In a bit of a role reversal, my wife and son are spending a couple of days out of town, leaving me to my own devices. While I am a passable cook, I had little enthusiasm for procuring and cooking something this evening after dragging myself on an 8 mile run and instead opted for a local burger joint.

While those that know me may be surprised, I've never actually sat at the bar of this particular restaurant, but chose to take my meal there. Studying the signs behind the counter I noticed that each of the three or four placards either told customers what they were not allowed to do (cigar and pipe smoking for instance) or had a trite message about how customers are never satisfied, along the lines of a fake hand grenade with a number affixed to the pin, and label stating "Customer service, take a number."

I have never been one to subscribe wholeheartedly to the old maxim that "the customer is always right," but in this case, the bar's signage seemed to indicate they thought the customer was always unreasonable, rude, and fundamentally damaged. While I have seen plenty of people who fit that description, affixing smug messages about the supposed idiocy of those that keep you in business is tactless at best, and financially ruinous at worst.

Consider your own business for a moment. Does your web site force customers to navigate an online gauntlet in order to purchase your products? Under "customer service" do you have paragraphs of "policy" demanding that your customer obtain a return authorization number, complete 8 forms in quadruplicate, obtain a mental evaluation and pay a 90% restocking fee in order to return goods?

Less obviously, do you proudly prattle on about your mission statement, wonderful people, tools, solutions, and methodologies, but spend nary a paragraph on how your goods and services might actually help a client? Assuming your customer is damaged need not be as obvious as the hand grenade behind the bar, but these subtleties can be just as explosive to your revenue.

The overthrow of President Mubarak has been all over the news around the world, and other than the happenings in the streets and political maneuvering, one aspect the US media has focused heavily on is the impact of technology on the events in Egypt. While I am fascinated by technology and a relatively savvy user of it, the impact of Twitter, etc. on these events feels overstated.

Revolutions have fermented and grown for centuries. As long as spoken language has existed, people have been able to communicate their distaste with the political establishment, and occasionally motivate others to action. While Twitter and the like certainly aided in everything from communicating views against the Mubarak regime to providing logistical aid to the protesters, billing it as a key driver in the current ferment in the Middle East seems crass, as if the US wishes to take an unfair share of the credit in facilitating these movements since we built the tools. This feels akin to the Gutenberg family claiming credit for the French and American Revolutions, since their printing press aided in the distribution of news and contrasting political thought.

Rather than self-congratulation for the tech we've built, it seems some closer examination of the unfolding events, and the US role in helping, hindering, and nurturing them seems more appropriate.

A pivotal moment in my career came when I was working for a large consulting company, which was purchased by an even larger technology conglomerate in the last days of the dot-com bust. As the economy began to rebound, someone asked a representative from the purchasing company how those that had stuck with the company would be rewarded. The executive said all the usual banalities, then ended saying "if you don't like it, leave." After tolerating rounds of layoffs and cuts, that seemed like some excellent advice, and started me on the track to found P Prevoyance Group.

As we slowly climb from the latest economic depression, I hear and see similar situations. Companies have been able to use the economy and threats of layoffs, consciously or unconsciously, to demand more work for less reward. People cowered in fear as the specter of the "axe man" hung over every earnings announcement or staff meeting, and HR people at some companies have told me they were fielding literally thousands of resumes and CVs each day at the height of the depression.

While it is certainly possible to treat your employees too well, most employers have erred on the other side as employees have cowered in fear of being axed. This balance of power will eventually shift, and your best people, unless their contributions have been appropriately acknowledged, will likely be the first to bolt for greener pastures. I offer no insider economic knowledge other than that we will make it through this recession just as we have all others, so perhaps it is time to retire the specter of the axe man before your best people return the favor.

In case you missed them, my regular column on CBS' Tech Republic contained the following articles in the month of February:

Five tips for moving to the cloud
Help your organization succeed by thinking big
A tale of two PMOs

Unraveling the Change Advisory Board

This month I am also quoted in Public CIO magazine discussing metrics that can be helpful in calculating the return on public-sector IT projects.

Attention Podcast Fans! The Foresight Newsletter is now available in Podcast format on www.itbswatch.com as well as via iTunes. I make no warranties about the quality of the host however!

I have generally felt that the US is somewhat devoid of regional cultures. Drop someone in New York, Kansas City, Cleveland or San Francisco, and they would likely not be able to instantly recognize which city they were in, compared to say, Paris and Berlin.

This assumption changed for me on a recent trip to Louisiana, a state I had never visited prior to this month. While many parts of the US have different, slightly nuanced regional accents, Louisiana's was completely different, with a thick patois and selection of colorful words. As best as I could tell, a colleague or friend was "uncle" or "bro," and any real man was expected to cook. The group I was working with engaged in several heated debates, the topics of which ranged from the best way to prepare dirty rice (a local specialty), to the nuances of bacon. I found myself salivating as people discussed the best ways to prepare "bacon explosion," apparently a local favorite.

As I boarded the plane home, I could not help but smile that there are still places in my own country with a unique local flavor, that have avoided the universal homogenization of chain restaurants, and "neutral" unaccented American English, and I can't wait to return and make my own attempt to resolve the pressing question of how to best prepare bacon.