Amazon recently launched an app that allows anyone to collect competitive pricing data quickly and easily from a store shelf and feed it back to the company. I tried it myself. Amazon can act quickly to adjust their online pricing based on data from thousands of pairs of eyes. This has attracted a lot of criticism as predatory. But I could argue that it is nothing new. Amazon are just doing what the industry has been doing for years. Only they are doing it better and without the middle player of a research consultancy.

This has many characteristics in common with other ICT capabilities that cause concern. Something we have always done becomes a concern only when we can do more of it, more quickly.

Anyone with a bit of search engine savvy can fairly easily identify my wife, our home and work addresses, perhaps identify where our children go to school and possibly even work out when we are all likely to be out of the house together attending a school event. All the information was public previously, only now it is in one place and much easier to connect and search.

Tools such as cell phones, text and twitter give people the capability to mobilize for a riot. Mobilizing people to cause trouble was possible previously by face to face communication, letter writing, phone, email. Twitter just makes it quicker and less expensive.

So how to identify the dividing line between what is right and wrong when speed and ease are only differentiators ? To some extent it is about what you do with the new found accelerated capability. I like it when an old friend finds me, but not when someone with malicious intent does the same; I like carrot mobs, but not violent riots; I would like Amazon to counteract price gouging, but not put my favorite stores out of business. But we also have to accept that innovation with a broad range of outcomes is inevitable, and learn to live with the outcomes successfully, rather than resist them. And of course, ‘everything in moderation’ will always have its place too . Especially as we approach the holidays!

Happy Holidays!