Waiting in my hotel this morning for friends to join me for breakfast, I was reading Mike Moran’s Biznology Blog. His latest article, “Doing Well by Doing Good” is an excellent example of Community. There has been a dramatic shift in the way companies have chosen to operate in the last twenty years.

If you’re old like me, you remember the 1980s as a decade where people said that “greed is good.” The U.S. president talked about how wealth would “trickle down” from rich to poor. Making money by any means necessary almost seemed patriotic—you were doing good by doing well. Today, I think we are seeing the exact opposite—you’re doing well by doing good.

As I’ve talked about in the past, the Internet has created an era where individuals and organizations can acquire knowledge of literally anything. However, the “knowing” and the “understanding” of any subject are not one in the same. I can know of chaos theory by typing “chaos theory” into Google. But unless I study the topic; speak with other subject matter experts; and experience working in the field; I fail to truly understand the concept.

In marketing we are bombarded with messages every day. In some cases just knowing about what a company is doing or has done can be enough to promote their work or destroy their efforts. As Mike points out…

Customers are increasingly distrustful of all marketing messages. And they don’t trust corporations to be good public citizens. Years of watching corporate bad behavior have made the public cynical about what companies say and what they do.

Faith in Government and multi-billion dollar corporations to live up to a higher set of ethics is a challenge for many. Corruption and greed has created a sense of mistrust amongst clients, buyers, and citizens around the world. I think we can all point to examples in our personal and professional lives where this has had some impact on our trust in public and private sector organizations.

Mike believes, and I completely agree, that the Internet has been, and will continue to “level the playing field” for smaller companies to compete. It will also force companies of every size to “raise the bar” when it comes to ethical behavior…

So how does a company break through the clutter and rise above the mediocrity of the average ethically-challenged company? I believe that it is through good behavior that modern companies will attract a following. Yes, there will always be ethical bottom dwellers that skirt the rules. But the Internet is making cutting corners a far more dangerous practice, because the benefit of fine print disappears when exposed to the light. Violating brand trust is a story that spreads like wildfire, damaging the company far more than any edge that the unethical practice provided.

I look forward to speaking with Mike about his new book, “Doing it Wrong Quickly” on a future I.A. Podcast. You can listen to my last discussion with Mike on his other book, “Search Engine Marketing Inc. – Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site”.