1. Workplace Ethics: The High Cost of Compromise

Kirk O. Hansen recently made some interesting observations about the ethical challenges that will face new college graduates. Facing the current, difficult economy, Hansen claims, will "make ethical decisions even tougher."

Because it has been difficult this year to land any job, new graduates will be less likely to resist, less likely to put their new position at risk in order to do the right thing. And that threatens to undermine the ethical character of this year's graduates at the outset of their careers.

John Constable, Detail from Seascape Study with Rain Cloud (c.1824)

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1. Do animals need privacy?

Brett Mills at the University of East Anglia suggests that the ethics of the media and privacy should be extended beyond humans to the animal world. He says it might be acceptable to film "public events" such as animals hunting - but questions more intrusive recording. For humans, he says, it is assumed that documentary makers would need consent to go into people's private lives, but no such boundary exists for wildlife filmmakers.

Albrecht Dürer, Young Hare

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1. Ethical behavior is good for the economy

This paper by David Rea of Victoria University examines the large-scale implications of an idea that we've been kicking around for quite a while.

2. Imagine A Pie Chart Stomping On An Infographic Forever

Source: Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Good Medicine Magazine

Careless designers all too readily sacrifice truth for the sake of aesthetics.

Smashing Magazine calls out designers' statistical illiteracy with a Showcase Of Bad Infographics.

3. 7 Ways to Use Psychological Influence With Social Media Content

This article from Social Media Examiner describes 7 psychological principles that can help your content get people's attention.

4. “Daddy, What’s a Brand?”

Last, this Fast Company article has a number of interesting perspectives on the postmodern practice of branding.

Next to the economics of peer-to-peer recommendation, the old paid-media model looks like a scam. You have to ask yourself how an industry employing so many creative thinkers at such high salaries has, on the whole, gotten away with so much crap for so long. Imagine if all that creative problem-solving power was re-channeled?

1. Hotel Fakeout Photos

Photos from Oyster.com -- Hotel pics on the left; real pics on the right

FatWallet ran a story last week about some "creative" photography resorts use in their advertising. Hotel review site Oyster.com, which encourages users to send their own photos of hotels, has a gallery full of examples.

Of course, it's the photographer's job to make things look as good as possible, but it's a slippery slope.

2. 'The story BCG offered me $16,000 not to tell'

MIT newspaper, The Tech, ran an interesting opinion piece this month about a student's ethical dilemma in Dubai. But it's probably not what you think.

The story is not about Dubai or the culture there, but rather the troubling practices of a consulting company the author worked for after leaving MIT:

...[C]lients usually didn’t know why they had hired us. They sent us vague requests for proposal, we returned vague case proposals, and by the time we were hired, no one was the wiser as to why exactly we were there. I got the feeling that our clients were simply trying to mimic successful businesses, and that as consultants, our earnings came from having the luck of being included in an elaborate cargo-cult ritual.

3. The Ethics of Flying Gaming Press to Hawaii

Ars Technica asks: Is it ethical for journalists to accept an free trip to Hawaii, in order to view presentations from a game company?

I would add: what about the CO2 from all those trips? Hawaii is a long ways from just about anywhere.

4. Is it OK for vegans to eat oysters?

Okay, so this one is not related to design or business ethics, but as a story about ethical complexities, it made me stop and think. Apparently, oysters are okay for vegans to eat.

I thought vegans didn't eat any animals or animal products. It seems I didn't understand vegans or oysters.

In wake of crisis, public eyes corporate ethics - Reuters

Some of the best-known U.S. companies, including General Electric, Gap and Google, made The Ethisphere Institute's 2010 ranking of the 100 most ethical companies (read our worries about these rankings here) , released on Monday. But, after a government bailout of the U.S. financial system, no Wall Street banks were represented for a second straight year.

We quote Reuters, who sounds like they're quoting us:

Top ethics officials at several major U.S. companies said honest business practices are critical after a brutal downturn that pushed the U.S. jobless rate as high as 10 percent, savaged retirement savings and home values and left many Americans less trustful of big business.

Read all about it here

Jean-Francois Millet, Gleaners

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Beware of corporate consulting firms offering awards for corporate ethics - Slate

Sometime in the next week or so, something called the Ethisphere Institute is scheduled to announce this year's list of the "World's Most Ethical Companies." If past years are any indication, the winners will have their press releases ready to go, and news outlets across the country will eat it up. There's just one hitch: These ethics awards—let's call them the Ethies—may have ethics issues of their own.

Read all about it here.

Vermeer, A Girl Asleep

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We’ve been saying it all along. If you commit to doing good, your business will do well; good design and good business sell. Peter Cappelli’s post on the HBR blog describes a study he conducted which cements the case for serving the needs of all business stakeholders – doing good, beyond profits:

My colleagues and I recently completed a study of Indian businesses based around interviews with the leaders of 100 of the biggest companies in India (the basis of our book The India Way.) Every executive we interviewed described the main objective of their company in terms of a social mission. They expected to make money, but they expected to do so while doing good.

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As we currently wrestle with a definition of design ethics, I have been struck by another question: what does the endgame for this project look like?

Not to jump ahead too far, but assuming we come up with a model of "good" design, what next?

I think we ask: What can be done to educate designers and consumers on good ethical practices? Moreover, how can we hope to enforce those ethics?

This post was inspired by Ethisphere, a business ethics think-tank that also publishes a magazine on the topic. I learned about them last week during this piece on NPR.

Besides their mission, what interested me is how they create awareness about business ethics in accessible ways. Ideally, if corporations and the public are better informed about ethics, that may serve as a kind of enforcement. Therefore, as we enter into the next stage of DLB -- publication -- I am interested in metrics and visualizations people use to talk about ethics.

For instance, Ethisphere has an annual list of the most ethical companies in the world. I can't begin to imagine what a task it would be to compile a list of the most ethical designs, but it's an idea. People like lists. They're easy to digest and a good way to get people interested in complex topics.

Graphs are nice, too:

According to Ethisphere, ethical leadership leads to greater profits. It's something we've been saying for a while, but now we have proof of it in handy chart form. Via Ethisphere.

I'm a bit skeptical about Ethisphere's methodology, however. Participation in the index seems to be voluntary, so it's not exactly comprehensive. It seems to be a more collegial affair; the magazine isn't out there doing investigative journalism. There is no "least ethical companies in the world" list each year. (Though, I'd like to see that, too.)

I wonder why this is the case? On one hand, as a company that needs to sell magazines and fill conferences, how objective can Ethisphere afford to be? Who is to say they aren't creating their own market by judging unfairly? Or being too generous to avoid stepping on toes? On the other hand, if they aren't ethical or objective themselves, then they can't claim any kind of authority. The more I think about it, the more complex the situation becomes.

I think DLB is in a similar pickle. How can one sell ethics in a trustworthy way?

I will try to figure that out on Thursday. See you then!