Getting it

In the midst of the swirling changes occurring in the larger world, there is a little (pleasant) tornado of change moving through mine. A change that for some reason, seems to preclude sleep! Which is by way of saying that I am not the sharpest artichoke in the tool box right now. (Hmm artichoke in a tool box? See what I mean???) So as I shuffled through my mental e-mail from my muse on what to write today…it all seemed like spam, now….I want a bigger penis as much as the next guy or gal, but that doesn’t seem like a meaty enough topic to write about for a prestidigitous blog like Docudharma.

So I was relieved when, as I was doing my morning surf meditation I can across not only a topic that was worthy of my spiny yet delicious with a nice mayo and lemon pepper sauce green attention, but worthy of all of ours, worthy of the whole worlds. Plus(!) it is already practically written because there is not much more to add, either to the original quote, or to the analysis of it provided by SusanG over at the Great Orange Sasquatch Satan. (Damn I need a nap!)

So with out any adieu….but with massive hat tips and gratitude to SusanG and apologies for my own laziness…

 

Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Support Economy and former Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, writing in Businessweek:

This column is dedicated to the top managers of American business whose policies and practices helped ensure Barack Obama’s victory. The mandate for change that sounded across this country is not limited to our new President and Congress. That bell also tolls for you. Obama’s triumph was ignited in part by your failure to understand and respect your own consumers, customers, employees, and end users. The despair that fueled America’s yearning for change and hope grew to maturity in your garden.

   Millions of Americans heard President-elect Obama painfully recall his sense of frustration, powerlessness, and outrage when his mother’s health insurer refused to cover her cancer treatments. Worse still, every one of them knew exactly how he felt. That long-simmering indignation is by now the defining experience of every consumer of health care, mortgages, insurance, travel, and financial services-the list goes on.

   Obama was elected not only because many Americans feel betrayed and abandoned by their government but because those feelings finally converged with their sense of betrayal at the hands of Corporate America. Their experiences as consumers and as citizens joined to create a wave of revolt against the status quo-as occurred in the American Revolution. Be wary of those who counsel business as usual. This post-election period is a turning point for the business community. It demands an attitude of sober reappraisal and a disposition toward fundamental reinvention. If you don’t do it, someone else will.

That, my friends….is getting it. Let us hope that she is not alone, and let us hope that others speak out as forcefully and honestly!

SusanG’s analysis is as usual, spot on:

And that’s only the opening. As she proceeds through the in-depth indictment, she explores decades of consumer and worker despair, ruthless bottom-line management, the erosion of citizen trust in big business, and, finally, citizens discovering the ability to educate and inform themselves in a new digital age. Even entrepreneurs in the new, cutting-edge technology sectors are not spared, as the Facebook and Google CEO’s are held up as warning signs of slippage, still focusing on monetizing “eyeballs” and devising “two classes of stock intended to insulate top management from investor pressures.”

Solutions to the economic crisis, it’s clear, are going to have to be long-term and systemic. It remains to be seen whether Zuboff’s advice to Wall Street corporations to take responsibility for the financial crisis will be followed in the wake of a change election … or whether that change is read by the CEO’s to apply to government only.

As I keep saying, and as I hope those folks who don’t think Obama is the messiah realize I am saying, lest I be accused of a patently false idol worship and sycophancy….Obama’s election was a symbol. Obama is a symbol. A symbol and a marker of change that is moving through the world. The change we are experiencing and the tidal wave of change to come in the next four years is not because of Obama………Obama is because of it.

It is INCREDIBLY heartening to see people getting it.