Power of the public

Sebastian Mallaby has a great piece in the Washington Post about the power of those who buy goods and services and the effect bad publicity has on their corporate images.

Great examples like junk food playground McDonalds becoming the largest buyer of apples because they started serving salads and other healthy fare to expanding waistline customers.

Nike also gets told to "just do it" when their brand was threatened by the bad karma that goes with people being paid 34 cents an hour to make high tops which can bankrupt all but the most financially stable parent.

The best one comes when Mallaby makes the assertion that one of my favorite brands has become a kind of shadow government pulling the real government up to speed.

The next stage may be for companies not merely to outpace government but to pull government along. Howard Schultz, the chairman of Starbucks, broke the mold by offering comprehensive health benefits to part-time workers, but now he's even more ambitious: He's lobbying Congress to fix the health system.

Now, if only we could get the oil companies as concerned. Today's Post also had articles about shutting down the largest oil field in the U.S. because of corrosion and how there only three E85 ethanol pumps within six miles of downtown DC, a place which has the market cornered on bad traffic.

Anybody else feel the E85 deal doesn't look so bad right now since we can grow that and the only corrosion comes if someone doesn't oil a tractor?

Seeking responsibility should not come from fear of a dwindling bottom line; it should come for our desire to serve the communities which support our businesses.

Recently, I heard Sen. Byron Dorgan doing an interview about how he feels that we need to get serious about corporate accountability and stop allowing offshore mailboxes being the corporate headquarters for Tax Dodger Inc.

Havae to agree with him. It's time to bring resposibiity to our communities on par with responsibility ro our share holders.