interest by reward and recognition.
There are wider issues here for future posts - one of which might be the transformative nature of social networking and the potential expectation of radical transparency by Gen Y.
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