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July 23, 2004
Control is futile, part 2
What do the Chicago Cubs, Moveable Type and the U.S. government have in common these days?
Stinging rebukes on their efforts to control the flow of information, ideas and debate.
In the age of always-on communication among the vast majorities of customers and citizens of the world, the old practices of keeping unflattering information locked up is proving to be more damaging than helpful.
Let's start with the Cubs.
Since June, parts of Chicago's historic Wrigley Field have been crumbling. And I don't mean the team's chances for a pennant run this year. Several small, yet, potentially injurious chunks of concrete have fallen onto seats. One brick-sized chunk landed on a fan's foot during a game.
The team has been making repairs without telling anyone, including the team's parent, Tribune Company. It happens to publish the Chicago Tribune. But word spread, as it always will in cases like this. Chatter of a cover-up ensued.
Finally, the Tribune addressed the issue today in a story, with an instructive quote from Cubs president Andy MacPhail: "Are we supposed to disclose any time a toilet backs up or we lose a washroom for a couple of innings?" he asked. "I mean, I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm really not. But is that what is required of us?"
Andy, you're not being facetious. You're patronizing.
For decades, the Cubs have benefited from strong relationships with evangelistic, worshipful fans. Until today.
Then there's Moveable Type. This small-but-influential company is helping change the world of online communication with its widely used blogging software. A company that grew organically thanks to the widespread support of early adopters and evangelists suddenly disenfranchised hundreds, if not thousands, of core customers overnight by announcing a dramatic new pricing and licensing policy out of the blue with no outside feedback.
Co-founder Mena Trott explained it best today at the BlogOn conference: "It wasn't the licensing changes and pricing changes that affected them, it was that we'd sprung it on them," she says. "We're so associated with blogging that people wanted to trust us more. We'd gone from the darlings to being evil. We were more evil than Microsoft." Regaining trust can take considerably longer than first acquiring it.
Finally, in the very big picture, there's today's final report of 9/11 Commission. It strongly criticizes U.S. intelligence agencies for a "failure of imagination" wrapped in too much secrecy.
To make the U.S. safer, the bi-partisan commission says the intelligence budget should be made public to allow greater debate over how money is allocated. It recommends greatly reducing the amount of classified information. For some, like the current occupants of the administration, secrecy is the way of doing business, of governing.
But the 9/11 Commission says excessive secrecy led to "compartmentalization" of records before Sept. 11. That means individuals and agencies didn't know what was going on with each other, so it was extremely hard to connect the dots of a deadly plot.
Three examples in one day.
From this vantage point, these three examples show that creating and maintaining trust with customers and constituents is dependent upon trust in transparency, warts and all. Even the safety of our lives and our democracy is dependent upon a greater reliance on transparency. Open source your government, your business, your mind.
Because control is futile.
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