For kitchen design, will you visit your lumber company's kitchen display, or talk

• to a professional kitchen designer, or might you visit a website that takes your kitchen dimensions and helps you design your own kitchen?
  
  
• If you're heading out on a trip, are you going to AAA for directions and traffic information or going to MapQuest? Or are you just going to trust your GPS?

The bottom line is technology has shifted or obliterated old avenues of trust and opened new avenues. The former trusted advisor is no longer the only expert. He or she is now a partner in the decision-making process. The result is often a better-informed consumer working with the expert to reach a better decision.

Impact of the Economy
The collapse of the economy was another blow to the traditional avenues of trust. The recession's ravages eradicated the trust built through generations (and eradicated many of the trusted companies as well).  There were several factors contributing to the erosion of trust:  the stripping away of the infallibility of experts; the inscrutability of mortgage-backed securities; the relative lack of naysayers; and the absence of a knowledgeable guide out of the mess. Another was the ethical challenge: some so-called experts bought and sold these things, even suspecting that there was something wrong; and oversight organizations seemed to be asleep.

The economy's downfall meant that consumers no longer trusted their traditional advisors, at least not completely. Who's going to put their faith in a representative of an industry that's made terrible decisions, failed miserably to police its own actions, and been rife with outright fraud?

Bigness is no longer a magnet for trust. People no longer trust – or, at least, they fiercely question – any financial institution's ability to help them with their investments. Since so many of the biggest (and formerly most-respected) firms have failed or are struggling, that aura of strength and dependability is gone, possibly for good.

A New Self-Reliance Emerges
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of our new business climate, and maybe the factor most likely to have long-term impact, is a resurgence of independence and self-reliance on the part of consumers. It's a bit of a perfect storm. First, consumers are armed with the wealth of information their technology delivers, and they have enough faith in that information that they believe they can make better decisions without their trusted advisors' help. Second, driven by their disappointment in their former avenues of trust, consumers are much more likely to make decisions on their own. Third, it appears that they like their new-found independence.

This is, of course, a dramatically disturbing development for any organization that has relied on trusted advisor status in the past.  Adjustment will be required.

The basic issue then is this: avenues of trust have been severely disrupted over the last few years. Having seen some examples of what can happen when the experts are in charge – misjudgment, mismanagement, and fraud – people no longer have blind trust.

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