There's a great piece by Alex Steffen up at WorldChanging about how consumers are starting to scrutinize the environmental histories, side effects, and consequences of the products they buy.
Steffen says "We're entering an era of holistic accountability and backstory management." As a result, it's incumbent on companies to take responsibility for the impacts of their products and "manage their backstories."
He argues that "the path to really managing your backstory runs through big visions, hard targets and open admission of shortcomings."
And finally, the point that really hit home with us...
"It's hard to do work you can be proud of these days. We live in an ethically compromised global economy, and almost every aspect of our lives is compromised as a result."
That's exactly it, and increased scrutiny is only going to make it harder for people to do work they're proud of. But here's the upside: this realization makes cynicism facile. Doing a better job becomes more interesting than finding fault.
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