An Off-Broadway Threat for Personal Device Makers

If you’re Apple, or any personal device maker for that matter, the epicenter of your most serious issues management challenge has begun brewing inside a brick building on Lafayette Street in New York City.

That’s where the Public Theater is hosting Mike Daisey in a one-man show entitled, “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” which runs through November 13.

Daisey, described by the New York Times as “one of the greatest solo storytellers of contemporary theater,” isn't on stage to pay homage to Apple or its late CEO Steve Jobs. He is zeroing in on the legendary company’s supply chain in China, where he went undercover to visit the factories that give birth to the personal technology we rely on each day.

“I’d expected conditions to be bad, to be worse than I’d ever experienced, and I’ve lived a relatively comfortable life. What was shocking to me was the level of dehumanization built into the systems that have been put into place by American corporations in collusion with suppliers,” Daisey told the Theater section of the Times in an interview last month.

The Times' recent review of the production underlined a threat device makers should take seriously.

"The conveniences and pleasures that all these gadgets have brought to our lives have been purchased at the cost of considerable human suffering, of which we remain willfully ignorant or simply choose to ignore," wrote reviewer Charles Isherwood, who said the Daisey's expose triggered a "seismic shift in my consciousness" that left him feeling "a bit guilty and a bit betrayed."

It takes a series of small streams to create a mighty river. Movements that threaten established business models don’t always have their genesis in a top tier media investigative report.

The public backlash against inhumane working conditions in offshore footwear factories, over poisonous lead in imported toys and trinkets, over pesticides on fruits and vegetables, over the calories in fast foods – these and other sustainability crises were borne of grassroots activism that eventually infiltrated the mainstream.

For device makers, it may take more than words to mitigate the reputational risks in their supply chain practices. The reviews of Daisey’s latest show indicate New York’s influential intelligentsia has already begun to second-guess the moral implications of their phones, tablets and PDAs.