A colleague was complaining that “Obama is bashing business” and it wasn’t fair. He plans on punishing those who don’t support business by “voting the %^$*#&’s out of office.” I don’t see it that way. What I see is that business owners and C-suite folks need to think about this a bit more. Here’s why. Successful politicians are successful because they READ (as opposed to LEAD) the public. Rarely will a politician last if s/he gets too far out in front of the people.

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Toyota apparently felt they had done well by convincing the NTSA to limit the recall investigation. Oops. It’s backfired. Now the money they saved is going to be lost and more. The banking industry seems oblivious to the disdain of the consuming customers and is already finding “sneaky” ways to charge higher interest. They are also fighting Credit Union requests to allow the Credit Unions to lend a higher portion of their assets to small businesses. They never learn.

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I’ve found myself right at the event horizon of the black hole known as Social Media. I’m holding in a stable orbit at a safe distance, but I know it wouldn’t take much for me to drop in and you’ll never hear from me again. [Okay. Stop cheering.] I’ve noticed a few friends zooming by me and I don’t think they’ll escape. Other friends are so far away that they have no hope of keeping up with the rest of what’s going on. It occurs to me that either situation, too far away from Social Media or too deep in the black hole, you loose.

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“We,” that is the royal we, are apparently in no mood to put up with politicians, greedy executives and big bankers on Wall Street. Main street, as the saying goes, “hates” Wall Street. No leader of big organizations (including religious and other not-for-profits) or small business owner is exempt from this disgust with the rich and powerful. How did all this happen?

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I’m reminded, from time-to-time, of the inequality of expectations between employees and employers with respect to employment. Especially in the small to mid-sized businesses the owners are often frustrated with employees who do not seem to put effort into the business. They don’t have a sense of “ownership.” Well, that’s because they aren’t owners, and usually aren’t treated as owners.

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Readers of this blog know that I have postulated that the model for high end sales has changed; accelerated away from the traditional models to a trust based model. This also applies to networking; no selling, only building a trusting relationship. A colleague questioned me recently as to why I thought this was the case. Is it really simply the economy that’s driving this change? My response that was “no, it’s more than just the economy, although the economy is certainly accelerating the change.” So what are the drivers?

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