Thomas Friedman, author of The World is Flat, has penned a column in the New York Times entitled "The Whole World is Watching" (NY Times login required). In it, he describes how the Internet has potentially exposed all of its participants to public scrutiny:

When everyone has a blog, a MySpace page or Facebook entry, everyone is a publisher. When everyone has a cellphone with a camera in it, everyone is a paparazzo. When everyone can upload video on YouTube, everyone is filmmaker. When everyone is a publisher, paparazzo or filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure. We’re all public figures now. The blogosphere has made the global discussion so much richer — and each of us so much more transparent.

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But this also creates opportunities. Today “what” you make is quickly copied and sold by everyone. But “how” you engage your customers, “how” you keep your promises and “how” you collaborate with partners — that’s not so easy to copy, and that is where companies can now really differentiate themselves.

Quoting a new book titled How by Dov Seidman, Friedman discusses how intelligent businesses can use the transparency to "outbehave the competition," keeping in mind that all our behavior can, potentially, become a matter of public record.

The very nature of communication and collaboration in our "flat" world is raising the standards of good behavior, and making us all accountable for how we work together. Companies are already experiencing this transparency, as evidenced in the ways they use blogs more, and press releases less, to shape public opinion.

But this phenomenon will also affect how individuals behave at work. As the world flattens, each individual’s reputation and experience will be published information, whether it is recorded in a write-up in a project workforce management database, or in a video on YouTube. Each individual will take more responsibility–and, I hope, more pride–in the value they add to their project teams and the companies they serve.