Keller @ Large: Listen To Your Customers... Or Else

BOSTON (CBS) - I'm sure we've all had this experience. You order your coffee the way you want it. And when you get it, it's all wrong.

What happened? You weren't heard, most likely because the person taking your order wasn't listening. Annoying, but nowhere near as troubling as when major institutions with a potentially huge impact on your life don't listen to what you're saying.

During this campaign, the unexpected rise of Donald Trump and the surprising success of Bernie Sanders has been driven in large part by voter frustration with political elites that just haven't been listening to their concerns.

Just this week, a Florida jury lowered the boom on the online scandal sheet Gawker over their posting of a surreptitious sex tape of the wrestler Hulk Hogan. "It just wasn't about punishment of these individuals and Gawker," one juror said. "You had to do it enough where it makes an example in society and [to] other media organizations."

In each case, there's a similar pattern - powerful people and institutions don't pay attention to the repeated complaints people have about the way they - politicians, banks and hedge funds, the news media - do business. They ignore the warning signs that people are running out of patience. And ultimately, there's a day of reckoning - Election Day, perhaps, or a jury verdict.

The moral of the story - we in the media, the politicians, big business, we all need to listen to what our customers are saying, and react to it. Anything less is just begging for trouble.