How - Dov Seidman [20]
Another pressure of instant communication could be called the Expectation of Response Factor. In the industrial age, we wrote letters deliberately, knowing that even if we dashed off a quick note from point A it would take its own sweet postal time to arrive at point B. The recipient, in turn, could take a commensurate amount of time crafting a response. The pace of information flow allowed enough time for even time-sensitive writing to receive a modicum of consideration before being sent. Not so with the various gizmos and gadgets we now find strapped to our belts or planted on our desks. Messages appear instantly, implicitly insisting on a quick response. The Expectation of Response Factor exerts an influence on the quality of our communication, often forcing us to respond in less considered ways. In media whose nature transmits only parts of our intended symbols at best, the virtual ticking of the electronic clock cheats us of the time we need for careful or meaningful expression.
THE AGE OF TRANSPARENCY
In the olden days (before about 1995), when people wanted to buy, say, a toaster, they would pick a local store known for its good selection or good pricing of small appliances and buy the one that seemed best for their needs. If they were particularly industrious, thrifty, or enamored of the process, they might call or visit two or three stores before making their purchase, dig out back issues of consumers testing magazines, or consult a catalog or two to compare price and features. As more businesses went online, people suddenly had the ability to shop not only within their local area, but almost anywhere. Large and trusted online retailers were added to the shopping mix, giving consumers a few more options if they wished to pursue them. Between June 2004 and March 2005, however, as e-commerce began exploding worldwide, people who bought online suddenly became more prone to visiting 10 or more web sites before returning to a favored location hours or days later to make a purchase.6
It has been said that information is like a toddler: It goes everywhere, gets into everything, and you can’t always control it.7 Someone should have told that to David Edmondson, former CEO of RadioShack. For consumers, easy access to information about vendors has become an advantage; for those like Edmondson, who had something to hide, it has meant devastation. When he joined RadioShack in 1994, Edmondson invented a couple of lines for his resume in the form of college degrees in theology and psychology from Pacific Coast Baptist College in California that he never earned. In February 2006, after just eight months at the top of his profession, he was forced to resign. Though the school had relocated to Oklahoma and renamed itself, a reporter from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram tracked it down and uncovered the discrepancies. Edmondson’s career, built on the foundation of these lies, lay in pieces at his feet.8
He’s not alone, of course. The news is full of examples of the mighty who have taken the fall. Kenneth Lonchar, former CFO and EVP of Silicon Valley software storage firm Veritas (the Latin word for truth), got caught in 2002 claiming a false Stanford MBA.9 University of Notre Dame head football coach George O’Leary resigned when it was revealed that he had not only lied on his resume about playing football at his alma mater, but he had also falsely claimed a master’s degree.10 Even Jeff Taylor, founder of online job-search company Monster.com, posted on his own web site an executive biography touting a phony Harvard MBA.11
We live in the age of transparency. In 1994, it might have been easy to get away with such shenanigans, but with the massive shift of personal records and personal profiles to databases easily accessed over the Internet, virtually everything