I’m sure you’ve heard about the Palin/USA/NHS debate that has recently erupted on Twitter.

In brief: Republicans in the USA want to upset Barack Obama’s plans for healthcare reform and are publicly using the UK’s NHS as a warning against a ‘socialised’ healthcare system.

This has caused a wave of support by disgruntled supporters of the NHS both in the UK and around the world on twitter and other social networks. No big surprise and not much point going into great depth about why this is happening - this has been done to death. We know that people use the tools at their disposal to state their case and, yeah yeah, Twitter is currently that tool of choice (please see upcoming post, probably entitled “Please stop talking about the toolkit”).

What is interesting to note from is that a debate such as this is now wide open for all comers - and all comers can be heard. For instance Gordon Brown has voiced his support for the NHS and John Prescott has taken a camera out onto the terrace at the Houses of Parliament:

Watching this video reminded me about two things that politicians do not often remind me about. Authenticity and transparency. This video is authentic. The headlines have allowed the participants in the debate to open up and given them further freedom to be transparent. To show heart and passion. Now, we may not agree with ol’ JP above but I do think that there’s a real authenticity here and this is because he has concentrated on getting one thing across - the message. There’s no make-up or studio lights and there’s no journalist with an agenda either. Plus I also feel that I know him a little better.

Standard, daily, non-reactionary communications from politicians are, in the main, all agenda and spin with little authenticity. This is unlikely to change overnight in the political world.

However, the corporate arena is a different matter. If more businesses concentrated on being authentic and opening up genuine dialogue in the commercial world then they would derive real value. Authenticity promotes trust and relationships. Without building these over the coming years and simply doing the same old same old, companies will be whistling in the wind.