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As events in the Middle East have shown, social media can play a critical role in connecting up protesters around a common cause. Whilst in this context the aims are political and the targets are state leaders, over in the world of business, companies are also finding themselves the unwitting subjects of campaigns fueled by social media.   And leading the way in exploiting new technology to confront companies is Greenpeace. After having claimed the scalp of Nestle last year with its viral Kit-Kat ad that prompted the company to change its sourcing of palm oil, Greenpeace has also recently rolled out its "Polluter Harmony" campaign in Canada to confront government support of oil sands companies. Last week,  it claimed another victory with the US retailer Costco announcing a major sustainable seafood initiative after a Greenpeace campaign featured the company in a series of videos going through an "Ocean destroyers anonymous' program. And now,...

Our last blog looked at the role social media and other internet or mobile based communications technologies and their role in shaping a somewhat new, ideology-free form of revolution in Egypt. One of our readers hinted to Malcolm Gladwell’s comment on the web edition of the New Yorker which poured some water into the wine of excitement about the potential of new technology. And what we saw from Yemen, Bahrain and other Arab countries this week seems to add to the perspective: it is not just new media which makes revolutions inevitable. There are still a number of other factors which mediate the eruption and impact of widespread discontent in the Middle East. On a different note though, last week has shown the power of the internet for holding politicians accountable in a somewhat new and quaint context. Since a couple of years, Germany has a new rising star in politics, the current Secretary of Defence Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (his real name runs over half a page of nobility title...

Like many of you we have been glued at times to the TV screens these last days. Seeing the masses assembling on Tahrir Square in Cairo asking for a peaceful transition to democracy in one of the biggest Arab nations is something of a watershed. For too long we in the West were just used to taking for granted that, well, if it comes to politics, the Arab world is a wholly different story. And the botched attempts to parachute ‘democracy’ into Afghanistan and Iraq seemed to underline this notion. But now, the chips on the table seem to be mixed for a whole new round. This being a business ethics blog, lets first work through some of those issues with regard to recent developments in Egypt. Let’s look at the upshot. The current revolution would not have been possible without new media –or social networking companies. Twitter, Google, Facebook were instrumental in coordinating, organizing and network the protest movement. All of which, of course, are private companies. We think it’s a ...