Is eBay The 71st Largest Nation On Earth?

B-school terms like "drive, force, commit" have been replaced at eBay with "listening, adapting, enabling" according to a recent Business Week article. The article suggests eBay has become more than a corporation, morphing into an economy, an economy bigger than all but 70 nations at over $20 billion.

In addition, the article notes, eBay is introducing a new style of management for the Internet era. The hallmark of this new style is transparency. "Through the Web, eBay's citizens have access, 24 hours a day, to every trend, every sale, every new regulation in the eBay world."

As the Internet makes more information available to more people, transparency will be the norm. Secrecy will die away. Companies that cannot compete in the full light of day will be bypassed by organizations that can. Look at what's on your desk right now. How much time and effort are you wasting in trying to keep information restricted? How much more effective could you be if that time were spent instead on capturing customers?