Deliberate Accountability: an idea.

Imagine a brand had an online help desk. Not just a phone number, or an email address, but an actual online help desk, where you could see the person who was about to help you, on skype-esque streaming video.

You click through, and are assigned to a person who can see you, a person you can see. You are having a genuine, real time, one on one interaction with a person who has publicly, and individually pledged to help you.

This would be expensive. It would be complex. You’d need to empower your staff to make replacement and repair decisions, in person, without a flowchart. You’d run the risk of a screengrab every time an employee absentmindedly picked their nose, and a YouTube video every time they misrepresented the brand.

It would be completely worth it.

Because you already risk the bad press with every potential interaction. Because we live in a democratized panopticon: we are all (potentially) on video, all of the time.

Because he next phase of the Internet is about accountability. Not the ‘gotcha’ accountability enforced by wikileaks.org. The kind of accountability that comes with using your real name as a twitter handle, linking your LinkedIn profile with your Facebook page. The accountability that comes with WANTING to be googled.

The brands that get ahead of the accountability curve, and stop using potential risk as an excuse to avoid awesomeness, will develop a trust that is generally reserved for people.

Because embracing that accountability is about blowing up a company: from a whole to a collective of individual parts moving with unified purpose.

Show us your face, or we’ll assume you have something to hide.