The panopticon reversed

I first attempted this post on my old blog but I’d like to re-examine it and take the subject a bit further.

Many companies talk about the importance of being transparent and communicating with their customers openly and honestly. Many say they do it, but there are still a lot of companies that don’t practice this and assume that they can still dupe their customers. Well, thanks to social media, you can’t. I want to take a model developed by a French philosopher (bear with me!) to demonstrate the importance of being honest in your company both offline and online and show you just how much power the consumer has.

Michel Foucault first developed the idea of the panopticon in his popular work ‘Discipline and Punish’. In it, he explores systemic control of society and how this has evolved from the middle ages. He introduces one concept, that was later examined by Christopher Locke in The Cluetrain Manifesto. Foucault introduced the idea of the panopticon, as a theoretical way to control people within various organisations, namely prisons.

The panopticon is a method of controlling subjects without the need for chains or multiple guards. It works by erecting a central watch point at which one person observes the surrounding subjects, without the subjects being able to see who’s observing them. One person is needed to control the subjects, because crucially, no-one knows when they are being watched. You are forced to abide by the rules all the time ; the subjects begin to self-discipline. The original diagram explains the concept, below.

.

So how on earth does this fit in with social media?

In his section in the Cluetrain Manifesto, Christopher Locke argues that because of the internet, the inmates can now see their observers and that the isolated cells are now connected. This is one way to look at it, but I want to take it one step further, showing the real power that the previously subjected individuals now have. I think that the panopticon is now in practice, but with the consumer in the central observation point and businesses surrounding them in the cells, forced to self-regulate. The consumer can now observe organisations, but the companies can’t know when anyone is watching them. Therefore, they have to act as if they are always being watched. The internet has placed a window on companies that allows anyone to see in. Where once consumers had little power, they are now in a position of control and we have seen numerous occasions where people can make or break a company’s reputation. This was demonstrated in the Amazon Fail earlier in the year. Everyone could observe the company and there wasn’t a corner of the internet where Amazon could hide.

People are now in a position of control because of the ability to build communities online. Companies should know that they’re no longer dealing with one single, unconnected individual, but that now all it takes is one tweet or one blog post and your organisation is out there for all to see. Companies that don’t recognise this will soon get left behind and businesses now have to realise that they can be observed from multiple points at all times. The best thing you can do is to communicate with your observers (see Amazon – it’ll only get worse if you don’t) and realise that you can’t pull the wool over people’s eyes anymore. If your product is no good, people will soon know about it