The internet is creating transparency in unprecedented ways – and with it, unprecedented change is occurring. Witness the heretofore private lives of celebrities and supposed thought leaders, the furor over the Catholic Church’s handling of priestly misdeeds, the pending audit of the Federal Reserve . . . and on and on.
The old way – the world as we know it of being able to hide secrets – is rapidly coming to a close. In its place is the 24-7 World Wide Web where information is increasingly available about everything and everyone. The founder of Facebook says that privacy is old-fashioned. Each week brings a new scandal.
How is transparency affecting you, your business, the institutions to which you belong? Your political party, religious organization, favorite athletes? How do you feel about the death of privacy? Will it impact you, or is it limited to well-known individuals?
This “end of the world as we know it” is completely predictable given Alvin Toffler’s assertion that the rate of change doubles every ten years. How are you coping with rapid change? Are you able to be resilient and move with it? What parts of rapid change have given you problems?