I’m at the Cloudforce NYC conference today and one thing that has been mentioned a lot is the growing expectation of transparency in enterprise level organizations. As we as individuals have a growing understanding of our personal data being used for marketing purposes, we are coming to naturally expect the same from the corporations that we interact with on a daily basis. For example, I understand that in having an account with Bank of America they have access to a good deal of my sensitive information—social security numbers, addresses, credit scores and that they can use that information to judge whether I am a good business risk or investment. Now customers are coming to expect the same from their corporations.

For example, there was a time, not so long ago, that the amount of information needed to open a checking account was fairly minimal and your personal information was locked away in your local bank’s file cabinet. With cloud computing, social networks and data mining, consumers understand that there is a different social contract at play, and they are expecting corporations to hold up their end of the bargain. To follow the previous example, I might want to know that Bank of America owed the central bank $86 billion the same day that their Corp. Chief Executive Officer Kenneth D. Lewis wrote to shareholders that he headed “one of the strongest and most stable major banks in the world.”

Not only are consumers expecting transparency that will effect financial risk decisions, but (and possibly more importantly) they want to know what kind of personal or ethical risks they are taking. For example, it’s important to me that I don’t support Chick-Fil-A because they’ve reportedly given $1.1 million to anti-LGBT organizations through their charitable WinShape Foundation.

One thing that Salesforce stresses is that transparency isn’t just important in outward-facing conversations, but within (especially) large corporations. They’ve been making a good case for their product today, but they’ve never been lacking in the sales department. I’ll admit that it looks a lot better than the last time I used it with Goodwill of San Francisco five years ago, especially with Chatter, Radian6 and Fortuit. The biggest takeaway though is that the data produced by both individuals and large corporations is increasingly difficult to keep track of and we’re all in need of tools to juggle the ridiculous amount of information we need to properly evaluate our choices, regardless of whether our decisions are motivated by business, ethical or personal values.

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Gabe Scelta is the Innovation Director at Ethicodes. A fellow at the Emerge Venture Lab, Gabe’s deep knowledge of the technology industry keeps Ethicodes pushing the frontiers of the fair trade industry. He holds a master’s degree from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies and a bachelor’s degree from Boston University. He lives in New York City.